Top officials celebrate African Statistics Week in Angola

Luanda, 7 December 2006 – Top statisticians from the six Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries convened from 4 to 7 December in the Angolan capital, Luanda, for a week of workshops and discussion on statistical development in the region.

Attended by national statistics directors from Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the meeting culminated with a celebration of African Statistics Day (ASD) sponsored by the Angolan government, in partnership with United Nations agencies, and Partnerships for Statistical Development in the 21 st Century (Paris 21).

“ It is gratifying to see that Africa's partners in statistics development are here with us, to join us and the government of Angola for this celebration – the major event of this year's African Statistics week,” said Abdoulie Janneh, United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Prompted by the “Friends of the ECA,” under the leadership of Pali Lehohla, South Africa's Statistician General, the ECA's newly launched African Centre for Statistics (ACS) has been advocating for greater statistical awareness amongst its 53 Member States.

The “Friends of the ECA” was set up to enhance ECA's role as the main liaison among nations, regional, sub-regional, and international organizations in the field of statistics in Africa.

“ In many countries in our region, basic data and statistics for decision-making are either unavailable, or available but unreliable. Surveys are often conducted episodically for reasons ranging from poor capacity to lack of financial resources to lack of political will,” said Abdoulie Janneh.

This lack of commitment to numbers and statistics was witnessed in the last ten-year world population and housing census round from 1995 to 2005, where most African countries did not hold a population count.

In countries like Angola, emerging from over 30 years of war – the war for independence began in 1961 and was followed by civil war until 2002 – there has been no census since the colonial period.

“Our last real census was undertaken in 1970,” said Ana Dias Lourenço, Angola's Minister of Planning. “But even then, the population count was not accurate, as most natives failed to cooperate with the count, in fear that numbers would be used by the colonial administration secret police to round up people,” she said.

“In order to improve planning outcomes in our countries, it is important that we continue to focus on enhancing and developing statistics in Africa,” said Janneh.

One the greatest challenges facing statistics development on the continent is providing a legal framework for undertaking of statistical activities, particularly relevant with regard to respecting the privacy of individuals and companies in collecting data.

To Janneh, there has been a general improvement in the availability of statistics in Africa, given impetus by the need to monitor the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as the priorities of the New Partnerships for African Development (NEPAD), and the African Peer Review Mechanism – APRM.

“There is real commitment on the part of most of our countries to this discipline, and we are well on the way to making major improvements,” said Pali Lehohla.