.,.~y~~
. .
\ ?-"
CENTRAL STATISTICS OFFICE
A.I. Momoh Street,Tower Hill, PMB 595, Freetown,SIERRA LEONE Tel. 232-22-223287, Fax. 232-22-223897
cso@sierratel.sl www.statistics-sierra-Ieone.org
COUNTRY REPORT: SIERRA LEONE CODI Statistics Sub-Committee
A. ORGANISATION OF STATISTICAL SYSTEM i) Current Organization: -
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) currently has four operational divisions, (Economic and Social Statistics, Data Processing, Regional Statistics Offices, and Census Secretariat).
The CSO has a full staff complement of 181 positions, out of which there are 21 (11.59%) established posts at the professional level, 10 (5.52%) at the middle level and 150 (82.9%) at the junior level. However, currently, the office has 14 professionals (12 males and 2 females) excluding the CEO/Director and 10 middle level staff. The present staff strength in the department is 82. In terms of distribution the fourteen professional staff constitute 17.07%, the ten middle level staff 12.20% and the 58 junior staff 70.73%. The present staff strength of 82 is only 45.30% of the full staff complement.
ii) Statistical Legislation
The legal foundation on which the CSO exists is the Statistics Act of(1963) The Act empowers the CSO to implement a coordinated system of economic and social statistics. The census (Amendment) Act 1974 also designates the CSO Director as Chief Census Officer.
iii) Coordination
The CSO has witnessed a serious erosion of its coordination responsibilities as statistical units have mushroomed in almost all Ministries with no reference or control by the CSO.
iv) Changes over the last Decade
The CSO has over the last ten years continued to carry out its mandate of compiling National Accounts, External Trade Statistics, Price and Labour Statistics. It has also conducted Agricultural Censuses, various administrative and household surveys in spite of its resource constraints.
in Parliament during the course of the year. Once this becomes law, the emerging Statistics Sierra Leone will be much more capable of recruiting and retaining more technically qualified staff to carry out its professional mandate.
B. USER-PRODUCER RELATIONS
a) Structure
At the national level, the users of our statistics include Bank of Sierra Leone, EPRU, the University of Sierra Leone and other non-governmental organisations. At the moment the relations between us has been very amicable.
b) Activities
Workshops and Seminars to explain the need for statistical data and greater co-ordination between users and producers
c) Communication
In order to determine what users want, the Central Statistics Office carries out consultations in various forms, including involvement with statistics user groups. In November 1998 a large-scale consultation exercise was carried out as part of the commemoration of the African Statistics Day. The Central Statistics Office invited contributions from many individuals working in statistical organizations, the Bank of Sierra Leone, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Development and Economic Planning (MODEP) and other line ministries. In addition, invitations to contribute reports were sent to over 15 individuals and organizations. Various individuals and organizations contributed by writing on topics related to the harnessing of information for development. In 2000, African Statistics Day was celebrated in the Southern Regional Headquarter town of Bo so that areas outside the capital could also be consulted..
C. STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES a) Current Activities
~ Rapid assessment of the population survey (RAPIDS 2001).
~ Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS 2001)
~ Compilation of monthly Consumer Price Index for Bo, Freetown and Kenema; External Trade Statistics, National Accounts, Annual Statistical Digest
~ Preparations (cartographic work) for the Population and Housing Census 2002.
~ Expanded Programme in Immunisation (EPI) Coverage Survey.
b) Future Activities
~ Business and Industry Survey 200I.
~ Survey of Household Expenditures and Household Economic Activities (SHEHEA) 2002.
~ Survey on Informal Sector Activities 2002.
~ Expansion of the coverage ofCPI
~ Expansion ofthe coverage of National Accounts
~ Establishment of District Statistics offices
~ HIV Sero-prevalence Survey in 2002
D. BRIEF ON HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS
Household survey results have continued to provide data for the estimation of private consumption expenditure in the compilation of national accounts and, weights for the construction of Consumer Price Indices in addition to macro-economic and social welfare planning and programming. Over the years such results have also been used to study the nutritional contents of household food intake. The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey - 2 (MICS-2), which is the most recent national household survey, was undertaken by the CSO in 2000 and the report published and disseminated nationwide in 2001. A hallmark of the survey was the cooperation of all armed groups, which enabled access to all areas of the country.
