Population and Housing Censuses Activities in the African Region: Key Issues and Challenges

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Strengthening Statistical Capacity in support of
progress towards the internationally agreed
development goals in the SADC region ECAs
Potential Contribution
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
First Steering Committee Meeting of the SADC
Development Account Project 14-16 July 2006,
Durban, South Africa
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Outline

• ECA Repositioning
• Elements of Programme
• Potential Areas of Contribution
• The Way Forward

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Background

• The project is aimed at strengthening statistical
  capacity-building in support of the MDGs in the
  region of the SADC
• Period 4 years (2006-2009)
• Executing agency UNSD/DESA
• Co-operating Agencies
• SADC Secretariat
• Division of Sustainable Development/DESA
• UNECA
• This development account is timely in terms of
  the revamping of statistical activities at ECA

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ECA Repositioning

• The new Executive Secretary has launched the
  process of repositioning ECA to better serve
  Africa
• The proposed repositioned ECA structure
• Recognizes the importance of statistics as a
  cross-cutting issue
• Includes a new entity with financial and
  administrative autonomy STATISTICS AND
  STATISTICAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
• The new entity will be provided with adequate
  financial and human resources staff

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Potential Areas of Contribution

• In the framework of the SADC development account
  project, the ECA should undertake the following
  activities

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Elements of Programme of the CSSC

• Promotion, coordination of, and advocacy for
  statistical activities in Africa and monitoring
  progress of statistical capacity building
• Building a data hub at ECA for the provision of
  development data on Africa
• Implementing the 1993 System of National Accounts
  (SNA)
• Supporting statistical training programmes
• Establishing a regional programme for population
  and housing censuses
• Providing technical assistance to African
  countries

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Potential Areas of Contribution (1)

• Promotion, coordination of, and advocacy for
  statistical activities in Africa and monitoring
  progress of statistical capacity building
• Activities
• To promote the RRSF among SADC countries
• To support countries in the design and
  implementation of their NSDS (organization,
  legislative framework)
• To prepare specific advocacy material for SADC
  countries for the celebration of the African
  Statistics Day
• Potential partnership
• PARIS21 on advocacy
• ADB

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Potential Areas of Contribution (2)

• Building a data hub at ECA for the provision of
  development data on Africa
• Activities
• facilitate storage and dissemination of
  statistical information
• Design and establish Websites for SADSC NSOs that
  do not have one to facilitate dissemination of
  data and increase visibility
• Establishing a SADC database on household surveys
  data to feed the ECA regional household surveys
  database
• Potential partnership
• AFRISTAT for the Websites (best practice)
• World Bank (Household Surveys database)
• ECE (macro time series database)
• IMF (GDDS, Metadata)

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Potential Areas of Contribution (3)

• Implementing the 1993 System of National Accounts
  (SNA)
• Activities
• To prepare a substantive assessment of the
  implementation status of the 1993 SNA in SADC
  countries
• To identify impeding factors
• To organise a workshop for experts to
  potentially address impeding factors
• To produce a manual on best practices in this
  region based on experts workshop
• Potential partnership
• ADB (ICP project)
• IMF-EAST AFRITAC (Manuel SNA for SADC countries)
• Afristat

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Potential Areas of Contribution (4)

• Establishing a regional programme for population
  and housing censuses
• Activities
• During the Census workshop, to organize
  workgroups on
• Effective use of IT and GIS for census operations
• Using the census for measuring new and emerging
  priority issues
• Planning and financing the next censuses
• Analysis, dissemination and utilization of census
  data
• Identify resources and expertise to be shared,
  e.g. IT expertise, exchange of professionals,
  training materials
• Potential partnership
• UNFPA, UNFPA-CST
• ICP, US Bureau of Census

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Potential Areas of Contribution (5)

• Providing technical assistance to African
  countries
• Activities
• Advisory services in the field of collection and
  dissemination of statistics and databases
• Advisory services in organization and management
  of NSOS (ECA has a regional adviser in the area)
• Advisory services in household surveys
• Potential partnership
• ECA should also contribute in terms of substance
  and organizational matters in other workshops and
  activities under this project

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Other initiatives

• Development Account on Gender disaggregated
• data

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Thank you!