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Using ECA Developed Tools to Build Capacities for the Promotion of Gender Statistics in Africa

Addis Ababa , 26 May 2009 (ECA) - Within the framework of its pioneer programme of capacity building to address the lack of gender statistics in Africa, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is organizing, through its African Center for Gender and Social Development and its African Center for Statistics- a series of sub regional workshops to disseminate methodologies and tools for the development of gender statistics. The first one in this series is to be hosted by Ghana from 25-29 May 2009 and will gather representatives from National Statistical Offices (NSOs), national gender machineries and sub-regional institutions.  The FAO Regional Office in Accra and partner institutions like IN Went will also be represented.

It is to be recalled that the Beijing Conference of Women was the forerunner in addressing- in its Platform for Action- the need to generate and disseminate gender statistics. These are statistics that adequately reflect the situation of women and men in all policy areas, and thus allow for a systematic study of gender differentials and gender issues. 

In order to move ahead with this issue, ECA has developed methodologies and tools to strengthen the capacity of African national statistical systems to collect, utilize and disseminate gender statistic. One of these tools is the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI), which aim is to ensure a better monitoring of progress achieved towards gender equality and women’s advancement. ECA has also designed an Africa –specific Guidebook for mainstreaming gender perspectives and household production into national statistics, budgets and policies. The third tool developed by ECA is the Gender African Supplement to the Principles and Recommendations on Population and Housing Censuses. This tools aims to help member states in engendering the 2010 Round of the Population and Housing Censuses.

Over the past two years, several activities have been undertaken by ECA to introduce and pilot these tools at the national and sub regional levels.  This year’s round of sub regional workshops on gender statistics aims at ensuring a wider dissemination and better understanding of these tools, with a view to improving the capacity of African National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in the collection, processing, analyzing and dissemination of gender statistics. The more specific objectives of this new round of trainings include:

  1. Advocating for the production and dissemination of gender statistics through training in and dissemination of ECA tools, namely time use studies; national satellite accounts of household production; the AGDI, gender sensitive monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals and the Gender African Supplement to the Principles and Recommendations on Population and Housing Censuses;

  2. Discussing adequate approaches to introduce cost-effective ways of generating gender statistics;

  3. Providing a platform for comprehensive exchange of national experiences in generating and using gender statistics.

The Ghana workshop and those that will be held subsequently in Morocco, Cameroon and Zambia are expected to accomplish the following results: 

  1. An exchange and collection of best practices and experiences in generating and using gender statistics;

  2. Enhanced capacity of the African national statisticians in the use of related tools and methodologies developed by ECA;

  3. Formulation of guidelines and programmes to develop a regional and national Plans of Action to generate gender statistics.

Once this round of training workshops has been completed, ECA will seek to maintain a continuous e-interaction with participating countries to ensure that statisticians who have been trained and provided with ECA tools are effectively using them to collect sex disaggregated data; but also to keep them abreast of ongoing efforts to promote gender statistics in Africa.  This will be made possible thanks to the Gender and Statistics Network, recently launched by ECA to encourage exchange and networking between practitioners so that gender statistics in Africa gather momentum and become an effective development tool. 
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