1. Background

1. During the 2006 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development: The 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses, which was held in Cape Town, South Africa on 30 January – 2 February 2006, delegates representing national statistical agencies from forty-three (43) African countries resolved, inter alia, that the coordination role of the Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) in statistical development in the region needs to be strengthened. To ensure this, it was resolved that a Bureau of Statistics or “Friends of the ECA� be established in order to advise and guide ECA in the quest of fulfilling its coordination and leadership role in statistical development in the region.

2. The following nine countries have been selected to constitute the interim structure to advise the Executive Secretary of the ECA on matters of statistical development in Africa:

• Egypt
• Ghana
• Kenya
• Mozambique
• Rwanda
• Senegal
• South Africa
• Tunisia
• Uganda.

2. The First Meeting of the Friends of ECA

3. The Friends of ECA convened their first meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, from 1 to 3 April 2006. The meeting was chaired and facilitated by the host country, South Africa and was attended by seven of the nine members of the friends of ECA. Senegal and Mozambique didn’t attend the meeting.

4. The meeting considered the items on the agenda (see appendix 1 for the agenda). The main purpose of the meeting was to come up with a proposal of a programme of work for the ECA in order to fulfill the commitments made by its Executive Secretary and to ensure its leadership and coordination role in line with the resolutions of the Cape Town Symposium. Moreover, the meeting considered an advocacy strategy towards the forthcoming African Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development to be held in Ouagadougou from 10 to 15 May 2006.

5. The meeting came up with following outputs:

• A programme of work aimed at helping ECA to fulfill the commitments made by its Executive Secretary during the Cape Town Symposium and to ensure its leadership and coordination role in line with the resolutions of the Cape Town Symposium;
• A potential presentation for the ECA Executive Secretary on statistical advocacy for the forthcoming African Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development in Ouagadougou; and
• A set of advocacy tools to be exhibited at the forthcoming African Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development in Ouagadougou.

6. The following main themes discussed during the Cape Town meeting constituted the starting point for the development of a framework for action:

• Capacity building;
• Institutional reform;
• Leadership and management;
• Advocacy and communication; and
• Resource mobilization.

7. Based on these themes, the participants derived a framework for action by identifying areas for political, technical, and resource intervention in order to enhance African statistical development. They then linked to each of the themes the ECA commitments as well as other resolutions from the United Nations Statistical Commission, the Reference Regional Strategic Framework for Statistical Development endorsed during the last Forum on African Statistical Development (FASDEV) in order to come up with a programme of work aimed at implementing the resolutions.The advocacy tools and the presentation to the African Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development directly emerged from the derived framework and the programme of work (ECA/ESPD/ABSA/2006/7).

3. The Way Forward

8. The Friends of ECA are expected to meet in September 2006 in preparation of the 2007 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development to be hosted by Rwanda.

Appendix 1: Agenda of the Pretoria Meeting of the Friends of the ECA

Time			Session/Activity	Document
				Number Name
			Sunday, 2 April 2006
09:00-11:30		Session 5: Setting up a Regional Census Programme in support of the 2010 Round of Population & Housing Censuses (cont.) Review of current strategic and development frameworks and work programs on statistical development in Africa. Review strategic and development frameworks relevant to statistical capacity building in Africa (such as Marrakech Action Plan on statistics, Friends of the Chair on MDG’s Indicators, Nepad, MDG’s, PRSP’s and other sub-regional economic integration frameworks, Commission for Africa Report etc). Identify past, current and future initiatives and programs aimed at statistical development		Marrakech Action Plan Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics in Africa: Progress Report Report on Friends of the Chair on MDG Indicators Regional Strategic Framework for Statistical Capacity Bldg Canadian Initiative and on Statistical Capacity bldg ONS Response
11:30-11:45	Tea/Coffee break
11:45-13:00		Session 6: Recommendations
			Recommendations for ECA Conference of African Ministers Discussion	ASSD 2006/04 Conference of African Minister Proposed Programme for the Biennium 2006-7
13:30-14:30	Lunch break
14:30-16:30		Session 7: Future Work (cont.)
			Future Work required for 2010 RPHC: tasks, selection, appointment of Focal points Developing capacity building strategies for 2010 RPHC
			Establishing Working Groups: Census Operations/New & emerging Issues/Planning & Financing censuses/analysis, dissemination and utilization of census data Working in Partnership (Fora, workshops, census newsletter, coordination function of ECA) Roll-out Plan of Support to countries conducting censuses	ASSD 2006/04
			Towards the 2007 Africa Symposium on Statistical Development
16:30-16:45	Closure

Appendix 2: List of participants