AFRICA SYMPOSIA ON STATISTICAL DEVELOPMENT

Africa Symposia on Statistical Development

Draft Work Programme

April 2006

Background

The United Nations Statistical Commission, at its 36th Session in March 2005, approved the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses and established an Expert Group to take care of its implementation. The Expert Group, in turn, proposed the formation of working groups and technical subgroups to carry out its mandate. One of the main purposes of the Expert Group is to carry out the revision and update of the global United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses (P&R). To carry out its mandate, the Expert group is expected to work in conjunction with the Regional Commissions and other relevant organisations in order to take into consideration processes already in place, to maximise the efficiency of the process, to avoid duplication of effort and to ensure coordination and harmonisation of the results.

During the 22-26 August meeting in New York, the Expert Group on the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses was concerned by the lack of progress and preparation at the African region level and resolved that a meeting for census experts being organised for preparing the report in time for submission to the UN Statistical Commission in March 2006.

Since the Expert Group meeting in August 2005, significant progress has been made since then by African countries towards engaging in the ongoing global dialogue on the role of the 2010 round of population and housing censuses in providing key baseline data towards measurement of African development.

The forthcoming round of population and housing censuses is especially critical because of the Millennium Development Goals, which governments have embraced, and the role that censuses play in providing the necessary underlying data for monitoring those goals. The ECA and African countries recognise that at the Second International Roundtable on Managing for Development Results, held at Marrakech in February 2004, preparation for the 2010 census round was one of the six action areas identified as priority for improving development statistics in the future.

Recognition is also made of the need to focus and foster the linkage between MDG-related and census campaigns as the recognition of the role of population and housing censuses in providing data for monitoring MDGs was still wanting among governments and even among certain agencies.

To this end, African countries met to discuss and prepare an African position on preparations for the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses. A willingness by African countries to participate in the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses is noted. At a meeting of African national statistical offices on census advocacy and resource mobilisation in November 2005 in Yaounde, Cameroon, African countries mandated South Africa to coordinate African countries to assemble to collectively discuss the 2010 censuses and to come up with recommendations with respect to the P&R - an African position - as its contribution to the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses.

In close consultation with the UNECA and the UNSD, a meeting was held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 31 January to 2 February 2006, titled ‘The 2006 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development: The 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses.’ The Symposium was a modest yet significant step for the continent towards preparing successfully for the forthcoming censuses.

The focus of the symposium was five-fold:

  1. To encourage all African countries to undertake a population and housing census in the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses;
  2. To reach consensus on recommendations on the revision of the United Nations;
  3. Principles and Recommendations from an African Perspective;
  4. To reach consensus on core topics and tabulations of relevance to African censuses;
  5. To focus and foster linkages in MDG-related statistical activities and census campaigns; and,
  6. To provide a platform for a comprehensive exchange of exchanges of experiences countries’ participation, technical assistance, information and data dissemination.

The symposium also considered a number of aspects that relate to developing sustainable statistical systems in Africa and addressing the challenges of statistical development and capacity building in Africa.

Out of this symposium attended by 43 African countries and international organisations that support census programmes in Africa, came a number of key recommendations and resolutions that represent a holistically African position on census taking in Africa in the 2010 round as well as key issues and challenges that confront the continent on national statistical systems and capacity building.

Mandated by the 2006 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development, the Friends of the ECA was established to work with the ECA to re-establish a sustainable statistical programme for Africa. At its first meeting in Pretoria, South Africa in April 2006, the Friends of the ECA, seized by the demand for development information and imperatives of regional integration and the information that supports such regional integration, have developed a worked programme that seeks to address four challenges, in addition to a special focus on the Global Programme on the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses

The work programme takes into account an understanding that African countries will continue to meet on an annual basis to review progress made in terms of the work programme and to develop new strategies towards statistical development in Africa.

