UNITED NATIONS
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
Distr.: LIMITED E/ECA/DISD/CODL1/15 18 May 1999
Original: ENGLISH
ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA First Meeting of the Committee on
Development Information (CODI)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 28 June - 2 My 1999
Implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical Development
in Africa in the 1990s: Progress ReportE/ECA/DISD/CODI.1/15
Table of contents
Paragraph Executive Summary
I. Introduction *"5
II Implementation of the Plan of Action 6-48
A. At the national level 10"26
B. At the regional and subregional levels 27-42
C. At the global level 43~48
III. Conclusions 49"50
IV. Action by the Statistics sub-committee 51-52
E/ECA/DISD/CODI.1/15
Executive Summary
The Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical Development in Africa in the 1990s was formulated by statisticians at the sixth session of the Joint Conference of African Planners, Statisticians and Demographers in January 1990 and was adopted in May 1990 by the ECA Conference of Ministers responsible for Economic Development and Planning. The Strategy for the implementation of Addis Ababa Plan of Action was formulated at a working group meeting and was subsequently endorsed at the seventh session of the Joint Conference in March 1992 and adopted by the ECA Conference of Ministers in April 1992.
The Strategy provided a comprehensive framework for the efforts to rehabilitate, revitalise and develop African statistics and build up statistical capacities in the region. As noted in the introduction to the Strategy, the Addis Ababa Plan of Action is based on three cardinal principles; i.e. the central role of an improved statistical system in economic and social development; the key role of ECA in development and promotion of statistics in Africa, without prejudice to the important role of other agencies and donors; and the need for coordinating the support provided by international agencies and donors.
Significant progress has been made in the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action as observed from the results of the Survey on the Statistical Development of African countries which was undertaken by ECA during 1997-1998 under the umbrella of a task force created by the Coordinating Committee on African Statistical Development (CASD). The results of the surveys showed that progress had been made with regard to many of the recommendation of the Plan of Actions in particular: the commemoration of African Statistics Day, 18 November; reviewing organizational structures of national statistical services (NSS); preparation of budget documents showing details of inputs and final outputs to be delivered by the NSS organisation of short-term courses in statistics by the NSSs, and conduct of needs assessment/programme review and strategy development exercises.
The areas which still required further action by African governments in terms of implementation were:
provision of adequate funding for statistical activities; assuring utmost effectiveness of legislation governing the statistical services; priority to statistical activities and statistics; developing attractive schemes of service for statisticians; preparation of long-term statistical development plans; setting up National Statistical Councils, user producer and producer/producer committees; preparation and implementation of staff development programmes; improvement in the quality of data with regard to setting up organizational units on methods and standards, inclusion of research as an integral part of NSS activities, and timeliness in the publication of data.
The Statistics sub-committee is invited to provide further guidance for future action in the light of the report and in particular to make reference to the following:
(a) the relevance of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action and the strategy for its implementation beyond the year 1999;
(b) evaluation of the ten years implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action (c) the relevance of the CASD beyond the year 1999;
(d) promotion of partnership in African statistical development;
(e) effective coordination of technical cooperation in statistics with other agencies - UNFPA, The World Bank, ILO, UNICEF and bilateral agencies.
E/ECA/DISD/CODI1/15
I. INTRODUCTION
1. The ECA Conference of Ministers formally adopted the Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical Development in Africa in the 1990s, in its resolution 683 (XXV) of May 1990. A Strategy for the Implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action was adopted by the twenty-seventh session of the Economic Commission for Africa/eighteenth meeting of the Conference of Ministers responsible for Economic Planning and Development, held in April 1992.
2. It should be recalled that the Addis Ababa Plan of Action was recommended by Joint Conference of African Planners, Statisticians and Demographers at its sixth session held in January 1990. This recommendation arose from the results of assessment of statistical capacity, which was undertaken by ECA in 1988-1989 in 32 African countries under the UNDP-financed World Bank/ECA project on "Data collection related to development programmes and aid flows in Africa".
3. During the 1970s and 1980, the state of statistics in Africa deteriorated due to the deteriorating economic situation of countries. The poor state of statistics led to the following deficiencies: poor management of statistical offices, inadequate funding, lack of timeliness in delivering outputs, unsatisfactory quality of data produced and inability to respond to new data needs.
