OECD World Forum on Key Indicators: Statistics, Knowledge and Policy, Palermo, 10-13 November 2004
I am pleased to welcome you to Palermo, which is proud to receive you with all the hospitality of which this extraordinary city is capable, a city that is rich in fascination and history, and the possessor of a magnificent cultural and architectural heritage that makes it one of the finest places in the world.
This Forum has a special significance: the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is an organization of great importance that has helped people in various geopolitical areas, in times full of great challenges, to remain in mutual contact thanks to what is the surest and least questionable of all means: that of analyses based on numbers.
At such a delicate international moment, every country and every government strongly feels the need of the combination of professional skills, social commitment, and cultural wealth that are united here today.
The challenge, for everyone, is that of economic development, of the assertion of the values of peace, freedom, and democracy throughout the world.
It is an extremely hard challenge, but one that it is essential to win if we are to pass on a better world to future generations.
Numbers, which may at times appear to be secondary to emotions, are on the contrary an indispensable instrument for the winning of this challenge.
Thanks to our reading of numbers and data, we can more clearly understand the problems afflicting communities and act with rigour and determination to tackle and resolve them.
The global challenge also brings with it other challenges that each community has to face in order to affirm its role in the international context.
For Palermo, the next challenge - which is not just an economic challenge but above all a civil one - is that of a close relationship with the other countries in the Mediterranean area.
For this reason we are confidently pursuing all links and relationships which, together with trade agreements, economic joint ventures, and private investments, tend towards the recovery of the sense of an integration - always in full respect of any diversities - of cultural and religious wealth as a vehicle for the pursuit of collaboration and peace.
Today more than ever it is necessary to stress the distinctive character of the Mediterranean as a geographical and cultural area where it will be possible to achieve peace, prosperity, and social progress only through reciprocal and positive recognition of the values, interests, problems, challenges, and objectives that are common to all or peculiar to one.
Many of those present today habitually take part in international meetings and will have seen many different cities all over the world.
Palermo is also a city with the cult of hospitality, developed over thousands of years of history, during which it has experienced various different civilizations, at different times: we have welcomed people from all over the world and we have sent our people all over the world.
Basically, as a frontier territory and as an island, we have been obliged by history to trade not only in goods but also in human experiences.
We have witnessed history’s downfalls and its greatest moments of glory.
Conquerors have arrived here in these lands, and we have always been ready to maintain our roots and at the same time offer our own values. We have become masters in preserving links, ties, and interrelations.
And with regard to the object of this Forum, there is, I think, no science that is more deeply rooted in interrelations than statistics.
For those who dedicate themselves to this science, numbers are inseparable companions: but the ability to connect numbers is what gives real value to this research and makes its findings indispensable in this day and age.
No science is more interdisciplinary than statistics - I think everyone will agree on that. But at the sae time, no science can be less useful if it is not related to the entire world of knowledge.
It is for all these reasons that politics needs statistics to define its guidelines.
As Mayor of Palermo, I spend a large part of my time trying to go beyond the emotions that come to me from the problems - sometimes difficult to solve - that every day are presented to me and require concrete answers.
Like other public administrators, I need information in order to formulate solutions for the problems of our communities.
I regard this Forum as an important opportunity, for all those who have public responsibilities, to broaden their knowledge.
The will to work for the progress of our community is something that is strong within us, it is what drives ordinary people towards that most fascinating of duties: the spirit to serve our community.
This is the profoundest meaning of politics.
We look forward to the results of this Forum.
Thanks to your work, we are sure that the next few days will see the sowing of new seeds for the promotion of progress.
In the future, in the very near future I hope, these seeds will help to make this world we all live in a better place.
Diego Cammarata
Mayor of Palermo