Part I
Work Programme

Part I presents the work programme for the Africa Symposia on statistical development. This work programme (Table 2) has been developed to take into account the key challenges to be addressed in strengthening sustainable statistical systems in Africa. Underpinning these efforts is a need for a strategic framework (Table 1) that considers urgent and much-needed interventions of political and technical nature, but also identifies the resource intervention requires. The commitment of the ECA is highlighted, drawing from the resolutions of the 37th Session of the UN Statistical Commission, the 2006 Africa Symposium resolutions and the commitments pledged by the ECA at the Symposium ( Document ASSD2006/04). The work programme must therefore be implemented in the context of the interventions outlined in Table 1.

Table 1: Strategic Framework

Theme Political intervention Technical intervention Resource intervention ECA commitment
Capacity building
  1. Africa institutional arrangements for training
  2. Country initiatives
  3. Staff deployment protocol
  1. Skills and training innovation
  2. Africa wide training institution
  3. Technical capacity at management and operational level
  1. Government’s commitment
  2. Twinning arrangements (e.g. CIDA Canada)
  3. Assistance by funding agencies
 Resolution of the Statistical Commission on Capacity Building OP1, OP2, OP3 and OP4 as well ECA commitment 1, 7,8 and 2006 ASSD Resolution 3
Institutional reform
  1. Legislative reform around statistical organisations
  2. Institutionalising NSS
  3. Protocol around legislation
  4. Protocol around data exchange
  5. Protocol around staff deployment
  1. Observing the fundamental principles of official statistics
  2. Documenting and sharing experiences of models of technical independence and statistics Acts
  3. Models of organisational setups
  1. Government’s commitment
  2. Assistance by funding agencies
 2006 ASSD Resolution 6 also ECA commitment 2, 3 and 10
Leadership and management
  1. Adoption of NSDS
  2. Creation and reinforcement of effective governance structures for effective leadership and management
  1. Implementation of NSDS
  2. Technical capacity at management and operational level
  3. Adoption of modern technology for collection and processing of administrative records
  4. Provide special training on organisational management and leadership of NSS
  1. Government’s commitment to good conditions of services that would attract and retain good quality management
  2. Funding for technical capacity by funding agencies
  3. Government has to commit substantial resources
 ECA commitment 4 and 11

Table 2: Work Programme
Overall objective: Allow production of statistics, mainly statistical offices, to meet the user needs of the country

Theme: Capacity building for the organisation to dispense its mandate to produce statistics that are credible and have integrity
NO OBJECTIVE KEY OUTPUT INDICATOR ACTIVITIES PERIODICITY RESP
1 Increase the skills levels of staff employed by statistical agencies in Africa Training Programmes in relevant fields of official statistics Increase in the number of staff trained in the relevant field of official statistics within the NSO and NSS Research relevant courses 2006 Friends of ECA
Approved training programme May 2007 NSOs, NSS
Coordinate training courses September 2007 Friends of ECA
Annual reports on training interventions Ongoing from September 2007 NSOs
Consolidated Regional Report April 2008 ECA and Symposia Secretariat to produce a consolidated report
2 Develop a staff recruitment and retention strategy Approved recruitment and retention strategy Average number of years of experience in the relevant areas within the NSS Regional workshop on recruitment and retention plan December 2006 ECA and Symposia Secretariat to Coordinate
Research and compile Draft strategy In line with NSDS Friends of ECA
Approved strategy 2007ASSD Member States
3 Compile an infrastructure development plan Sufficient infrastructure in place Number of statistics units established in Ministries Research and draft plan 2007 Symposia Secretariat and ECA
Approved Plan May 2008 Council of ECA Ministers
Establishment of statistical units 2008-9 Member States
4 Enhance the capacity of African Training Institutes to deliver training Resourced training institutions Total operating costs per student Assessment of current capacity May 2007 ECA to produce consolidated report
Approved training and recruitment plan May 2008 Statistical Training Centres (STCs)
Annual reports on training and recruitment Ongoing from 2006 STCs and ECA