4. The objectives of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action are as follows:
(i) to achieve national self-sufficiency in statistical production, including the creation of a comprehensive national statistical database by the end of the century;
(ii) to improve the reliability and relevance of data produced in African countries;
(iii) to undertake production of data required for formulating, monitoring and evaluating programme designed to restructure and transform African economies;
(iv) to improve the timeliness in the production and dissemination of statistical information;
(v) to increase awareness of the importance of statistical information among users;
(vi) to strengthen and sustain statistical training programmes at various levels and institutions;
(vii) to promote contact and dialogue among African statisticians;
(viii) to encourage improvement in the organizational set-up of the national statistical services (NSS) and assure autonomy;
(ix) to improve coordination of all statistical development programmes at both national and international levels.
5. The Strategy provides a comprehensive framework for efforts to rehabilitate, revitalise and develop African statistics and build up statistical capacities in the region. The Strategy describes some of the main steps that should be taken to ensure that the Plan is implemented at national, regional and global levels.
II. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLAN OF ACTION
6. To enable an assessment of the implementation of the Plan of Action, the Coordinating Committee on African Statistical Development (CASD) established a task force on "Monitoring the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action". The objective of this task force was to assess progress and further assist in the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action. One of the activities of the task force was to conduct a regional postal survey titled "Survey on the Statistical Development of Africa countries, 1997". This task force was led by the ECA with the three associates AFRISTAT, Nigeria, and the African Development Bank (ADB).
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7. The survey questionnaire was adapted from the questionnaire contained in the document
"Framework for monitoring statistical development" which was prepared by the ECA with assistance of a consultant, in 1993.
8. The report of the survey is issued as a separate document (ECA/DISD/CASD.8/98/4/R). We shall now highlight the results of the survey on the implementation of the aspect of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical Development in Africa in the 1990s.
9. We shall also highlight the implementation of the Plan of Action at national level from the results of the survey, and provide the regional and global level implementation from other sources.
A. At the national level (0 Statistical Development
10. The Plan of Action recommended that adequate funding should be provided for statistical activities.
The report of the 1997 survey on the statistical development of African countries showed that the majority of countries (69.8%) had inadequate funding of their statistical activities and only some (17.4%) of the countries stated that they had adequate funding for their statistical activities.
11. With respect to legislation of statistical services, 52.2% of the countries stated that legislation governing the statistical services in their countries assured their utmost effectiveness. There was therefore need in many of the countries for more work to ensure the effectiveness of their statistical legislation.
12. One of the recommendations of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action is the adoption of African Statistics Day, 18 November, in order to increase public awareness of the important role which statistics play in all aspect of social and economic life. This Day was celebrated for the ninth time in 1998. The results of the survey showed that the majority of Africa countries (78.3%) commemorate this Day on 18 November of each calendar year. This indeed is a very encouraging indication of the initiatives being undertaken by many countries to sensitize their respective populations on the need for timely and accurate statistics.
13. African countries have reported to ECA on the manner in which they have celebrated this Day.
Some countries have organized a seminar on the theme of the Day for their national statistical association as part of the celebration of this Day. Some have issued a press release for the local newspaper or radio/television, while others have organized a gathering of officials and the public and a speech read by the Minister responsible for statistics. Other countries have organized an exhibition showing the importance of statistics for planning. Indeed a combination of these events, repeated annually, would go a long way in sensitizing the public on the importance of statistics in everyday life.
(ii) Organization of statistical services
14. With regard to the organizational structure of the national statistical service, the Plan of Action recommended that these should be examined carefully and where necessary restructured in order to meet the various data needs. The result of the survey showed that the majority of African countries (74%) reviewed their organizational structures periodically while 21.7% of the countries did no review their structures periodically and 4.3% of the countries gave no response.
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15. The Plan of Action recommended that in order to attract and retain suitable human resources, African Governments should developed attractive schemes of services for statistics. The survey result showed that only 52.2% of the countries had a scheme of service for its staff. This shows that more effort should be made by African countries to develop their schemes of service for the statistical staff. A scheme of service is useful for the NSS in view of the career development of the serving staff and avoid or reduce brain drain.
