UNITED NATIONS
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

Distr.: LIMITED

ECA/ESPD/ABSA/2006/2
31 May 2006

Original: ENGLISH

ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA

Annual Meeting of Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
13-14 June 2006

Report on the follow-up to ABSA-II

I. Introduction

1. The second meeting of the Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa (ABSA) was held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Addis Ababa, on 24 April 2005 back to back with the fourth meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI-IV) convened from 25 to 27 April 2005. The meeting reviewed the agenda items related, among others, to: (i) ECA's statistical activities for the biennium 2004-2005 and plan for the biennium 2006-2007; (ii) the follow-up activities of the first meetings of ABSA and the Forum on African Statistical Development (FASDEV); (iii) the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Census; and (iv) the proposal of creating an African Statistical Association. The meeting made recommendations on the following items:

• Raising the profile of Statistics at ECA
• Statistics at ECA: Main functions
• ECA and statistical development in Africa
• ECA and international fora
• ABSA Membership

2. The Board called upon the secretariat to undertake a number of actions with respect to statistical development in the region as well as at ECA. This document reports on the implementation of some of those actions, the constraints faced as well as some corrective measures for a better and effective achievement of the objectives of the Board. As far as possible, this report will also include prominent actions taken by other stakeholders.

II. Follow-up Activities

II.1. Raising Statistics Profile at ECA

3. The meeting, noting the importance of statistics in monitoring government programmes in the context of the Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSs), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the New Partnership for the Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and the need for strengtheningstatistical institutions to meet increasing demand for data at national, regional and global levels, reiterated its previous recommendations to put Statistics at higher level of hierarchy and importance according to Managing for Development Results principles.

4. It is worth mentioning that significant progress has been achieved in this regard. Indeed the new ECA Executive Secretary (ES) has championed Statistics several times since he took office in November 2005. To this end, he has not only advocated for statistics in his statements at various fora (see below) but also took action by directing the Task Force on the Repositioning of ECA he has set up, on the re-profiling of Statistics function at ECA. The next steps will be the presentation of his proposals to United Nations (UN) Headquarters after having received the ECA Conference of Ministers approval and support. Then will come time for implementation.

Symposium on African Statistical Development

5. The ES participated, personally during two days, in the 2006 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development: The 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses, held in Cape Town from 30 January to 2nd February 2006. This meeting was organized by South Africa which was mandated, during the workshop on Advocacy and Resource Mobilization for the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses held in Yaoundé from 21 to 25 November 2005, by African countries to take the lead and convene a regional meeting on the participation of African countries in that World programme.

Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development

6. The ES has also advocated for Statistics at the twenty-fifth meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (Ouagadougou, 13-14 May 2006) and the thirty-ninth session of the Commission/Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (Ouagadougou, 15-16 May 2006), presenting Statistics as a crosscutting issue (see annex 3).

7. The main outcomes of the thirty-ninth session of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development held in Ouagadougou, from 15 to 16 May 2006, are the resolutions on Repositioning of ECA to Better Serve Africa’s Priorities and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Africa. The specific resolution related to Statistics is stated as follows:

"The Conference of Ministers

…………
Requests the Secretariat of the ECA to assist African countries to strengthen their capacities in the area of data collection and statistical analyses in order to develop performance indicators and statistics for MDG tracking."

8. These resolutions will be submitted to the UN General Assembly. By adopting them, the General Assembly will thus mandate ECA to take action in order to achieve the objectives underpinning the resolutions. These resolutions were reinforced by the Ministerial Statement of the Conference which stated with regard to ECA role in statistical development in Africa:

"In this regard, we also call on ECA to take leadership in the development and coordination of statistical activities on the continent, such as the Reference Regional Strategic Framework (RRSF), in collaboration with AU, ADB and the RECs."

