Committees, Subcommittees, Task Groups and Board

The African Statistical Coordination Committee

Following the successful design of the Reference Regional Strategic Framework for Statistical Capacity Building in Africa (RRSF), major regional institutions namely the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) have agreed that their respective statistical activities must be in line with it. This was emphasized during both the first and the second meetings on the coordination of statistical activities in Africa held in Tunis, Tunisia, in September 2006 and 2007 respectively

During the second African statistical coordination meeting, the principals established an ASCC with the AfDB, UNECA, AUC, and ACBF as members and AfDB and UNECA as co-chairs. This is an extension of the coordination committee put in place during the first coordination meeting. This Group is expected to put in place a functional structure and a coordination mechanism for the RRSF implementation. This coordination mechanism is expected to be supported by a Secretariat based in the UNECA.

Membership

The ASCC is made of representatives from:

• AUC (Statistics Unit)
• AfDB (Department of Statistics)
• ACBF (Department in charge of statistics)
• ECA (African Centre for Statistics)(Secretariat)

Meetings

The ASCC shall meet at end of each year or on an extraordinary basis if need be. The meetings will take place in the headquarters of the member institutions ad shall rotate among them.

Reporting

The ASCC shall report to management of respective institutions and to the Statistical Commission Africa (StatCom-Africa)

Terms of reference

The terms of reference of the ASCC consist in overseeing the coordination and harmonization of statistical development by:

• Reviewing statistical programmes in Africa;
• Organizing joint statistical programmes;
• Organizing expert groups and meetings; and
• Publishing a joint African Statistical Yearbook.

Mandate of the Secretariat to the ASCC

The mandate of the RRSF Coordination Secretariat is to support the ASCC by overseeing the smooth implementation of the coordination mechanism especially the coordination tasks as depicted in the RSSF document and re emphasized during the first coordination meeting.

Functions of the Secretariat

The function of the RRSF Coordination Secretariat include:

• Ensuring the nomination of regional, sub regional and national RRSF coordinators;
• Preparing reporting formats and ensuring timely reporting by regional, sub regional, and national coordinators;
• Ensuring the development of monitoring tools including an African statistical development index (ASDI);
• Ensuring the design and wide dissemination of advocacy materials around the RRSF;
• Liaising with sub-regional coordinators to receive monitoring information on their activities and support to countries;
• Undertaking supervision missions to countries and sub-regional organizations;
• Reporting on progress on framework implementation for discussion at different levels including the RRSF Coordination Committee;
• Establishing and regularly updating a web page to post information about framework implementation; and
• Convening meetings of the RRSF Coordination Committee.