(iii) Work programmes
16. The Plan of Action recommended that as part of their work programmes NSS should prepare long- term statistical development programmes in the context of national development plans and that such programmes should serve as a guide and framework for annual or biennial national statistical work programmes, the results of the surveys showed that the majority of countries (58.5%) did not prepare these long-term statistical development plans. Only 39.1% of the countries reported to have in place these long-term statistical development programmes.
17. On the preparation of annual budget documents showing details of inputs and final outputs to be delivered by the NSS, which was recommended by the Plan of Action, the result of the survey showed that the majority of countries (60.9%) had established these annual budget documents in their work programmes and only 30.4% of the countries had not established these annual budget documents.
(iv) Statistical committees
18. The Plan of Action requested countries to set up National Statistical Councils, which would act as advisory board on policy relating to statistical matters. At the same time countries were requested to reactivate or initiate user/producer and producer/producer committees as appropriate.
19. The results of the survey showed that the establishment of National Statistical Councils or user producer and producer/producer committes was not growing fast. The majority of African countries (58.5%) did not have these councils, the same was true of user/producer committees. Only 43.5% of the counties had in place National Statistical Councils or user/producer committees. With respect to producer/producer committees, 30.4% of the countries had established them while 60.8% of the countries had not established these committees.
(v) Statistical training
20. The Plan of Action recommended that national statistical services and statistical training institutions at national level should organize specialised short-term training courses in statistics. The results of the survey showed that the majority of the countries (69.8%) organized short-term courses in statistics and 30.4% of the countries did not organize such courses.
21. At the same time, the Plan of Action in its recommendation urged national statistical services to prepare and implement staff development programmes, which would help them to fully utilize available training facilities. The results of the survey showed that 52.2% of the NSS implemented staff development programmes while 47.8% did not implement these programmes.
22. The Plan of Action also recommended that the linkage of NSS with statistical and other training institution should be encouraged. Information available to the ECA was that in some countries the NSS
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was directly linked to training institutions in terms of support and teaching lecturers. The NSS looked to the local statistical training institutions to supply the needed human resources and also to the provision of specialised short-term courses, workshops and seminars.
(vi) Data quality and dissemination
23. The Plan of Action recommended that in order to improve the quality of information, NSS should consider setting-up in their offices an organisational unit on methods and standards. The results showed that only 47.8% of the countries had these organizational units and the majority of the countries (52.2%) did not have these units in their NSSs.
24. The Plan of Action also recommended that NSS should be encouraged to include research as an integral part of their statistical activities. A total of 69.8% of the NSS reported that research was not an
integral part of their activities. There is therefore need to encourage countries to engage in research and
to consider it as part of their regular activities.25. On data quality, NSS were urged to ensure that data was published with a minimum delay. The
survey on the statistical development of African countries attempted to collect information on data quality
covering availability, timeliness, reliability and relevance of data. The results on data availability showed that in addition to printed publications, many countries were releasing their data series in computerizeddata bases or other magnetic forms i.e. diskette, CD-ROM etc. On timeliness the overall results were
mixed, while as for some data series the results were released timely, others were not. The reasons forlack of timeliness were not requested. On reliability, the results showed that the level of processing of the data series was around 75-80%, level of error reduction fluctuated between 5-90% and coverage levels
were national, 60-80%, sample or incomplete.
