In the first three months of the year, Statistics SA injected a range of critical statistical reports and series into the public and policy domain.
Data from these have fed into the policy space marked by the January cabinet lekgotla, President Thabo Mbeki's state of the nation address at the opening of parliament, finance minister Trevor Manuel's budget speech and the Reserve Bank's monetary policy committee meeting.
During this period, Stats SA also successfully launched and concluded field operations for the community survey, which reached out to 284 000 households, while continuing with its regular releases of key economic, fiscal, social, demographic and vital statistics.
National policy debates are enriched by information so released. But Stats SA's focus spreads beyond our borders and international engagement remains a key priority in building a national and international system of statistics.
At the end of last year, Stats SA, the government of Angola, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Commission for Africa, the UN Statistics Division and the Paris21 consortium hosted a working session that led to the signing of the Luanda Declaration, in which countries committed to using evidence as the basis for policy making.
Angola committed itself to conducting a population census as part of Africa's round of 2010 censuses - this after four decades without a census in that country.
It is an important development for SADC. Inadequate or absent data from countries such as Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have hurt the regional development agenda.
At the start of the year, the government of Rwanda and Stats SA as the chair of the African Symposium for Statistical Development (ASSD) hosted ASSD 2 in Kigali, Rwanda.
This followed on ASSD 1, hosted in Cape Town last year.
The resolutions of ASSD 2 will be tabled for consideration at the 40th Conference of Ministers of Finance to be held in Addis Ababa at the beginning of next month.
These include a proposal for training of leaders of statistics agencies, a report on the International Comparisons Programme Africa, the use and archiving of census data, and assessment of progress since the 39th session of the ministers of finance, which was held in Ouagadougou in April last year.
Last month the UN Statistics Commission hosted its 60th commission and celebrated this by inviting papers that reflected on the sixty years of statistics practice.
As South Africa's statistician-general, I was one of the five invited speakers and presented two papers giving an assessment of the past sixty years of statistical practice and exploring what the future in systems of statistics might be.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese government of national unity plans to have a census in November. Stats SA participated in the third meeting of the monitoring and observation committee for the census, which was held at the beginning of this week and from which I have just returned.
The second day of this committee meeting was dedicated to presenting the South African experience in census taking, and monitoring and evaluation of censuses in particular.
For Sudan and the US, conducting of population censuses is a constitutional imperative, and in Sudan a credible census is an important ingredient structuring the power sharing underlying the peace agreement. Sudan's monitoring committee includes members of the upper house of parliament, labour unions and academics, and is chaired by an MP.
It is a humbling experience to witness countries such as Angola, the DRC and Sudan emerging out of decades of conflict as they commit themselves to inclusive population censuses as part of Africa 2010 round of census taking.
Countries such as Angola, the DRC and Sudan are committed to conducting a census of the population in this round of censuses.
It is a privilege for South Africa to participate in helping these countries develop their systems of national statistics, which are essential to the maintenance of peace, economic and social development, and monitoring and measuring progress.