African Ministerial Conference on Financing for Development

9. From 21 to 22 May 2006, the Nigeria Government, African Development Bank and ECA sponsored a conference on Financing for Development which was attended by African Finance Ministers, along with a number of African Education Ministers, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, international financial institutions, UN agencies, development partners, the Archbishop of Cape Town, Bono, and other representatives of the civil society. In the final declaration of the conference entitled "Financing for Development: The Abuja Commitment for Action", the Conference stated the following:

"We support the development of improved statistics, including the development of national statistical bodies, in order to monitor progress, in collaboration with ECA and other institutions."

II.2. Taking ABSA Recommendations on Board to ECA Conference of Ministers

10. The second meeting of ABSA, noting the importance of statistics in monitoring government also asked member States to ensure that its recommendations are taken on board by CODI for transmission to ECA Conference of Ministers for decision.

11. ABSA recommendations were reported to CODI-IV, which also put emphasis on these recommendations. During the thirty-fourth session of the ECA Conference of Ministers held in Abuja from 11 to 15 May 2005, the same concern was raised by participants of the technical Committee as well as the Ministers who pointed out the fact that African countries are not in a position to properly report on progress made towards the achievement of MDGs due to lack of quality data.

12. Statistics was also on board at the 2006 Conference of Ministers (see the above item II.1. of the present document). It is worth noting that, for the first time in the history of the ECA conference of Ministers, the ES asked the secretariat to project the advocacy DVD on Statistics prepared by the Chair of the Friends of ECA during the ministerial session as it was done during the technical Committee meeting. The DVD was designed by Statistics South Africa with the strong support of another champion of Statistics, Trevor Manuel, Minister of Finance of South Africa and Minister in charge of Statistics. All these events should be seen as a watershed in Statistics at ECA under the leadership of the ES who was commended for his commitment toward statistical development in Africa.

II.3. Statistical at ECA: Main Functions and Activities

13. The Board recommended that ECA should be strengthened to enable it to: (i) be proactive and provide leadership in statistical activities in Africa; (ii) improve the collaboration and effective coordination among stakeholders in statistics development in Africa; (iii) put greater emphasis on the job training approach in its technical assistance programme; (iv) put on board, in close collaboration with Statistical Training Centres (STCs), the issue of training to overcome the large staff turnover in the National Statistical offices (NSOs); (v) take stock of the existing best practices in National Accounts and share them with countries, end so on.

14. These recommendations were well taken in the elements of programme proposed to the Task Force set up by the ES in order to reposition ECA to better respond to Africa’s priorities. Members of the Board will be informed on the next steps as soon as ECA will receive approval from the UN General Assembly in September 2006. Meanwhile, ECA had achieved some of its objectives in 2005 and 2006 and is being considered as an important actor in statistical development in Africa (see below and the report on FADEV-II).

15. Indeed ECA did a lot in the past to support STCs, from creating STCs to harmonizing curricula of African STCs, conducting a comparative study between the French-speaking and English-speaking STCs, providing short term teachers to STCs, etc. All these activities were undertaken through the Statistical Training Programme in Africa (STPA). Since the end of this programme, the rare ECA interventions were reduced to the organization of seminars on Organization and Management of Statistical Systems in the French-speaking STCs.

16. Directors of STCs were invited to participate in all ICP-Africa meetings as well as ECA’s meetings. Moreover, ADB is covering attendance cost of Directors in subregional and regional meetings. The Board will be briefed on the outcomes of the seminar on Statistical Training in Sub-Saharan Africa, held in Bamako, from 6 to 8 June 2006. ECA is willing to reverse the trend in supporting STCs and will explore the possibility to collaborate with partners in this regard.

II.4. The 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses

17. The Board recommended that ECA should: (i) incorporate the 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses in its work programme 2006-2007 and ensure that the work is done within the timeframe provided by UN Statistics Division (UNSD); (ii) convene a meeting to formulate the African regional position on the Census 2010 before August 2005; and (iii) reconsider the membership of African countries in the various working groups on the 2010 Round of Censuses.

