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Information Note
At its first meeting held in Addis Ababa from 10 to 11 May 2004, the Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa (ABSA), recommended that ECA should cooperate with the National Statistical Systems to begin the collection of statistics on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) using a harmonized framework. In this regards, ECA and ITU are organizing a regional workshop on ICT indicators from 26 to 29 October 2004, in Gaborone (Botswana).
The workshop will be also used to launch the second phase of the SCAN ICT project aimed at measuring the penetration and impact of the information society in key sectors of African economies, which was launched in 2000 by ECA in cooperation with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, the European Union (EU) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (NORAD). Initially piloted in 6 African countries, the SCAN ICT project will be expanded in October 2004 in close cooperation with National Statistical Offices to selected African countries, which will be invited to the Botswana workshop.
The workshop is also part of a multi-stakeholder initiative involving several partners, namely, the United Nations Regional Commissions (ECA, ECLAC, ESCAP, ESCWA), ITU, OECD, UNCTAD, the UN ICT Task Force, UNSD and UNESCO. This initiative responds to a worldwide call for Information Society statistics in the framework of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and the information gathered through this survey is expected to contribute to the coordination of information society measurements across continents. One important input to the workshop will be a survey of metadata collection of available ICT indicators in Africa, with a view to assessing the extent to which ICT issues are taken into account in statistical surveys in member States. The questionnaire, which was sent to all statistical offices in Africa is available on-line. The result of the survey will be presented at the Botswana workshop.
The workshop is aimed specifically at ICT regulators, sector ministries and national statistical offices. It will address data collection and dissemination of statistics relating to ICTs and the use of ICTs by households, businesses and individuals. It will include discussions on methodology for the involvement of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in collection and dissemination of ICT statistics.
All the relevant stakeholders are encouraged to participate. Limited sponsorship is available for especially NSOs which have completed the questionnaire on survey of metadata collection of available ICT indicators in Africa. The registration form is available here or at the ITU website.
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