Development Account Projects
African Statistical Knowledge Network in support of progress towards the internationally agreed development goals
Background:
There is a broad consensus among African countries and development partners about the need for better statistics that lead to better policies for the achievement of the internationally agreed goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.
As a result of lack of large-scale pan-African statistics-development initiatives in the past decade, there is a lack of continent-wide networks of professional statisticians. To ensure the success of any future initiatives in African statistical capacity-building, statistical knowledge networks among African national statistical offices need to be built. Only when such networks exist, and coordinated approaches to African statistical capacity-building are entrenched, will there be continent-wide progress in statistics.
This project builds upon lessons learned from five statistical development projects implemented or being implemented by the Statistics Division in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), ASEAN, ESCWA, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) regions. All of these projects have been successful in strengthening the regional network of statisticians, increasing intraregional statistical cooperation and raising the regional profile of statistics. This project will also build upon the experiences gained from a prototype project on the development of African practices in the adoption and implementation of international statistical standards, which is currently in the planning stages. The project will be executed by Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and ECA.
Objective:
To create African statistical knowledge networks to strengthen the capacity of African countries for the production, analysis and dissemination of benchmark statistics required for national development planning and for monitoring of the internationally agreed development goals.
Expected accomplishments:
- Increased communication and knowledge-sharing among statisticians of African national statistical offices (NSOs) and sub-regional organizations.
- Increased quality, timeliness, availability and regional relevance of statistics of internationally agreed development goals produced by African NSOs.
Implementation status:
This project began implementation in mid-2008. Initial activities include the creation of the African Statistical Knowledge Network Website which is required to disseminate international statistical standards; statistical reports and African practices; and experiences in the adoption and implementation of such standards. Improvements of connectivity to the Internet of some NSOs will also be addressed as an ongoing project activity to facilitate access and sharing of information. DESA and ECA will also begin conducting workshops to review African practices in implementation of international standards in order to improve their technical capabilities. The workshops will focus on (i) management of statistical systems; (ii) economic statistics; (iii) vital statistics; (iv) labour force statistics; and (v) database maintenance and management. The production of national practices handbooks and guidelines specific for the African region, mainly obtained via questionnaires completed by workshop participants will also be coordinated beginning in 2008. The promotion of exchange of staff between statistical offices to encourage the use of common statistical methodologies and to facilitate exchange of information on international standards in the above listed thematic areas will be implemented in 2009.