18. Due to its procedures, it was difficult for ECA to organise a meeting within the two months prior to the August 2005 meeting in New York. Nevertheless, ECA prepared a report based on the responses to a survey it conducted on status and practices related censuses in African countries and presented the report at the Expert Group meeting organized by UNSD, in New York from 22 to 26 August 2005. Moreover, as said early, the 2006 Africa Symposium topic was about the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses. Therefore, the opportunity was given to representatives of countries which were not member of the working groups set up by the UNSD, and to ECA to articulate an African position with regard to the 2010 RPHC. The outcomes of the meeting were also presented to the 2006 UN Statistical Commission following a recommendation of the August 2005 Expert Group meeting. ECA will keep on taking the lead in this matter, in close collaboration with its members States and its other partners.

II.5. Representation of ECA at International Fora to Provide Regional Positions

19. The Board noted with great concern the fact that ECA did not participate in most of important statistical meetings including the thirty-sixth session of the UN Statistical Commission. Then it recommended that ECA should be represented at international fora to provide regional positions on different issues on the agenda.

20. So far, ECA had taken significant steps with regard to this matter. Of course, financial constraints (the budget was already voted for the biennium) still impede the scope of ECA statistical activities. Nevertheless, ECA took an active indeed leading role in very important meetings such as the 2006 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development: The 2010 Round of Population & Housing Censuses as stated above, the thirty-seventh session of the UN Statistical Commission, the meeting of Directors of NSOs called STATCOM-Africa, and the second meeting of FASDEV.

21. As stated early, the Government of South Africa took the lead in convening the first Africa Symposium on Statistical Development. During this meeting, in addition to presenting three papers during the plenary sessions, ECA coordinated three out of the four working groups of the meeting, whose outcomes were the Africa position on the revision of the United Nations Handbook on Principles and Recommendations on population and Housing Censuses. It also facilitated more than half of the plenary sessions aimed at wrapping up the recommendation on Principles and Recommendations. This event, which is supposed to be organized on an annual basis, will be organized in various countries starting by countries, which are championing ECA to recover its leadership in statistical development in Africa. These nine countries, known as the Friends of ECA in Statistical Development, are: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, and Uganda. For further details, please refer to the Note on the 2006 Africa Symposium on statistical development.

22. During the thirty seventh session of the UN Statistical Commission, which took place in New York from 7 to 10 March 2006, ECA reported on the progress made and future plans on the 2010 World Programme of Population and Housing Censuses for the African Region and the outcomes of the second meeting of FASDEV respectively. The African initiative to convene annual meetings on censuses in order to assess the preparedness of African countries and to share best practices towards participating in the 2010 RPHC was noted by the participants as a best practice and some regional commissions expressed their willingness to organize such meetings in their respective regions.

23. The second meeting of FASDEV was also a big step in statistical development in Africa. It was attended by the African Union Commissioner for Economic Affairs but also by the Chairman of OEDC Development Aid Committee (OECD/DAC) as well as the Director of Planning and Budgeting Department of the ADB, the Director of the Development Data Group of the World Bank and the ECA Executive Secretary and 110 representatives of countries, subregional, regional and international organizations. Its main objective was to discuss and adopt the Reference Regional Strategic Framework for Statistical Capacity Building in Africa (RRSF). For further information, please see the report on follow-up to FASDEV recommendations.

II.6. Taking Stock and Sharing Best Practices in National Accounts

Regional Seminar on National Accounts Statistics

24. ECA organized, in close collaboration with the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), a seminar aimed at discussing current issues in national accounts pertaining to the update of the 1993 SNA and relevant compilation practices in African countries. The seminar was held in Addis Ababa from 14 to 18 November 2005 and was attended by 27 senior staff of national accounts departments from 18 countries as well as representatives from the UNSD, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the John Hopkins University.

25. The seminar offered the opportunity to gather reports from countries and to discuss their practices regarding the implementation of the 1993 SNA. The meeting recommended, among others that: (i) concerned institutions at country level should respond the recommendations made by the Advisory Expert Group (AEG) in the global consultation on the revision of the 1993 SNA and ECA follow-up on that activity; and (ii) international and regional organizations should be encouraged to organize subregional training workshops, for African countries, on specialized topics such as quarterly national accounts, price and volume prices, and integrated survey design for economic statistics to apply the latest techniques and share country practices.

