The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is happy to publish the 2006 edition of the African Statistical Yearbook (ASYB). This publication is released at the moment where the ECA has just completed its repositioning exercise, which led, inter alia, to the establishment of its statistics Division: the African Centre for Statistics (ACS). The ACS is mandated, among other things, to building the statistical capacity and support member States, sub regional and regional organizations in the production of quality statistics.