(vii) Other actions
26. One of the actions recommended in the Strategy for the implementation ofthe Addis Ababa Plan of Action was the conduct of needs assessment/programme review and strategy development exercises. The results of the survey showed that the majority of countries (60.9%) had carried out needs assessment studies. The same number of countries (60.9%) indicated that their statistical plans were drawn up from
the results of the needs assessment.B. At the regional and subregional levels
27. At the regional and subregional levels significant achievement had been made towards the
implementation of the Plan of Action.28. It should be recalled that a Coordinating Committee on African Statistical Development (CASD) was established in March 1992. The CASD is a body for coordinating statistical development in the African region and one of its roles is that of assisting ECA in discharging its responsibility of monitoring the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action. It therefore assists ECA in reporting to the Committee on Development Information (CODI) and other Committees on progress made in the
implementation of the Plan of Action.29. The membership of the CASD has been changing overtime as a result of restructuring of the
Committee. CASD has been reconstituted three times, first in 1992 when subcommittees were
E/ECA/DISD/CODI.1/15 Page 5 established to address specific areas of concern to African statistical development,
committee established four sub-committees covering four areas:
The main CASD
Sub-committee 1. Training
2. Research, methods and standards 3. Data processing
4. Organisation and management of national statistical systems
Convenors
EUROSTAT and ODA (U.K.) United Nations Statistics Division Statistics Sweden
ECA and The World Bank
Secondly, in 1996 when CASD was restructured following its evaluation. At this time the main Committee was restructured to 19 members comprising ECA member States (9), Statistical Training Centres participating in the Statistical Training Programme for Africa (STPA) (2) and African and Non- Arrican Bilateral and Multilateral agencies and donors (8). The subcommittees we abolished in favour of establishment of specific task forces to address specific issues. Thirdly, in 1998 the Committee was restructured and expanded further to be composed of ECA member States (10), statistical training centres participating in STPA (2), African and Non-African Bilateral and Multilateral agencies and donors (8) and a new category of the Committee with observer status comprising African and non-African agencies and donors (10). As of now the CASD is a committee of 30 members. These changes have resulted in changes in the terms of reference of the Committee.
30. The secretariat of CASD is located in the ECA Development Information Services Division and is responsible for the overall monitoring of the implementation of the Plan of Action. It is also a repository of all reports and reference materials relating to the activities of the Committee.
31. The involvement of the ECA member States in the activities of the Committee has overtime been of great concern hence each restructuring led to the increase in the number of ECA member States to ensure their involvement and contribution to statistical development issues in Africa.
32. Nine meetings of CASD have been held in Addis Ababa since March 1992. The last meeting, the ninth, was held from 24-25 June 1999.
33. With regard to task forces, CASD adopted the following five task forces at its seventh meeting:
Task force
Connectivity for statistics
Monitoring the
implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action
Strengthening of the Statistical Training Programme of Africa (STPA) centres
Leader
ECA
ECA
Institute of Statistics and applied Economics
Objective(s)
To improve the coordination and
communication of CASD members and ultimately national statistical services
To assess progress and further assist in the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action To study the most recent evaluation of STPA centres and identify problems which are hampering their successful operations
E/ECA/DISD/CODI. 1/15 Page 6
Country and regional micro data service units and library, inter alia for povertv and gender monitoring - pilot project
Country live database - pilot project
(ISAE), Uganda The World Bank
The World Bank
Three objectives in two phases:
Phase I: to assist 2-5 pilot countries to establish data service centres containing documented and easily accessible household survey and census data-and to establish a similar regional service centre at the ECA. The service centres to include minimum national social data sets for poverty monitoring and monitoring of social programmes and actions.
Phase II: (1) To assist the pilot (and any other interested) countries, through training and mentoring in producing policy-relevant programme monitoring reports;
(2) To develop and share appropriate summary social indicators based on the data sets, including gender-sensitive poverty indicators.
To establish country-level live databases (CLDB) containing core macro and sectoral statistical indicators in selected pilot countries and - eventual establishment of links with a regional database facility (RLDB)
34. The work of the task forces was discussed at the eighth CASD meeting in May 1998 and since non of the task forces had achieved its full objectives, the Committee urged that their work should continue taking into account observations and recommendations made at the meeting. Task force achievements were to be reviewed again at the ninth meeting of CASD. Also two task forces led by The World Bank were agreed to be merged into one task force titled "Databases and Databanks".
35. In addition, at the eighth meeting of CASD, the Committee accepted the introduction of a new task force titled "Gender in the national accounts". This task force originated from the Conference on African Women and Economic Development: Investing in our future" which was organised by ECA from 28
April - 1 May 1999 as part of ECA's 40th Anniversary celebrations. The objective of the task force is to
study and make recommendations on how to include the gender perspective in the national accounts. The task force leader is ECA.36. The involvement of African countries and regional and subregional agencies in the work of task forces can be seen from the terms of reference of the task forces. So far Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Djibouti have participated as associates in the work of task forces. Subregional and regional agencies in Africa, which have participated as associates to task forces include: African Development Bank, AFRISTAT, ENSEA, University of Ibadan (Nigeria).
