ABSA Launching  Meeting
Addis Ababa, 16 May 2003

Draft Report

Introduction

The launching meeting of the Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa (ABSA) was held on Friday 16 May 2003 at the Conference Centre of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). The meeting was opened to all participants of the Sub-Committee on Statistics of the third meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI). The members of the Committee or their representatives attended the meeting from the following countries and organizations: Congo, Ghana, Kenya,  Mauritania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Observatoire Economique et Statistique d’Afrique Subsaharienne (AFRISTAT),African Development Bank(ADB), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA),Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Economie Appliquée d’Abidjan (ENSEA) andEastern African Statistical Training Centre (EASTC). The representatives of Madagascar, South Africa and SADC were absent.

I. Opening Session

I.1. Introductory Remarks

In his introductory remarks, the Director of the Economic and Social Policy Division (ESPD) reiterated ECA’s commitment to work for statistical development in Africa. He further requested the meeting to reconsider the report presented to CODI concerning the number of vacant statistical posts and its impact on the implementation of the work programme. “ECA has obviously made changes in its statistical activities so it cannot be said that statistics is not given prominence by ECA”, the Director said.

This statement was followed by discussions that can be summarized as follows:

The lack of a clear policy on Statistics at ECA;

The process of rethinking Statistics in ECA, which was not re-echoed;

ECA failure to respond adequately to the expectations of member States in terms of being the authoritative repository of statistical data for Africa; the lack of databases of reliable and easily accessible data and the fact that the division in charge of Statistics does not provide the other ECA divisions with data ;

The reduction of the capacities and resources allocated to statistics;

The lack of communication from ECA while member States have needs and are expecting responses;

The shift of the centre of gravity of statistical activities from ECA to other institutions despite the fact that requests by member States are not completely fulfilled. As long as ECA keeps thinking that things are going well while countries have a completely different assessment of the situation, the dialogue of the deaf will continue;

The emergence of sub-regional institutions on the African statistical scene should be taken into account in the diagnostic of the situation. In any case, it is necessary to arrive at a consensus on the diagnostic;

The fact that participants were merely referring to the ECA report, which indicated the high vacancy rate of 40%, which cannot go unnoticed;

The transfer of the statistical function to another division after CODI II is an indication that ECA does not have a clear direction in its policy;

The pursuit of more analytical activities is, of course, a positive trend but should not be conducted to the detriment of the strengthening of capacities in national accounts, household surveys and so on; and

The fact that ECA does no longer provide support to the statistical training centres has an impact on the coordination of their programmes as well as on the review of programmes in light of the emerging trends in the demand of member States.

A point of order was raised stating that the issue should be for consideration on the agenda item 3 and the meeting should now proceed to the election of officers.

I.2. Election of officers

The meeting elected the following officers:

• Chair: Kenya
• Vice-chair: Mauritania
• Rapporteur: Mozambique

II. Terms of Reference of the Advisory Board

The discusions on the terms of reference as submitted by CODI II were as follows  :

Creation

It was recommended that:

• Reference should be made to the last ECA Conference of Ministers which adopted the resolution on the setting up of the Advisory Board in the paragraph relative to its inception;
• Institutional link of the board should be stressed by indicating explicitly that “it was created at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) the Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa (ABSA)”;
• the name of the Committee should be “Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa” (ABSA) in English and “Comité consultatif sur la Statistique en Afrique” in French with the acronym of ABSA.

Membership

The discussions focused particularly on the role of observers. Some participants suggested that the directors of some divisions should be invited as observers, in particular the Director of the Development Information Services Division (DISD) in order to facilitate the coordination of joint activities undertaken within CODI. Other participants stressed the need for the limitation of the number of observers who could influence the debate even if they will not participate in the decision–making process. The idea of getting a maximal number of observers was also expressed.

Finally, it was recommended that:

• The number of members should be increased from 15 to 18 to take into account the fact that the Director of Economic and Social Policy Division is an ex-officio member of the Board and that there are two other members, African Development Bank (ADB)  and AFRISTAT who will participate at their own expenses. This arrangement allows two more countries to be represented on the board;
• Point 7 of the terms of reference should be rephrased as follows: “The Director of the Economic and Social Policy Division is an ex-officio member of the Board”;
• The number of observers should be limited to a third of the members.

Officers

It was recommended to add the following: “the secretariat of the Committee shall be serviced by the Economic and Social Policy Division”.

Meetings

A participant expressed the need to specify the sources of the funds needed to organize the extraordinary meetings of the Board. It was noted that the point related to the funding of the meetings had been clearly expressed.

III. Rules and Procedures

The meeting noted the need to:

• Specify the content of “National Statistical System” (NSS) as actors different from National Statistical Offices (NSOs), which are part of the NSS;
• Go through the potential areas of intervention of ABSA in terms of: (i) organization, management and coordination of activities and statistical systems; (ii) strengthening capacities for the traditional production of data, training and research;
• Complete the NSSs by sub-regional statistical systems (SRSs) and regional statistical systems (RSSs) where they do not exist and/or widening the sphere of the existing SRSs and RSSs to other countries.

Finally, it was decided to refer to the usual rules and procedures of similar committees.

IV. What National Statistical Systems expect from ECA?

The relationship between CODI and its Statistics component was raised as the Statistical function was transferred from the Development Information Services Division to the Economic and Social Policy Division. Is there a need to remove the sub-committee on Statistics from CODI or to establish a joint Committee, which brings together statisticians, planners and demographers? It was finally decided to maintain the status quo.

Specific issues highlighted include:

• The need to create synergies to reduce the burden of data collection of the countries;
• The advocacy on Statistics initiated by PARIS21  should be strengthened;
• The use of peer reviews to exchange best practices should be established. ECA should organize these exchanges and promote south-south cooperation;
• The benchmarking is essential for peer review;
• The link between ECA sub-regional offices and the National Statistical Offices (NSOs) should be clarified;
• The sharing of expertise in the field of poverty mapping for example, should be encouraged.

V. The Way Forward

The Director of ESPD thanked the participants for the frank dialogue that took place and indicated his willingness to work as a team to service the member States and provided the following information:

• Annual meetings of ABSA will be convened by ECA. The first meeting will take place during the last week of July 2003  ;
• ECA will prepare a proposal of a document concerning its vision and strategy for statistical development in ECA;
• The Members of the Board will exchange their experiences on the ways and means of operationalizing the procedures and mechanisms of peer review.

Several issues were discussed including:

• The need to redefine the name of the Economic and Social policy Division to better emphasize the statistics function;
• The need to clarify the relationships between ABSA and CODI;
• The fact that meetings should be organized in member States on a rotational basis which will provide member States with an opportunity to share their experiences. Uganda offered to host the first meeting of ABSA in July 2003.

VI. Any Other Business

ECA is invited :

• To liaise with the Directors of National Statistical Offices in Ghana, Madagascar and Mozambique for the identification of representatives of these countries as data users in ABSA;
• To submit the agenda and documentation to the members of the Committee on time for an adequate preparation of the meeting.

Annex 1 : Agenda

Annex 2: ABSA Membres

Experts invited in a personal capacity
14. Sénégal Monsieur Amadou Mactar Dieye Département géomatique Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE) B.P. 15532 Dakar (Sénégal) Fax  : (221 8) 25 81 68 dieye@cse.sn / amdieye@yahoo.com	15. UGANDA Mr. Ben Kiregyera Chairman of the Board Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) P.O. Box 13 Entebbe, Uganda Fax: (256 41) 234 219 kiregyera@africaonline.com.ug
Members without financial support
16. AFRISTAT Monsieur Lamine Diop Directeur général Observatoire Economique et Statistique d’Afrique Subsaharienne (AFRISTAT) B.P. E 1600 Bamako (Mali) Fax  : (223 2) 21 11 40 Tel.  : (223 2) 21 55 00 lamine.diop@afristat.org	17. ADB Monsieur Charles L. Lufumpa Directeur Division Statistique Banque Africaine de Développement Tunis (Tunisie) Fax: (216 71) 35 19 33 E-mail: c.lufumpa@afdb.org / c.lufumpa@yahoo.fr
Observers
UNSD	UNESCO
FAO	PARIS 21
UNICEF	World Bank
And others