By Kofi AHOVI
Statisticians from across Africa last week met in Accra during a four-day workshop under the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) - ECOWAS Statistical Capacity Building Project (ESCAP) to discuss the legal framework affecting statistical activities on the continent.
The four-day workshop, which was held under the auspices of the ECOWAS Commission, is designed to undertake region-wide activities to deal with issues relating to the legal framework and co-ordination of statistical systems, monitoring household living conditions, poverty, and statistical data dissemination.
The project, which has a four-year implementation period, is expected to develop a framework to assist countries to update their laws and other regulatory instruments affecting statistical activities, taking into account the emerging need for statistical development designs.
Project implementation and management will be undertaken by the Research and Statistical Department of the ECOWAS Commission, which will be responsible for the development of annual work plans and monitoring of implementation actions.
In an address to open the workshop, the Chief Statistician of the Ghana Statistical Service, (GSS) Baah Wadieh, said a successful implementation of the project will result in an increased performance of National Statistical Systems and the improvement of development policy-making processes, as a result of regular production and dissemination in a harmonised regional framework of required statistical data.
He said the project will enable the ECOWAS Commission to further the promotion of the harmonisation of monetary and trade policies, facilitate the lowering of tariffs, eliminate non-tariff barriers and remove other impediments to free trade within the ECOWAS community – due to the existence of harmonised and comparable statistical information.
Giving an overview of the project, Bikou Mathew Djayeola, an expert on the ESCAP Project, said the goal of the project is to contribute to the establishment of an enabling environment and conditions for ECOWAS member countries to produce minimum statistical information needed for decision-making, with the view of responding adequately to the needs of macro-economic and commercial surveillance systems, monetary integration and the monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Poverty Reduction strategy Policies (PRSPs) in the region.
This will also strengthen the capacity of the ECOWAS Commission to help promote statistical harmonisation in its member countries by designing broad frameworks for harmonising statistical legal structures, nomenclatures, concepts and survey methodologies, as well as developing statistical systems for cross country comparability.
Statisticians from across Africa last week met in Accra during a four-day workshop under the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) - ECOWAS Statistical Capacity Building Project (ESCAP) to discuss the legal framework affecting statistical activities on the continent.
The four-day workshop, which was held under the auspices of the ECOWAS Commission, is designed to undertake region-wide activities to deal with issues relating to the legal framework and co-ordination of statistical systems, monitoring household living conditions, poverty, and statistical data dissemination.
The project, which has a four-year implementation period, is expected to develop a framework to assist countries to update their laws and other regulatory instruments affecting statistical activities, taking into account the emerging need for statistical development designs.
Project implementation and management will be undertaken by the Research and Statistical Department of the ECOWAS Commission, which will be responsible for the development of annual work plans and monitoring of implementation actions.
In an address to open the workshop, the Chief Statistician of the Ghana Statistical Service, (GSS) Baah Wadieh, said a successful implementation of the project will result in an increased performance of National Statistical Systems and the improvement of development policy-making processes, as a result of regular production and dissemination in a harmonised regional framework of required statistical data.
He said the project will enable the ECOWAS Commission to further the promotion of the harmonisation of monetary and trade policies, facilitate the lowering of tariffs, eliminate non-tariff barriers and remove other impediments to free trade within the ECOWAS community – due to the existence of harmonised and comparable statistical information.
Giving an overview of the project, Bikou Mathew Djayeola, an expert on the ESCAP Project, said the goal of the project is to contribute to the establishment of an enabling environment and conditions for ECOWAS member countries to produce minimum statistical information needed for decision-making, with the view of responding adequately to the needs of macro-economic and commercial surveillance systems, monetary integration and the monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Poverty Reduction strategy Policies (PRSPs) in the region.
This will also strengthen the capacity of the ECOWAS Commission to help promote statistical harmonisation in its member countries by designing broad frameworks for harmonising statistical legal structures, nomenclatures, concepts and survey methodologies, as well as developing statistical systems for cross country comparability.
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