ECA hosts ECOWAS statistics meeting

Addis Ababa, 28 August 2006 - A fourth meeting of statistics officials the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) began today under the auspices of the United Nations to boost statistics in the West Africa sub-region.

Hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's African Center for Statistics (ECA-ACS), in partnership with the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD), 30 statistics professionals from the ECOWAS sub-region were scheduled to attend the meeting, which runs from 28 August to 1 September.

Organized in two parts, today the directors of National Statistics Offices (NSOs) of the 15 Member States of ECOWAS are to discuss the future of a UNSD-ECOWAS capacity building UN Development Account project, started last year to enhance sub-regional capacity in the field of statistical compilation, analysis, and policy application.

The last four days of the workshop, until Friday, will be dedicated to the final leg of the Project – Statistical Organization. Entitled “Strengthening Statistical Capacity Building in Support of the Millennium Development Goals in the ECOWAS Region,” its three previous workshops were on Environmental, Energy and Poverty Statistics.

“This meeting is happening at a turning point of the ECA and its statistical function,” said Dimitri Sanga, Officer-in-Charge of ECA-ASC, in his opening statement to the meeting. “One of the main areas considered in the repositioning process of the ECA is statistics and statistical capacity building in the African region,” he said.

The ECA recently went through a repositioning process meant to better serve Africa's development needs. It is the first time African statistics officials are gathering at ECA headquarters since the launching of the ASC, last month.

“I would like to express UNSD's support for the creation of the ASC,” said Paul Cheung, the director of UNSD, present at the opening ceremony. He also praised ECOWAS Member States for their continuing involvement and commitment to bringing Africa's statistics agenda forward, in order to better inform policymaking in the sub-region.

A professional from New Zealand, Mr Len Cook, will lead the workshop component of the meeting.

Founded in 1975, ECOWAS Member States are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Senegal, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo.