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The seventh meeting of the Statistical Commission for Africa (StatCom7) opened virtually on Tuesday with a wake-up call from Ethiopia’s President Sahle-Work Zewde for Africa to urgently transform and modernize its national statistical systems, especially in light of the continuing pandemic of the new coronavirus.
Speaking to officially open the meeting, Zewde said African governments should provide more support and budgets to modernize national statistical offices for evidence-based planning and decision-making. “The transformation of national statistical systems in Africa is more important now than ever before, as we fight the pandemic and seek to build better and stronger systems. Therefore, access to technology by national statistical systems should be promoted in all African countries in order to accelerate the production and use of data and statistics as a public good, ”he said.
Ms Zewde continued: “African governments should play an important role in allocating sufficient and sustainable budgets to national statistical offices so that they can provide quality data. We invite our development partners to support government efforts to modernize national statistical offices, including digitization. ”
He said national statistical offices on the continent should provide appropriate quality data to support continental initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the African Union Agenda 2063 and the global Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development for a informed and effective planning.
The President shared Ethiopia’s efforts to modernize its national statistical system and related issues at the meeting.
Ms Zewde said that the importance of national statistical systems has been further highlighted during the pandemic as they provide essential data, statistical services and information useful to understand the impact and scope of COVID-19.
“Therefore, it is imperative that producers of official statistics must transform and modernize their work to adequately respond to these data demands. The urgency to transform statistical systems has been emphasized by the impact of COVID-19 on statistical systems, ”he said.
For her part, ECA Executive Secretary, Vera Songwe, agreed with Ms. Zewde on the need to modernize the statistical systems in Africa.
“Much more can be done with technology through our national statistical offices to improve data collection and quality. If we can’t measure, we can’t manage, we can’t plan, and we can’t design policies. At a time when resources are scarce, data is important for designing and implementing the right policies, ”said Ms. Songwe.
Digitizing Africa’s national statistical systems, he said, is crucial for the continent to move forward from the multifaceted impacts of COVID-19.
Ms. Songwe said that CEPA and other UN agencies will continue to work with Member States during this Decade of Action to ensure that quality data and statistics that they both agree on are produced through databases. and common platforms.
He also highlighted the importance of censuses to provide vital information, adding that CEPA will continue to work with member states to readjust the continent’s GDP to understand and help reform the system of national accounts.
Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the UN Statistics Division, said that COVID-19 is an opportunity for Africa to modernize its national statistical systems and start using new alternative data sources. Using new data sources and new technologies can make statistical operations more profitable and provide more timely and frequent results, he said.
The President of the StatCom Africa Office, Ms. Albina Chuwa, who is also the Director General of the Tanzania National Statistics Office, emphasized the need to produce accurate data and effectively use statistics in policy-making based on evidence.
“We need numbers to measure our development processes. To see the inclusive growth that we are talking about in the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and the Africa that we want in the 2063 Agenda, then it is crucial that we produce the numbers to inform our policy and decision making, ”he said.
The theme of StatCom7 is: “Developing regional solutions to improve the resilience of African national statistical systems to meet the need for data during the Decade of Action in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In the context of the 2030 Agenda and the 2063 Agenda, the meeting will provide an opportunity for the African Statistical System to take stock of ongoing global initiatives and seek ways to incorporate ownership of new and / or updated methodologies aimed at improving the statistical capacities of the Member States. .
Participants include representatives of national, subregional, regional and international organizations; NGO; academic and research institutions; and the private sector.