United Nations Handbook on Non-profit Institutions

26. ECA participated in a training workshop on the United Nations Handbook on Non-profit Institutions (NPI) in the System of National Accounts, for African implementers,in Maputo, Mozambique from 21 to 22 March 2006. The workshop was organized by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Civil Society Studies (JHU/CCSS), the United Nations Volunteers (UNV), and the Government of Mozambique and was attended by six countries as well as representatives from Statistics Sweden and ECA. By that time, twenty-six countries, eight of which are in Africa (Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe), have committed themselves to implementing the NPI Handbook. To ease the implementation, a new Guidance Manual for the NPI Handbookwas made available to countries.

27. The meeting discussed new issues, definitions related to this new framework and differences with the 1993 SNA and related issues such as: (i) the definition of NPIs that goes beyond the SNA's Nonprofit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH); (ii) the non-market output of market NPIs and (ii) the extent, distribution, and value of volunteer labour, in addition to the standard SNA variables; (iii) the classification system called the International Classification System of Non-Profit Organizations (ICNPO); (iv) potential problems that may also arise in differentiating volunteer work from unpaid family work, especially in micro-enterprises and other development activities; and (vii) the need to make available a "bridge table" identifying typical NPI variables and showing how they would be matched to typical SNA variables

28. Finally, participants agreed, among others to develop and submit initial work plans by the first week of May 2006 outlining the initial steps they plan to take to implement the NPI Handbookin their respective countries, including plans for the recruitment of a statistical volunteer, and reporting major challenges to the implementation process they would identify in their countries. For more details, please refer to the room document related to the issue.

Association of African Central Banks (AACB) Seminar on Statistical harmonization

29. It is worth mentioning in this section, the continental seminar on Statistical Harmonization organized in the framework of the African Monetary Cooperation Programme (AMCP), by the Association of African Central Banks (AACB) at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies (KSMS) in Nairobi, Kenya from 3 to 6 April 2006. Indeed the objective of the seminar is strongly linked to the work on National Accounts and related macro-economic aggregates.

30. The specific objectives of the seminar were to: (i) assess methodologies used by sub-regions for the compilation of the macro-economic aggregates of the AMCP convergence criteria; (ii) analyze the conceptual and methodological discrepancies inherent in basic data sources; (iii) establish bridge tables between national statistics and macro-economic aggregates of AMCP criteria. A medium term activity of the AMPC is to elaborate a framework for strengthening harmonization of data, notably national account statistics, balance of payments and monetary statistics, at the continental level. In this regard, the following framework for macro-economic convergence was adopted: Harmonization of macroeconomic and statistical concepts; and Observance of the agreed convergence criteria by the year 2015.

31. The seminar deliberated on the adoption and definition of convergence criteria toward the AMCP and agreed upon several important issues related to definitions and concepts to be used, targeted milestones regarding the implementation of 1993 SNA, and so on. The seminar made other recommendations including the following:

1. The meeting called upon ECA to consult with Central Banks and statistical officers to undertake methodological work pertaining to the revision of the 1993 SNA;
2. The meeting urged ECA and ADB to provide adequate support so that countries would reach milestone level 3 of the implementation of the 1993 SNA by 2008;
3. There is need to have an institutional framework such as the one recommended in the AMCP. In particular, it was recommended that a technical working group under AACB should be set up to focus on statistics; and
4. There is need to enhance cooperation between AACB, ADB, ECA, AU and the IMF in the harmonization of statistics over the medium to long term. This will include highlighting of discrepancies between international standards and those currently used in the sub-regions.

32. Based on the seminar discussions, several working groups will be set up shortly and discussed in the next meeting of Governors of Central Banks toward the third quarter of 2006. ECA should be prepared to participate in such working groups. ECA will implement recommendations of ABSA in the new context where Statistics is part of almost all important meetings in the region.

