Forthcoming EU support to
African capacity building for
statistical production
Pieter Everaers, Eurostat, Director of Cooperation in
the European Statistical System; International
Cooperation; Resources
First Joint Session of the Committee of Directors
Generals of National Statistics Offices and the
Statistical Commission for Africa
Tunis, December 2014
Eurostat
Context
• African Union Integration
• Growing continental approach to statistical
production
• Great strides being made (census coverage)
• African Charter on statistics
• Coordinated joint strategy (SHaSA and common
goals and working approaches)
• Decision on the new AU Institute
• Strong African momentum for statistics
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EU interest to support AU statistics
• EU support for AU integration
• Joint Africa-EU Strategy includes joint initiatives on
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mobility and migration
Human development
Private investment
Infrastructure
• EU financial flows to Africa (public and private) –
impact measurement
• AU official statistics will be used by EU governments,
businesses, citizens
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EU response
• New Pan African Instrument (for all sectors) to
support African Union Integration
• A Pan African Statistical Capacity Building
Programme (EU support)
• Key partners: the AU Commission Statistics
Division
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Rationale for Eurostat role
• Share Eurostat (ESS) experience of producing
statistics linked to integration needs
• Share Eurostat experience of bringing national
statistical systems together into one European
Statistical System
• Opportunity to build on ESS lessons recognising
that the African context is very different
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Elements of the EU experience
• European statistics needed to develop and
monitor EU policies and distribute EU resources
• Different quality categories for statistics (for
political decisions, standard data, experimental)
• Many challenges faced
• Integrating 28 statistical systems into one ESS
• Assuring quality
• Remaining relevant to EU integration needs as
they change
• Modernisation
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Broad aims of EU support for AU
statistics
• Improve the quality of statistics in Africa in key
domains
• Quality means the availability, reliability,
comparability, accuracy, timeliness (inter alia)
• Support the setting up of effective ways of
working within the African Statistical System
• Build capacity of the people and the institutions
• Facilitate the transfer and uptake of good practice
and common tools
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Specific areas of support
• Support functioning of the SHaSA Specialist
Technical Groups to develop/improve statistical
methodology and indicators in key domains
• Resources for the development and roll out of
continent wide tools and approaches (e.g. quality
assessments, ERETES)
• Maintenance and training for common statistical
tools
• Support creation of data centre at the AU level, and
communication channels (website, publications, etc.)
• Support to the setting up of the AU Institute
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Supporting African statistical
methodology and production in priority
domains
• Focus on AU/EU priority areas, namely
• Trade, National Accounts, Employment and Migration,
SDGs - areas of joint strategic importance to EU & AU
• Some more limited ad-hoc support to other areas
(climate change, governance)
• Work towards concrete progress – more and
better statistics in these areas
• Methodology harmonisation
• Data collection
• Improved dissemination
Eurostat
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Support to develop common AU practice
• Why? Widespread use of common tools underpins
a harmonised continental approach
• What? Statistical IT tools, quality tools and
techniques, Africa-specific methodologies/tools
• ERETES, Eurotrace, chosen AU quality tools such
as peer review, global assessment, snapshot-style
• Other 'common tools' will need to be developed
(based on continental needs)
• How? The STGs will have a key role to identify
appropriate tools (e.g. ERETES already chosen by
the AGNA)
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Next steps and timing of the support
• Final stage of agreement to the support (from EU
MS) reached in November 2014
• Procurement of services during 2015 (takes a long
time in EU!)
• Organisation of stakeholder meetings during 2015
to aid preparation (including with the RECs)
• Resources to come on stream in early 2016
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Thank you
Any further questions please contact
Pieter.Everaers@ec.europa.eu
Claudia.Junker@ec.europa.eu
Ceri.Thompson@ec.europa.eu
Veronika.Radermacher@ec.europa.eu
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