37. It should be mentioned that every year, ECA prepares a press release and poster in observance of African Statistics Day. From 1992-1997, ECA observed African Statistics Day and African Development Information Day simultaneously on 18 November. During that period the press release covered both days. In 1991 and 1998, the African Statistics Day was celebrated separately from the African Development Information Day. The themes of the celebration of the Day have been as follows:
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Year Theme
1991 No theme
1992 Statistical development challenges of the 1990s
1993 Strengthening statistical information systems for development planning and policy reforms
1994 Building statistical capacity in support of sustainable development and regional integration
1995 Enhancing data production and dissemination for effective socio-economic policy analysis and management
1996 Towards poverty eradication in Africa: Data and statistics for policies and programmes 1997 Building an Information Society
1998 Harnessing information for development
38. It should be recalled that over the years the Joint Conference of African Planners, Statistician and Population and Information Specialists had been the main technical body responsible for providing guidance in the field of planning; statistics, population and information science. During the restructuring of the intergovernmental machinery of ECA in 1997, the statistical function of the Joint Conference was subsumed in the new Committee on Development Information. In this connection, the Joint Conference had acted as a vehicle for approving important documents such as the Strategy for the Implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action before adoption by the ECA Conference of Ministers or formulating resolutions for adoption by the ECA Conference of Ministers.
39. At each Joint Conference, the ECA presented a progress report on the work of CASD. This enabled the Joint Conference to be informed of progress being made by the Committee and activities being undertaken towards the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action.
40. The active participation of regional and subregional organisations and institutions in the field of statistics should be recognised as part of the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action. An example is the establishment of AFRJSTAT in 1993, which has a current membership of 16 French- speaking African countries. AFRISTAT has assisted these countries to develop their statistical infrastructures and adopt common methodologies and standards. ECA is a member of the Scientific Council of AFRISTAT and participates regularly in its meetings. ECA also participates in workshops/seminars organised by AFRISTAT from time to time. Other organisations such as Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been organising meetings of Directors of national/central statistical services in its subregion. The SADC committee has decided to conduct a population census in year 2001 in all its countries. The United Nations Fund for Population Activities is cooperating with SADC in the preparation of this census initiative. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern African countries has promoted the compilation of trade statistics required for regional cooperation and integration of African economies. Statistical Training Programme for Africa (STPA) centres have continued the training of statisticians required for the statistical work in the public as well as private sectors of African countries etc. The African Development Bank has provided assistance to some African countries for the development of their statistical infrastructure and data production activities.
41. ECA as part of its work programme has continued to organise training workshops and seminars for the participation of African countries to harmonise concepts, definitions and methodologies in the various fields. The fields of coverage have included: national accounts with emphasis on the implementation of the 1993 systems of national accounts; demographic and social statistics in particular civil and vital
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registration systems; foreign trade statistics, databases and databanks; improving the quality of African statistics; environmental statistics and accounting. ECA has also continued to disseminate key publications such as African Statistical Yearbook, Africa in figures, Compendium of Intra-African and Related Foreign Trade Statistics, and Compendium of Environment Statistics. Other publications have included those relating to methodological issues such as the Manual on Methods for Estimation of Missing International Trade Data in Africa. In the area of regional advisory services, ECA has provided the services of a Regional Advisor on Organisation and Management of National Statistical Systems and a Regional Advisor in National Accounts.
42. The work of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Support Teams (CST) located in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dakar (Senegal) and Harare (Zimbabwe) in the field of population statistics should be mentioned. UNFPA has made significant contribution to statistical development, in the area of population through advisory missions and technical backstopping of country projects. Advisors include those in the areas of demographic statistics and analysis, sampling, cartography and civil and vital registration systems. This support is greatly appreciated.
C. At the global level
43. In the membership of CASD, it should be mentioned that it has included members from bilateral and multilateral agencies and donors such as The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), UNFPA, UNSD, DFID, INSEE, FAO, EUROSTAT and Statistics Sweden. This no doubt brings in the global aspect of statistics. These agencies and donors have participated actively in CASD and the work of its task forces.
