United Nations Statistical Office

Abstract

This contribution to Statistisk tidskrift reviews the development which preceeded the establishment of the United Nations Statistical Office, the current work of the UNSO and some views on its future tasks. The article does not review the international statistical system as a whole. International co-operation in statistics started with the first international congress in Brussels in 1853. The congress was initiated by the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetellet and the British mathematician, statistician and computer scientist Charles Babbage, both highly regarded statisticians (Campion 1949). In the present context it may be particularly interesting to remind the reader that Mr. Babbage also was the inventor of the Difference and the Analytical Machines which are considered to be among the predecessors of the modern computers which play such an important role in modern statistical work. The first workable model of the Difference machine was by the way built by a Swedish printer and exhibited in London in 1854.