Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 29 August 2016 (ECA) – The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has launched its newest product, the Africa Statistics Flash, which captures macro-economic and social data on the continent, giving member states and stakeholders an indication of where things stand in Africa on a monthly basis.
The African Statistical Yearbook 2016 was prepared under the aegis of the African Statistical Coordination Committee set up by major continental organizations dealing with statistical development, namely: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), the African Union Commission (AUC), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) within the framework of the implementation of the Reference Regional Strategic Framework for Statistical Capacity Building in Africa (RRSF).
In Cameroun, to develop the project, the NSO, l’institut National de Statistique (INS) worked in collaboration with the department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), the department of Fisheries and Livestock (MINEPIA), and a research institute called “l’Institut Sous-regional d’Economie et Statistique Appliquee” (ISSEA).
In Gambia, GBoS (the NSO) partner institution (TRI) was the school of information, technology and communication. The TRI has successfully developed an Android and web interface platform for Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI). The TRI also carried on the data collection with the support of the NSO.
Research and Information Services (RIS) was identified as the TRI partner of the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT). Initially the project was supposed to collect data on village registers with village heads’ secretaries as unpaid self-enumerators. This project however, could not be realized as RIS ran into problems with the Government of Zimbabwe pertaining to its registration. As a result, ZIMSTAT could not proceed with the village registers.
NSO in Tunisia has experimented with mobiles devices data collection since 2014, but with the collaboration of ECA it has taken a more sustainable turn. The whole infrastructure is being transformed to adapt to mobile technology and all the aspects are worked on (transfer, security etc...).
The initial survey to test the system was done with Consumer Price Index. The NSO team also went on a two days mission in Rabat, Morrocco, on February 2016 to learn from the High Commission Plan on how they collect data with new technology for the Employment Survey.
Realizing the advantages of using mobile technology for data collection and statistical production, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has implemented a series of pilot projects on strengthening the capacity of African countries to use mobile technologies to collect data for effective policy and decision making. The project is a parallel funded implementation of a Development Account (DA) project involving five countries in Phase I, and an additional five in Phase II.
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