Overall objective: To enhance the integrity of the NSOs and the NSS

Theme: Institutional reform
NO OBJECTIVE KEY OUTPUT INDICATOR ACTIVITIES PERIODICITY RESP
1 Legislative frameworks that allow compliance with the fundamental principles of statistics Legislation in line with the fundamental principles of official statistics Number of countries which have legislation in line with the fundamental principles of official statistics Assessment of current situation January 2007 ECA to present report to 2007 ASSD
Consultative fora on legislation 2007 ECA and Symposia Secretariat
Recommendations for changes to legislation April 2008 Friends of ECA
2 Establish a statistics sub-programme at ECA Sub-programme on statistics established at ECA Sub-programme established ECA launches process To be determined ECA
Endorsement by ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance    
Endorsement by ECOSOC    
Endorsement by GA    

Overall objective: To accelerate the production of reliable, relevant and timely statistics

Theme: Leadership and management
NO OBJECTIVE KEY OUTPUT INDICATOR ACTIVITIES PERIODICITY RESP
1 Development of NSDS National strategies developed for the NSS Number of countries that have developed and adopted their NSDS Assessment of countries with/without NSDS 2007 ASSD Member States
Development of NSDS 2007-2008 ECA and ECA partners
2 Create effective management structures for NSOs and NSS Approved management structures Number of functional structures Research on structures   ECA
Approved structure   NSOs/NSS
Implementation of approved structure   NSOs/NSS
3 Creation of an effective coordinative role of the ECA Effective ECA coordination in place Number of ECA interventions in African countries on coordination and harmonisation issues Assess current role of ECA 2006 Friends of ECA/ECA
     
     

Overall objective: To raise the awareness about the power of official statistics for the socio economic development

Theme: Advocacy and communication
NO OBJECTIVE KEY OUTPUT INDICATOR ACTIVITIES PERIODICITY RESP
1 Integration of statistics in the development processes of the country especially in the planning stage National planning systems that have performance and outcome indicators Number of countries that have plans with performance and outcome indicators Research and Develop format for strategic plans 2006 Member States, ECA (PRS)
Identify training needs for managers responsible for the development of plans 2006 Member States, ECA (PRS)
Approved format May 2007 Member States
Implement approved format to ensure consistency with strategic plans September 2007 Member States
Indicators compiled for monitoring performance and measuring outcomes Compendia of commonly defined indicators developed Research and develop format for reports ensuring linkage to strategic plans 2007/8 Friends of ECA
2 Develop an unified vision and mission for the development of statistics A shared vision developed and adopted by the ECA Number of NSDS taking into account such a vision Research on vision and mission statements 2006 Friends of ECA
Workshop to discuss vision and mission January 2007 2007ASSD
Approved vision and mission May 2007 2007ASSD
Market vision and mission 2007/8 Friends of ECA
3 To sensitise the suppliers and users of statistical data on importance and usefulness of data Conduct awareness campaigns to sensitise the suppliers and users of statistical data on importance and usefulness of data Number of countries with awareness programmes Identify methods for communication (road shows, advertising, January 2007 2007ASSD
Develop plan for awareness campaigns (when, where, how) January 2007 2007ASSD
Conduct awareness campaign 2007/8 ECA, NSOs, NSS
4 Invigorate the celebration of the Africa Statistics Day as an important event in the national development agenda Outputs of the Africa Statistics Day (media coverage, road shows …) Number of countries that effectively celebrate Africa Statistics Day Identify annual theme June Annually ECA and Friends of the ECA
Development of advocacy tools June-November annually ECA, NSOs, NSS
Celebrate Africa Statistics Day 18 November annually ECA and Member States

Overall objective: To mobilise resources for sustained production of official statistics

Theme: Resource mobilisation
NO OBJECTIVE KEY OUTPUT INDICATOR ACTIVITIES PERIODICITY RESP
1 Ensure adequate resources, both financial and human, for the realisation of the strategic plan Resources received and deployed Proportion of funded programmes relative to the overall need