The challenges of household surveys in the country include:
o Inadequate resources: household surveys in general require huge amount of material and financial resources. Resource constraints have been largely responsible for their irregularity.
o Insecurity: After the last round of surveys in 1989/90 a large part of the country became inaccessible as a result of the war, which started in 1991. This prevented complete coverage of any representative number of households that would have yielded valid statistics.
o Problem of definition of the unit of observation, that is, the household and its related characteristics.
o Classification and its measurement of household income and its components.
o Imputing housebold expenditure particularly for commodities produced on home account and those received in kind.
o A large segment of the ecouomy continues to be non-monetized. This has the tendency of causing an under estimation of household income and expenditure.
[J Restructuring ofthe CSO to improve its professional capacity.
[J Development of improved data collection and analysis techniques.
E. DATA DISSEMINATION PRACTICES
The products of the Central Statistics Office are regularly disseminated to users through several channels.
These include, in the main,
[J The Annual Statistical Digest
[J Monthly Consumer Price Index Bulletins and Press Releases,
[J Quarterly Bulletins of External Trade, National Accounts and National Surveys.
[J Web Site andEsmail link.
The web page is regularly updated with valid statistics as they become available. The page can be reached at www.statistics-sierra-leone.org
F. DATA USERS
The key data users are:
[J Bank of Sierra Leone, for research and monitoring the performance of the economy.
[J University0f Sierra Leone, for research.
[J Line ministries of Goverrunent: Development and Economic Planning, Finance, Health, and Trade. The data are used for compilation of Balance of Payments, Budgeting, Trade Statistics and monitoring trade policies and, the general evaluation of social indicators.
[J Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture and Industry, to follow up industry performance.
[J Non-Goverrunental Organizations (NGOs). In particular the CPI is used for wage determination.
Other data are used for micro project programming and implementation.
o UN Specialized Agencies including UNICEF and WHO for monitoring key social indicators of the economy such as those that relate to women and children and other vulnerable groups within the population. Italso helps them in programming.
[J International users include ECA, ECOWAS, WAIFEM, IMF and World Bank. They use data for monitoring of Macro-Economic Policies pursued by Goverrunent.
· .
G. PRSP AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO STATISTICAL CAPACITY BUILDING
As a country emerging from conflict, poverty reduction strategies primarily focus on addressing the immediate challenge of transition from war to peace. This requires thorough analysis of the root causes of poverty as related to low incomes, manifested in many dimensions especially malnutrition, ill health, illiteracy and homelessness. Policy formulation to address these issues requires valid statistical information to serve as poverty benchmarks.
The GoSL has prepared an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (IPRSP), which was launched in July 2001. It is expected that the full PRSP will be completed by January 2003.
Meanwhile a PRSP Secretariat is being established in the Ministry of Development and Economic Planning and various surveys are planned by the CSO. The CSO is also represented on the Technical Committee
H. COORDINATION OF STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES
The department continues to coordinate statistical activities in spite of the fact that other institutions collect official statistics. It has also been involved in a series of surveys and other technical assignments, these include among others, a base line survey (1998) to fill data gaps and complement secondary and official data collection mechanisms, the Strategic Planning Process (a baseline survey on service delivery (1999-2000)), Budget Tracking and Monitoring (August 2000); the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (May 2000) and the Nutrition and Household Security Information System (NHFSIS).
I. NATIONAL PRIORITY AREAS AND NEEDS
A major constraint to macro-economic policy analysis and formulation has been the paucity of up-to-date information. This state of affairs has been further worsened by weak institutional capacity and a depletion of the human resource base of key institutions as a result of the ten-year conflict.
With the transition from war to peace, the major national priority area is to ensure access to relevant, reliable and timely socio-economic information needed for macro-economic policy formulation, implementation and monitoring. This would require:
~ Strengthening the institutional capacity of departments charged with the responsibility of collecting, analysing and disseminating official statistics. The provision of modem equipment, structural reforms, training, satisfactory remuneration that would restrain qualified technical staff from searching for greener partners after training at CSO, and other vital technical assistance can form the basis for such capacity building.
~ Granting autonomy to the Statistics Office to operate outside the civil service so that it can
