The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics last 29 January 2014, in its 68th session.

It is the first time the Fundamental Principles have received such high recognition at global political level. This historic achievement marks an important step towards the enhancement of statistics in all domains.

The Principles were drafted some 20 years ago by the Conference of European Statisticians. In 1994 the United Nations Statistical Commission, in its special session of 11-15 April, adopted them. In 2011, the Statistical Commission acknowledged that the Principles were still as relevant today and that no revision of the 10 principles themselves was currently necessary but recommended the development of an updated preamble, which was presented and adopted its forty-fourth session in 2013.

The document is available in all languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (included revised preamble 2013) can be found on the UN website: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/dnss/gp/fundprinciples.aspx.