Number of programmes that are successfully implemented by NSOs and NSS 		Establish current status iof financial and human resources Annually ECA and Member States
2 Ensure efficient and effective utilisation of financial resources Well managed budget with minimum audit queries Programmes executed within budget Research activity based budgeting Annually ECA and Friends of ECA
Link activities to approved budgets   Member States
Research software for the effective management of budgets   ECA and Member States

Part II
The 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses

At the Second International Roundtable on Managing for Development Results held in Marrakech in February 2004, preparation for the 2010 round of population and housing censuses was one of the six action areas identified as priority for improving development statistics for the future. At this point in the process of the preparation of the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses, all regional organizations, have organized working groups, tasks forces and other meetings, with the collaboration of their member states, to assess their census experiences for the 2000 round as well as to have a regional position on the proposed recommendations with respect to the United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses.

The Africa Symposia on Statistical Development, amongst other things, seeks to redress this situation that will exclude Africa from influencing how the 2010 round of population and housing censuses will influence Africa’s development agenda and how knowledge management in Africa will contribute to global dialogue and development in the continent in the context of NEPAD and other African Union initiatives.

Against this backdrop, the main aim of the Project will be to facilitate the strengthening of the role of African countries in the World Programme on 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses; to strengthen collaboration on census-related activities, to develop strategies for African countries to fill the glaring data gaps that limit Africa’s ability to monitor progress made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and finally to promote knowledge management in statistics and the pivotal role statistics plays in the development of the African continent. This objective will be achieved through:

  1. Encouraging all African countries to undertaking a population and housing census in the 2010 round of censuses (2005 – 2014);
  2. Reaching consensus on recommendations on revision of United Nations Principles and Recommendations from an African perspective;
  3. Reaching consensus on core topics and tabulations of relevance to African censuses;
  4. Focusing and fostering linkages in MDG-related and census campaigns; and,
  5. Providing a platform for comprehensive exchange of experiences, countries’ participation, technical assistance, information and data dissemination.

It is intended that this process carry itself through the entire period of the 2010 round of population censuses (2005 –2014), which timeously provides an opportunity to provide mechanisms for Africa to monitor progress made towards achieving the time bound Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Notwithstanding the challenges noted in advancing statistical development in Africa, in the context of the Global Programme on the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses, the work programme for 2006/7 will focus to a large extent on preparations on the African continent for the undertaking of censuses in the period 2005 – 2014.

The work programme will be anchored around the design of a regional census programme. The thrust of the regional census programme will be:

Subprogramme 1: Coordinate between regional and world programmes
Subprogramme 2: Convene workgroups on selected four topics in line with recommended topics of the Global Programme
Subprogramme 3: Census advocacy and networks
Subprogramme 4: Coordinate the supply and demand of expertise
Subprogramme 5: Forging partnerships

Subprogramme 1: Coordinate between regional and world programmes


Review of UN Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses

Activities by Africa to review the UN Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses take into account that Africa has delayed substantially in submitting its recommendations to the UN Expert Group. However, while recommendations were made at the 2006 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development, the following activities are outlined in order to achieve the objectives:

  1. To summarize the extent to which African countries complied with the 2000 round recommendations and to conduct an in-depth review of the synoptic paper on the 2000 population censuses, and,
  2. Through the work of Task Forces, to recommend specific types of modifications to be made to the recommendations for purposes of obtaining an improved set of population census recommendations for the 2010 round of censuses in time for submission to UNSD by 2007.

Activity 1 (ECA in consultation with the Symposia Secretariat):

Distribute a detailed questionnaire to all ECA countries to obtain information on the extent to which they complied with the ECA/Secretariat Recommendations for the 2000 round of censuses, as well as feedback on which parts of the 2000 recommendations should be revised and improved, and which new issues should be addressed.

Activity 2 (ECA and Secretariat):
Prepare synoptic papers based on the results of the questionnaire and establish a list of issues to be addressed by the methodological work, with a detailed timetable.

