With the funding of USAID and technical expertise from NASS and FAO, A workshop on ‘Establishing Agriculture and Rural Survey calendar of Bangladesh’ was organized on 1-5 August 2016 in Pattaya, Thailand through the partnership of FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and the National Statistics Service (NASS), USDA in supporting improvement of agricultural statistics in Bangladesh - a focus country for FAO.

A total of 16 sector specialists from Bangladesh government representing Crops, Livestock, Fish, and Forests came together with Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) to work towards achieving a shared goal of improving statistics in an integrated manner.  Ms Sarah Hoffman, USDA - NASS and Mr Mukesh Srivastava, Senior Statistician, FAO Regional Office for Asia and Pacific in their opening remarks highlighted the ongoing collaboration between USDA, FAO and Bangladesh Government, and emphasized the importance of establishing synergies among the efforts of national stakeholders and sharing of responsibilities in data production based upon their respective comparative advantages in domain expertise, manpower availability and financial resources.

The workshop aimed to prepare (1) a blue print of the Integrated Agricultural Census, 2018, and (2) a shared National Survey Calendar for Bangladesh which will be at the heart of the Strategic Plan for Agricultural and Rural Statistics (SPARS) - being prepared under the technical assistance component of the Global Strategy programme.

Apart from learning the new features of FAO’s World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2020 (WCA 2020), and the concepts of AGRIS survey tool - being prepared under the Global Strategy, the participants reviewed the design of agricultural censuses of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Tonga as an example for designing the Integrated Agricultural Census of Bangladesh.

The participants also recommended that the outputs of this workshop should be presented at a high-level inter-departmental meeting for endorsement at decision making level in the Government.