Experts meet in Addis to validate the 2011 edition of the joint African Statistical Yearbook
ECA Press Release No. 24/2011
Addis Ababa, 24 March 2011 (ECA) -An Ad-hoc Experts’ Group Meeting to validate the 2011 edition of the joint African Statistical Yearbook (ASYB 2011) was held at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) from 20 to 22 March 2011. The Yearbook is the work of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Union Commission (AUC).
The yearbook will provide socio-economic data on Member States based on about 200 indicators in 10 to 15 sectors, according to Chukwudozie Ezigbalike of ECA's African Centre for Statistics.
This is the third edition produced jointly by the three institutions. Prior to 2009, ECA and AfDB produced separate annual statistical publications, namely, the African Statistics Yearbook and Selected Statistics on African Countries respectively. The AUC also produced occasional publications, such as KeyStats.
“The data in these publications were mostly the same, with the inevitable possibility of differences in figures, creating confusion among users. Member States also had to deal with the extra work of responding to multiple requests for essentially the same data sets from the organizations,” said Ezigbalike.
Beejaye Kokil, Economic and Social Statistics Division Chief at the African Development Bank called the Yearbook “a credible African source of information” for those who are uncomfortable with data released by institutions outside of Africa such as the World Bank.
He also notes, “Collecting these data together has reduced the cost of compilation and distribution, and has improved the quality of data we provide.”
The Yearbook is based on official data provided by Member States. The validation process for the ASYB 2011 started with a meeting of experts from AUC, AfDB and ECA from 16 to 18 March at the UNCC. Working in groups, country by country, indicator by indicator, the experts compared their data holdings and resolved inconsistencies. They also discussed how to deal with incomplete data sets; the use of harmonized data for MDG and related indicators; and preferred sources for indicators that Member States do not regularly compile. The validation workshop serves two purposes, updating as well as making corrections.
Until now the collection of data has been a laborious process of distributing questionnaires, followed by missions to various countries by staff of the three collaborating institutions.
“Now we want to change that,” said Ezigbalike, adding: “We want to have direct access to data from countries that have databases so that we can continually update our data. If they do not give us direct access, then we want them to push the data to us.”
The quality and quantity of data provided by member states has increased over the years, according to Ezigbalike and many of them have data bases on economic issues, which could help to ease the work of future compilations of the Year Book.
But as noted Ezigbalike, the value of data is in how it is used. Apart from interest by universities and researchers, he said that African countries use the Year Book for benchmarking, while donor countries use it for their interventions in African countries.
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Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 5445098 Fax: +251-11-551 03 65 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.uneca.org
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