Activity 3:
Set up Task Forces composed of a small number of interested countries to conduct work on designated issues insofar as they are not already subsumed under other activities of this programme (subprogramme 2).
Subprogramme 2: Convene workgroups on selected four topics in line with recommended topics of the Global Programme


ECA to convene 4 Workgroups on:

  1. Effective use of IT and GIS for census operations
  2. Using the census for measuring new and emerging priority issues
  3. Planning and financing the next censuses
  4. Analysis, dissemination and utilization of census data

It could be anticipated that the census recommendations for 2010 may be more than a simple update of the 2000 recommendations, and would have to address issues of the following type as well:

  • Should Africa’s recommendations for the 2010 round of censuses focus exclusively on population censuses, or should they deal with both population and housing censuses?
  • How can different methods for collecting data (traditional method and administrative sources) in the context of a census be combined? How can population groups that are not observed by other sources be adequately covered in the census?
  • What is the influence of different forms of collecting data directly from the population on the exhaustiveness and quality of the results, and what are the problems to be faced when different options coexist?
  • What is the path to the integration of census, surveys, registers and administrative records for establishing inter-census statistics of high reliability, notably for the inter-census population estimates?
  • What are the criteria for making a decision about which variables to include in population censuses?



Working Group 1:
Effective use of IT and GIS for census operations

  • Should cover crosscutting issues in the use of IT tools, ie. CAPI, ICR, OCR and OMR

  • Should cover contribution of digital mapping techniques and GIS to census operations

Working Group 2:
Using the census for measuring new and emerging priority issues

  • Should focus on events and characteristics, which, because of their rarity, were not well captured in sample surveys (e.g. health and human functioning, maternal and adult mortality etc.)
  • Should discuss how to collect information on emerging issues in the census (e.g. poverty, ageing, migration, religion,ethnicity and race etc.)

Working Group 3:
Planning and financing the next censuses

Among the issues proposed for discussion and coordination are:

  • How to make government see the value of censuses;
  • How to raise supplementary resources needed to cover the increasing costs of censuses;
  • Statistical legislation for census

Working Group 4:
Analysis, dissemination andUtilization of census data

  • Should discuss how to make more extensive use of data for national planning and development
  • Should discuss how to use small-area estimates/micro-data without breaching confidentiality
  • Should review the problems connected with the use of census data for non-statistical purposes
  • Should discuss the methodology connected with outsourcing data dissemination to private business providers.

Subprogramme 3: Census advocacy and networks

  • Assist national statistics offices in Africa to advocate for conducting regular censuses and securing the necessary funding within countries;
  • Build national capacity at the technical level and to develop management skills needed to prepare an overall strategy and costed plan to negotiate with government and users, pooling potential contributors in a cost-effective strategy; and,
  • Undertake urgent improvements for MDG monitoring.


Subprogramme 4: Coordinate the supply and demand of expertise

  • ECA to coordinate and facilitate the supply and demand of expertise
  • Provision and reception of technical expertise and information
    • Identify resources and expertise to be shared, e.g. IT expertise, exchange of professionals, training materials
    • Pledging financial contributions to a Symposia Fund, provision of fellowships and technical expertise


Subprogramme 5: Forging partnerships

Purpose: discuss how to work in "partnership" with ECA and with other countries in the region. Advice on priority areas and modalities for regional census program. The outcome would be an agreed understanding of working in partnership and on what should be the content of the regional census programme.

  • Devise mechanisms to work with sub-regional bodies such as SADC, AFRISTATand ECOWAS
  • Ad hoc forum to support the 2010 round of censuses in the African region and roll-out support by year of census-undertaking
Country Census Date Support Required
Cameroon November 2005 Processing, Analysis & dissemination
Lesotho April 2006 Advocacy, Processing
Egypt November 2006 Advocacy
Ethiopia, Mozambique and Swaziland 2007 Census planning and management
Angola, the DRC and Eritrea Unknown Preparation of Census plans, Advocacy
  • "Census newsletter"
  • Web-based census instruction materials and e-discussion groups
  • ECA organize a workshop to discuss issues related to using modern tools for training of census enumerators and supervisors