44. In accordance with the recommendation of the Strategy for the Implementation of the Plan of Action, ECA introduced, at the twenty-sixth session of the ACC Sub-committee on Statistical Activities, held in Geneva in April 1992, an agenda item on coordination issues in strategies for statistical development in Africa. Follow-up actions by the various agencies were discussed. Subsequently, at the request of the Working Group of the United Nations Statistical Commission, ECA and the World Bank, in collaboration with UNDP, prepared a joint paper on the Strategy for the twenty-seventh session of the Statistical Commission, held in New York from 22 February to 3 March 1993. That session of the Statistical Commission emphasized the role of the regional commissions in promoting coordination of technical cooperation projects in statistics and that of national statistical offices at the country level. It also emphasized the special role in the African region of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action. The Commission was of the view that the Plan of Action provided a framework for statistical development and technical cooperation in statistics in the African region and urged that any future technical cooperation activities in the region be organized within the framework of the Plan of Action.
45. Also, the twenty-seventh session of the ACC Sub-committee on Statistical Activities, held in Geneva in September 1993, considered an ECA report entitled Coordinating Committee on African Statistical Development (CASD) -Need for additional operational support" and expressed satisfaction for the activities that various agencies were carrying out in support of the Plan of Action.
46. In preparation for the 52nd session of the International Statistics Institute to be held in Helsinki,
Finland 10-18 August 1999, ECA has prepared a paper to be presented in the contributed paper session on Official Statistics. The title of the paper is "Towards improving official statistics in Africa". The paper covers the history of African statistics, the Addis Ababa Plan of Action including work of CASD, partnerships in statistical development and challenges in statistical development in Africa during early 21st Century.
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47. ECA has continued to participate in the work of the Inter Secretariat Working Group on National Accounts (ISWGNA) and meetings organized by UNSD at the global level such as the ACC- subCommittee on statistical activities and the Statistical Commission. Also the work of the task force on International Trade Statistics.
48. With respect to resources for the promotion of statistics in Africa, which is the key role given to ECA in the strategy for the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action, the resources at the disposal of ECA to undertake the task effectively need to be supplemented. Funds which used to be provided by UNDP under the Statistical Development Programme for Africa (SDPA) project are no longer available since 1993 as a result of the termination of the UNDP support for the programme. The United Nations regular programme of technical cooperation has provided funds to ECA to assist in the areas of national accounts and organization and management of NSS. These were initially channeled through the Multidisciplinary Regional Advisory Group (MRAG) of ECA and from 1997 when ECA was restructured these were made available directly to the Development Information Services Division (DISD). Under the circumstances, therefore, there is need to review the whole field of technical cooperation in statistics as per enhanced need for technical support to countries which can be more efficiently served by ECA. ECA is currently approaching this through partnership arrangements. It is hoped that the projects which have been prepared under the project "Strengthening Capacity for Statistical Services in Africa" will be funded by various partners and contribute to further development of statistics in Africa.
III. CONCLUSION
49. From the above brief account, it would appear that significant work has been achieved toward the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action. There is, however, need to undertake an overall evaluation of the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action.
50. It was unfortunate that resources for the regional operational support to implement the Plan of Action which used to be provided by UNDP up 1993 were discontinued through the termination of the SDPA project. If indeed those resources were available, the implementation of Plan of Action could have been more, as those resources would have supplemented available resources at ECA for undertaking tasks assigned to it in the implementation of the Plan of Action. Furthermore, it should be noted that UNDP (and also UNFPA) had instituted new regimes for technical cooperation, the main emphasis of which was on country execution. In this connection it should be noted that advisory missions in the field of population, undertaken by UNFPA country support teams, are charged to country projects since 1 January 1993. Such a practice should also be extended to other fields in particular statistics.
I. Action by the Statistics sub-committee
51. The Statistics sub-committee is invited to make comments and suggestion on progress made so far towards the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical development in Africa in the 1990s.
52. The Statistics sub-committee is invited to provide further guidance for future actions in the light of this report and in particular to make reference to the following:
(a) the Addis Ababa Plan of Action and the Strategy for its implementation beyond the year 1999;
(b) evaluation of the ten years implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action;
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(c) the relevance of the CASD beyond the year 1999;
(d) promotion of partnership in African statistical development; and
(e) effective coordination of technical cooperation in statistics with other agencies - UNFPA, The World Bank, ILO, UNICEF and bilateral agencies.
