Addis Ababa, 25 November 2014 (ECA) - The African Development Bank, the African Union Commission and the Economic Commission for Africa have joined forces to produce an Africa Regional Integration Index.
The index - the first systematic, quantitative, continent-wide monitoring system for regional integration in Africa - is designed to track African countries’ and RECs’ progress towards their shared regional integration goals and the impacts of regional integration in Africa. The Index shall help countries and RECs to identify gaps and make informed policy decisions on how best to meet their regional integration aspirations.
Given the novelty of the project and the fact that most of the indicators that are to be used have never been compiled in this manner before, AfDB, AUC and ECA shall organize a series of training sessions for national statistical focal points. In the first instance, the three institutions are focusing on training statistical focal points from COMESA, EAC and SADC countries.
The training which is planned from the 24-28 of November, 2014 shall take place at the AUC Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This first workshop is financed by the Africa Trade Fund, an AfDB hosted, trade-related technical assistance facility.
The three institutions will present their ongoing work on the Index at the margins of the first joint Africa Directors-General of Statistics meeting CoDGs/StatCom in Tunis from 8-12 December 2014, as well as at the AU Summit in January, 2015.
The first edition of the Index shall be presented at the Joint AU Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in March, 2015.
For more information on the project please contact:
· African Development Bank – Saidi Slaheddine: s.saidi@afdb.org; Jean –Guy Afrika: j.afrika@afdb.org;
· African Union Commission – Liwaeddine Fliss: LIWAEDDINEF@africa-union.org; Adjewoda Koami Kutoati: adjewodak@africa-union.org;
· Economic Commission for Africa – Issoufou Seidou Sanda, iseidou@uneca.org, William Davis, wdavis@uneca.org.
Issued by:
ECA External Communications and Media Relations Section
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