Opening Remark by Oliver Chinganya at the Eleventh Forum on Africa Statistical Development

Eleventh Forum on Africa Statistical Development, 28 October 2024

Oliver Chinganya

• Mr Philippe Gafishi,Inter-Regional Advisor at the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21),

• The representative of the World Bank, World Bank,

• Mr. Adoum Gagoloum, Chief Economic Statistics at the African Union Commission, and Director a.i. of the African Union Institute for Statistics (STATAFRIC),

• Mr Ben Paul Mungyereza, Manager of the Statistical Capacity Building Division, African Development Bank,

• Representatives of Development Partners,

• Representatives of regional economic communities,

• Representatives of Statistical Training Centres,

• Heads of National Statistical Offices,

Distinguished ladies and Gentlemen

As has been our tradition, we have organised the Forum on African Statistical Development (FASDev) at the back of the Statistical Commission for Africa. FASDev was initiated in 2004 by the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank, the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) and the World Bank.

Over the years, FASDev has established linkages among producers of official statistics, statistics training centres, and partners supporting statistical development on our continent. The meetings of the Forum have played a critical role in contributing to partnership building for statistical development in Africa, harnessing the opportunity for more actors to support African countries in the field. The use of Big Data and Data Science in official statistics, the implementation of national and regional strategies for the development of statistics, and capacity-building are three basic examples:

1. The Economic Commission for Africa, in collaboration with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda joined forces to develop the capacities of African National Statistics Offices to exploit big data sources and data science techniques to complement official statistics, and to provide knowledge on newly developed methods, algorithms and tools to the community of official statisticians in Africa. This partnership has since been extended to include the UNFPA, the African Development Bank, the East African Community, the Office for National Statistics of the United Kingdom, the University of Rwanda, and the African Institute of Mathematical Science, among others.

2. Regarding National Strategies for the Development of Statistics and Regional Strategies for the Development of Statistics, the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank, and the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century have worked together over the decades and continue to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of the strategies in African countries and regional economic communities. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has recently joined the team.

3. ECA, FAO and three regional statistical training centres (Abidjan, Arusha and Dakar) partnered to provide training and capacity-building on agricultural statistics. In the framework of this partnership, 48 students from national statistical systems got a master's degree in agricultural statistics from 2022 to 2024.

The theme of this year's StatCom "Unleashing the potential of African innovation in statistical development", resonates with the philosophy of FASDev which is to develop and strengthening capacity of NSOs to modernize and transform their statistical systems.

Distinguished ladies and Gentlemen

Four years ago, the COVID-19 crisis ravaged the human fibre - our core assets, FASDev focused on maintaining and guiding efforts to partnership building for statistical development in Africa towards the transformation and modernization of national statistical systems to assist countries to effectively support sustainable development goal agenda, the transformation agenda for Africa, and respond to and anticipate users' needs adequately.

Two years ago, we gathered here in Addis Ababa to reflect and discuss on "Strengthening and coordinating efforts and support to accelerate the transformation and modernization of national statistical systems in Africa". I am glad to report that since then, we have recorded notable progress in several countries with the support of partners, including in the digital census, modernization of administrative data for statistical purposes, the use of data science and new data sources to address data gaps and adequately respond to users' needs. This evidence indicates that the African national statistical systems are moving in the right direction.

However, there is need to expedite the provision of robust data and statistics to assist the Government in accelerating the achievement of the agenda for sustainable development and agenda 2063 through their national development plans. One of the significant challenges African National Statistical Systems faces is "Strengthening the mobilization of technical and financial resources to support innovation in statistical development in Africa", which is the theme of the eleventh meeting of FASDev. This theme is part of the continued effort in transformation and modernization of official statistics in Africa, where innovation plays an important role. Thus, governments should be moving towards fully funding their statistical systems.

Today, you will be introduced to the Integrated Strategic toolkit for the transformation and modernization of national statistical systems in Africa prepared by the Economic Commission for Africa to support and guide transformation and modernization on the continent. The toolkit stresses that innovation significantly contributes to the advancement of statistical capabilities and that leads to the transformation and modernization of official statistics if implemented - implying that by enabling innovation, national statistical offices can strengthen statistical development, providing a solid foundation for evidence-based decision-making and policy formulation at various levels.

The African Centre for Statistics at Economic Commission for Africa, along with several partners, is prioritizing innovation in its programme support for African National Statistical Systems. For instance, Centre is supporting member States to fill data gaps with high-frequency and cost-efficient data sources such as administrative data, by supporting the modernization of their administrative data sources for statistical purposes. It is also assisting countries to harness the opportunities offered by new data sources and technological and digital developments to improve data collection, analysis, dissemination, and use. This support includes digital censuses; the use of innovative tools and solutions, methods and techniques in collecting, processing, analyzing and disseminating data and statistics to measure national, regional and global development initiatives; integration of statistics and geospatial data; and transformational leadership to enable innovation.

This year, the FASDev programme of work has been prepared to showcase innovation initiatives implemented in countries, and how they successfully mobilize internal and external financial resources to this end. Also, the programme of work provides a space to highlight the offers and opportunities, areas of support (technical and financial), and the interests of development partner entities. It also allows discussion on the needs of national statistical systems and partnerships to bridge existing data gaps.

Distinguished ladies and Gentlemen

In conclusion, our collective ambition is to make FASDev a cornerstone for transforming and modernising national statistical systems on the African continent.

I, therefore, urge the eleventh Meeting of the Forum on Statistical development in Africa to deeply reflect on strengthening synergies among all stakeholders to enhance innovation in the African Statistical System because "Synergy is better than my way or your way; it is our way" ~ Stephen Covey.

With these remarks, I may wish ourselves a fruitful discussion.

Many thanks and keep safe.

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