II.7. Countries and Statistical Training Centres to Report to ECA

33. The Board recommended that countries as well as Statistical Training Centres (STCs) should report on their activities as suggested at CODI-II to allow ECA to be up to date on the statistical status of the continent.

34. During the preparation of CODI-IV, ECA did its best to get reports directly from countries, or from their websites where they exist or websites of development partners. The outcome of the exercise was fair and ECA is appealing to the countries who commit themselves during CODI meetings to strengthen the collaboration with ECA on this issue. Regarding the training centres, ECA will contact them by end of June, just before the closing of the academic year 2005/2006.

II.8. ABSA Membership

35. Taking into account ABSA terms of reference and preservation of memory as recommended by the board, the renewal of ABSA membership was as follows: 8 members remain on the Board while 9 new members are appointed (see annex 2). The same criteria that guided the first composition of the Board still prevailed in this proposal.

II.9. African Statistical Association

36. The Board recommended that the African Statistical Association that existed in the early nineties should be revived. A provisional committee comprising Egypt, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, AFRISTAT and ECA, was set up to work on the status and take stock of the previous association.

37. For various reasons, the Committee did not function. The files of the previous association were not found by the colleagues who committed themselves to look at them during the second meeting of ABSA. The secretariat managed to get the status of the association and hope that the present meeting will be an opportunity to move the agenda forward in this regard. Please refer to annex 3.

III. Conclusion

38. ECA Statistics Team will obviously keep the Board informed about the final decisions on the ECA repositioning process of the UN General Assembly Meeting, which is scheduled to take place in September 2006. Indeed these final decisions will need a follow-up meeting. Therefore and as stated in the ABSA terms of reference , ECA will organize an e-meeting of the Board in order to share the latest developments of the process and get feedback from Board members.

Annex 1 : ABSA-II Recommendations

Taking note of the importance of statistics in the monitoring of government programmes in the context of PRSPs, MDGs and NEPAD, and the need for strengthening statistical institutions to meet the increasing demand for data at national, regional and global levels, the Board made the following recommendations:

1. Reiterate the previous recommendations to put Statistics at higher level of hierarchy and importance according to Managing for Development Results principles;
2. ECA should be strengthened to enable it to be proactive and provide leadership in statistical activities in Africa;
3. Improve the collaboration and effective coordination among stakeholders in statistical development in Africa;
4. There should be greater emphasis on-the-job training approach in ECA technical assistance programme;
5. To have the Census 2010 incorporated in the work programme 2006-2007 and ensure that the work is done within the timeframe provided by UNSD;
6. ECA should convene a meeting to formulate the African regional position on the Census 2010 before August 2005;
7. To reconsider the membership of African countries in the various working groups of the Census 2010 and organize a regional meeting
8. To reconstitute the membership of ABSA taking into account the terms of reference and preservation of memory;
9. ECA should work with regard to the issue of training, in collaboration with training centers to overcome the large staff turnover in the NSOs;
10. ECA should take stock of the existing best practices in National Accounts and share them among countries;
11. Countries and STCs should report on their activities as suggested at CODI 2 to allow ECA to be up-to-date on the statistical status of the continent;
12. ECA should be represented at international fora to provide regional positions on issues on the agendas;
13. Member countries are urged to ensure that ABSA recommendations are taken on board by CODI for transmission to council of Ministers for decisions; and
14. The Board agreed on the revival of the African Statistical Association, and elected a provisional committee including Afristat, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Uganda and ECA, to work on the status and take stock of the previous association.

Annex 2: ABSA Membership

The following organizations are welcome to participate as observers in ABSA meetings: UNSD, PARIS21 Secretariat, FAO, ACBF, GDDS, AFRITAC-East, AFRITAC-West, UNFPA/CST-Addis Ababa, UNFPA/CST-Dakar, UNFPA/CST-Harare, UNDP's Regional Bureau for Africa, UNDP, ILO, UNICEF, UNESCO/UIS

Annex 4: Statutes of the African Statistical Association