Addis Ababa October 24/2022 (ENA) Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Demeke Mekonnen called for modernizing and transforming the African Statistics ecosystem to support effective decision-making for development plans at national, regional, and global levels.
Addressing the joint opening session of back-to-back meetings taking place this week in Addis Ababa as part of the eighth Statistical Commission for Africa (STATCOM), Demeke underlined that official statistical data play a crucial role in aiding policy makers and other decision makers to achieve sustainable development.
He
stressed the need for “comprehensive tools that can enable governments
to create and execute the policies required to achieve the digital goals
needed for regional integration as efficiently as possible.”
“I
am confident that these meetings will produce agreed upon
recommendations and solutions to strengthen the African national
statistical system in order to produce high quality data for monitoring
the development plans of their respective countries, agenda 2063 and
2030 agenda for sustainable development,” Demeke said.
According
to him, much of Africa’s key successes in reforming and modernizing
national statistical systems have been attributable to non-traditional
abilities such as statistical leadership, political engagement,
inventiveness and communications.
“Most
African countries have had some success in reforming and updating
government stats to meet the needs of national development including but
not limited to the use of digital technology,” he said, adding that
“Nevertheless, resulting from both demand and supply side constraints,
countries continue to face common transformation and modernizing
challenges. This includes, among others, data ecosystems, which are
increasingly offering opportunities, fostering the usage of digital data
and technology for developments in the continent.”
“Africa
relies on you to effectively update and transform the continental data
environment,” Demeke pointed out referring to the gathered
statisticians.
He
further added “ African governments should play in altering and
enhancing national statistics systems by setting a budget that is both
adequate and sustainable.”
The
deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister also expressed his
government’s commitment to further support the efforts of the Ethiopian
statistics system to deliver accurate and timely data for planning and
decision making based on evidence.
In a keynote address at the Eighth Session of the Statistical Commission for Africa, Chris Baryomunsi, Uganda Minister for ICT and National Guidance stressed “the need to develop agile statistical systems that are resilient to crises such as COVID – which heavily impacted statistical production and National Statistical Systems.”
He
emphasized the need to improve administrative data and civil
registration systems which together account for up to 70 percent of the
data required to monitor national development processes.
Organized
under the theme: “Modernizing data ecosystem in Africa to support
regional integration”, the Eighth Statistical Commission for Africa
seeks to strengthen the inter-related natural linkages between data,
statistics and civil registration.
The
Statistical Commission for Africa is the highest decision-making body
in Africa responsible for setting statistical standards, developing
concepts and methods and implementing them at the national, sub-regional
and continental levels.
The
meeting provides an opportunity for participants to discuss the link
between African and global statistical systems to ensure that Africa is
not left behind in global statistical initiatives.
Participants
will also be able to discuss progress and statistical development in
African statistical systems. Furthermore, the meeting will serve as a
platform for international partners to meet representatives of member
States of the Economic Commission for Africa to discuss the needs of
those member States.
The
United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management for Africa was
established to coordinate African geospatial development and to
contribute to the wider global initiative.
Over
the past decade, it has adopted realistic approaches to ensure that
systematic and comprehensive frameworks are put in place, along with
related policies, resources and systems to make geospatial information
technology easily accessible to decision-makers and the community in a
coordinated way.