The African Centre for Statistics of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is holding a regional seminar on GDP rebasing based on Supply-Use Tables (SUTs) on 12-15 November 2019 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

GDP is the most important indicator and denominator among all the indicators for monitoring and evaluation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To have timely and quality GDP figures in every African country thus is fundamental and critical for the sustainable development on the continent. Rebasing GDP, i.e. revising the methods and base data used to calculate GDP, is one of the most needed activities among African countries in recent years.

To address the need of African countries, ECA has launched a capacity building programme on GDP rebasing in Africa which covers three phases. The first phase, an e-training module, was completed in November 2018. More than 300 participants from 47 countries registered for the e-training, and among them, about 170 completed the final assessment at the end of the module. This regional seminar is a follow-up of the first phase e-training, and continues ECA’s efforts in capacity building for countries to carry out projects on GDP rebasing.

The seminar will gather over thirty participants from countries that have a plan to rebase their GDP in next one to two years, including Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Gabon, The Gambia, Lesotho, Namibia, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sudan, and Zambia, as well as experts from the United Nations Statistics Division and some experienced countries.

The seminar will take place at the United Nations Conference Centre within the premises of ECA.  More ...