On Sunday, 9 July 2017, Dr. Joudane, UNFPA representative in Iran met with Mr. Parsa, Head of the SCI.  In this meeting, the two parties highlighted the importance of joint cooperation between the two organizations and discussed the aspects of future cooperation. First,  Mr. Parsa congratulated Ms. Joudane on her new position as the UNFPA representative in Iran and expressed hope that the existing cooperation between the two organizations could be developed during her tenure.  Mr. Parsa briefed the UNFPA representative on the measures taken in the 2016 National Population and Housing Census in Iran. He emphasized that the rate of participation in the web-based phase of this census (48.4%) was far more than what had been expected and this participation put Iran in the first rank among the countries that took the web-based census for the first time. In this meeting, Mr. Parsa also said” the SCI is preparing the third  National Strategy for Development of Statistics( known as National Statistical Plan) which will be ready in the next four months.  He also added that the SCI was shifting from the traditional statistics production approach to the modern register-based statistics production approach; namely the SCI is going to put aside the traditional statistics production methods such as face-to-face interview and filling the web-based questionnaire for the census and to use the register-based statistics for meeting the statistical requirements of the country. He has expressed hope that by considering this approach which is rather ambitious, the UNFPA helps the SCI in achieving this goal.

Dr. Nourmohammadi, Head of the Statistical Research and Training Centre (SRTC), who attended this meeting said that they had four important topics for cooperation with the UNFPA. He also added that they started three topics. The first topic is to prepare technical reports on the 2016 Population and Housing Census, the obtained knowledge of which can be shared with other countries and those people visiting the SCI.  Two other projects are Demographic Dividends (DD) file and population related SDG Indices. He also expressed the bilateral cooperation between the SRTC and the UNFPA could be improved and the topics such as data analysis, analysis of statistics, and analysis of the Census results could be considered as topics for cooperation with the UNFPA.

Ms. Joudane while reviewing the history of cooperation of the two organizations, said that the UNFPA has had cooperation with the SCI for two decades and the SCI is one of the main partners of the UNFPA; and to continue this cooperation is very important for the UNFPA.  Mentioning the important role of the SCI in formulating population policy in Iran, she said that providing up-to-date statistics for the policy makers to help them obtain a clear picture on the demographic status of the country and   the demographic dividends and aging in the Iran is very important and  these are the topics of workplan of the Six Country Programme signed between the SCI and the UNFPA.  She added that there were two important things which should be considered;  the first one is the use of demographic dividends for economic goals in Iran and the second one which should be taken into more consideration is aging issue.  She also referred to the high capacity in the SCI and emphasized that SCI could use these capacities to produce and analyze the data needed for policy makers in collaboration with the UNFPA and all respective ministries. She also congratulated on the big achievements obtained in the 2016 web-based Population and Housing Census of Iran.  Moreover, she stressed that the UNFPA was extending its cooperation with other ministries and organizations in Iran and in this regard the role of the SCI is highly important due to its huge capacities. She also explained some topics of the Six Country Programme (2017-2021) signed between the two organizations. At the end, the UNFPA representative also reiterated that the UNFPA should expand its partnership with the SCI for producing and analyzing data needed by policy makers.

Then, Mr. Zahedian, Deputy Head for Statistical Surveys and Administrative Registers also expressed hope for developing existing collaboration between the SCI and UNFPA.