Eurostat

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

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• 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

Eurostat

EU interest to support AU statistics

• EU support for AU integration• Joint Africa-EU Strategy includes joint initiatives on

• 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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Eurostat

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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Eurostat

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 tools7

Eurostat

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 8

Eurostat

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

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Eurostat

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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Eurostat

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 201611

Eurostat

Thank you

Any further questions please contact

Pieter.Everaers@ec.europa.euClaudia.Junker@ec.europa.euCeri.Thompson@ec.europa.eu

Veronika.Radermacher@ec.europa.eu

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