Overview of Economic Statistics in
Africa
UNECA
Andry Andriantseheno
Regional Workshop on Basic Economic
Statistics
Addis-Ababa
16-19 October 2007
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Outline of the presentation
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Conceptual methodology and compliance with SNA
National accounts tables compiled
Processing of data sources into national accounts
Types of economic censuses and surveys
Coverage of surveys and censuses
Sampling frame and extrapolation methods
Methods of enumeration and data collection
Administrative data
Institutional issues
recommendations
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Conceptual compliance
In the bulk of African, the national accounts
compiled are largely based on the 1968 SNA, and
on the 1993 SNA for 40% of countries.
The concept of the 1993 SNA is not fully applied
to conduct surveys and censuses
The SNA concept are formation of capital, while
surveys use the concept of investment
Survey results could not be extrapolated to
national economy due to inadequate sampling
frame and differential of concept between SNA
and the concept used in the surveys.
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Tables of National Accounts
compiled
The bulk of African countries are at the milestone
0 or milestone 1 of the implementation of the 1993
SNA
Milestone 0: development of basic data for SNA,
including market prices, producers prices, surveys
and censuses.
Milestone 1: breakdown of the GDP by
expenditure and by industry at current and
constant prices
Less than dozen of countries are compiling the set
of accounts beyond the production account,
quarterly national accounts and financial accounts 4
Processing of data sources into SNA
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Two level of difficulties: (1) availability and quality of data
sources and (2) the processing of data sources into national
accounts:
Several data gaps, including update of business registers,
informal sector, employment , and services sectors as the Non
Profit Institutions (NPIs)
Processing of data sources into national accounts is a very
challenging tasks for the National Statistical Offices.
 Lack of coordination at the Statistical Offices between
the various collection or processing unit and the national
accounts program
 The Statistical offices have other duties such as
population censuses, prices, trade statistics and
household surveys.
 Inadequate human ( less than 5 professional working on
SNA) and financial resources to process available data 5
sources into SNA, to develop bridge tables and
Types of economic censuses
and surveys
The censuses and surveys conducted are:
Population and housing censuses, every 10 or 20
years
Various household surveys, every 3 to 5 years
Industrial surveys, every 2-5 years
Agricultural censuses and surveys, 3-10 years
Collection of financial statements from companies,
annually for the compilation of accounts.
Labor force surveys and Informal sector surveys
Absence of clear definition of an economic censuses
and surveys
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Economic coverage of
censuses and surveys
The following sectors, mostly services sectors are
less covered by surveys or administrative data
sources, this depends on countries
Construction and housing
Wholesale and retail trade
Hotel and restaurants
Transports
Community services, sports and non profit
institutions
Labor force and Informal sector
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Sampling frame and Business
Register
Business register, part of the process of creation of
companies, the units may be the establishment or
the enterprises
Information on activity, owners and type of business
respondents
The business register is out of date as companies
may not be in activity
Update of business register is expensive, but critical
for sampling and extend the result of surveys to the
national economy
Different identity number at the statistical offices,8
social security, VAT…
Methods of Enumeration and
Data collection
Interview and personal visit
Interview and mail: questionnaire are
sent by mail and received by respondents
Collection of financial statement by mail:
the Statistical office request for financial
statements from companies, or one of the
recipients of financial statements
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Administrative Records
Financial statement: special arrangements between
statistics, tax revenue and central banks
The customs declaration are complemented with
surveys on specific commodities such as fuel data for
the compilation of international merchandise trade
statistics (IMTS)
Administrative records at line ministries, address the
concern over the qualities of administrative records,
with supplementary surveys
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Institutional Issues
 Level of collaboration between statistics, central banks and tax
revenue over the sharing of financial statement .
 Level of collaboration between statistics, central banks and
customs department over the sharing of financial statement.
 In most cases, surveys and censuses are conducted by the
Statistical offices, (a) centralized, the field offices are just
collecting or (b) decentralized, the field offices collect, process
the data and send the result to the HQ
 Censuses and surveys may be conducted by other entities
within the the national statistical systems, for example the
agricultural or industrial censuses are undertaken by the
ministry of agriculture, often, the methodology is inadequate
and there is a lack of collaboration with the statistical office. 11
Challenges
 Financial resources and human resources,
 High staff turnover
 Low response rate: households and
companies are reluctant to respond to surveys
and censuses
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Recommendations
 Establish an integrated national system (INS) for the data
collection on companies, in collaboration with central
banks, tax revenue and line ministries, the INS contains
financial statements, labor forces and other information,
this will avoid the duplication of efforts such as collect of
financial statement and industrial surveys.
 Update of the business register through cross checking
with tax registration, social security, the population
censuses(for formal companies owned by household), and
ultimately censuses enumeration of enterprises and
production units
 Include an informal sector module in the existing
household surveys or labour force surveys
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Recommendations
 Ensure that the SNA concept are used in the
surveys and censuses through involvement of
national accountants at the various stages of
statistical operations.
 Adequate staffing of national accountants at the
National Statistical Offices (NSOs), over twenty
professionals is highly indicated.
 Staff retention policies and intensive trainings
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Thank You
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