PARTENERSHIP FOR REVITALISING FOOD, AGRICULTURE AND RURAL STATISTICS IN AFRICA FAO Contribution Naman Keita Senior Statistician FAO, Statistics Division FASDEV II- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 9-10 February 2006

Contents 1.Introduction 2. Biennial Survey on the State of Food and Agricultural Statistics in Africa 3. New FAO assistance strategy and programme to countries: CountrySTAT Programme. A strategic framework for the integration of food and agriculture statistics 4. Partnership with other Institutions

1. Introduction Agriculture and Rural sector: Significant contribution to GDP, employment, income of a large proportion of the population Proportion of poor in rural areas Good quality data is needed to design and implement effective agricultural and rural development policies including food security, rural poverty reduction, participation to global economy.

2. Biennial Survey on the State of Food and Agricultural Statistics in Africa FAO is a provider of global assessments and analyses of the current food and agricultural situation to the world community. The Organisation has been collecting and monitoring the quality of food and agricultural statistics on a world-wide basis for a number of years. More recently attempts have been made to consolidate data quality and metadata under the Agricultural Bulletin Board on Data Collection, Dissemination and Quality of Statistics (ABCDQ). The overall quality of food and agricultural statistics is classified into three quality groups: poor (red), average (yellow), and good (green). See

2. Biennial Survey on the State of Food and Agricultural Statistics in Africa From 2003 in the framework of FAO biennial statutory body meeting: African Commission on Agricultural Statistics (AFCAS), a systematic assessment of the progress made by countries in the domain of food and agriculture statistics has been intiated through a survey on the State of Food and Agricultural Statistical Systems in Africa. The is aimed at supporting member countries’ efforts to improve quality and coverage of basic data, as well as providing users of these data with the relevant metadata on the systems. The report, to be prepared on the basis of the questionnaire, will highlight areas of strengths and weaknesses in national systems, which could be useful in designing cooperation programmes (between countries or with international agencies) and constitute an advocacy tool for national statistical offices. The questionnaire used for the survey aims at collecting information on national food and agricultural statistical systems..

2. Biennial Survey on the State of Food and Agricultural Statistics in Africa Overview of survey questionnaire structure and content Country name: Respondent details (from the National Statistics Office and from the Agricultural Statistics Office) Part 1: The Organization of the Food and Agricultural Statistical System within the National Statistical System 1.Legal framework for statistical activities 2.Structure of the National Statistical System 3.Strategic framework for statistical activities 4.Dialogue with national data users 5.Funding of the Food and Agricultural Statistical System 6.Staffing of the Food and Agricultural Statistical System 7.Information technology 8.International cooperation and external assistance

2. Biennial Survey on the State of Food and Agricultural Statistics in Africa Overview of survey questionnaire structure and content Part 2: The Outputs of the Food and Agricultural Statistical System Activities of the Food and Agricultural Statistical System and agricultural statistics availability 1.Adoption of classifications 2.Existence of registers 3.Use of administrative records 4.Agricultural census 5.Livestock census 6.Other agricultural surveys 7.Current agricultural statistics Availability and coverage of production and trade statistics Availability and coverage of price statistics Availability and coverage of input statistics Availability and coverage of rural services statistics Availability and coverage of forestry and fisheries statistics Publications

2. Biennial Survey on the State of Food and Agricultural Statistics in Africa Overview of survey questionnaire structure and content Part 2: The Outputs of the Food and Agricultural Statistical System 1.Availability of non-agricultural statistics and agricultural derived statistics and indicators 2.Population census and Household Income and Expenditure Survey 3.Population census 4.Household income and expenditure survey 5.National account statistics 6.Compilation of key agricultural derived statistics and indicators 7.Compilation and availability of agricultural production and income indicators 8.Compilation and availability of food consumption and availability indicators 9.Compilation and availability of trade indicators 10.Compilation and availability of prices indicators 11.Compilation and availability of other important indicators Good practices and Emerging Issues Annex 1: List of agriculture surveys carried out since 2003 Annex 2: List of publications relating to agricultural statistics since 2003 Annex 3: List of cooperation projects active since 2000

3. New FAO assistance strategy and programme to countries CountrySTAT Programme. A strategic framework for the integration of food and agriculture statistics During the past three years, the FAO Statistics Division has undertaken a process of modernisation of the FAO World Data Base on Agriculture, FAOSTAT. In this process, a comprehensive framework and modern technical tools have been designed in order to address major constraints for the development of effective food and agricultural statistical information system, using modern information and communication technologies and innovative approaches to allow access and optimum use of existing data by decision makers and all other users. The framework is based on data harmonisation, use of international classifications, analysis, integration and easy access as well as modular approach with core and thematic modules. As part of this effort a corresponding downscaled country level framework and tools (CountrySTAT) has been developed and successfully pilot tested by the Division in several countries.

3. New FAO assistance strategy and programme to countries CountrySTAT Programme. A strategic framework for the integration of food and agriculture statistics The new FAO assistance programme to countries will be provided within the framework of CountrySTAT. It will be focused on FAO areas of expertise and comparative advantage and draw lessons from FAO Statistics Division’s past and recent experience of national, regional and inter-regional assistance projects and programmes in agricultural statistics. The proposed programme put the emphasis on Partnership with Donor Agencies as well as other International and Regional Institutions involved in the development of Food and Agricultural Statistics. The ultimate goal of the programme is assist a significant number of countries to develop a well organised, integrated and easily accessible data system on food and agriculture which is widely used by policy makers and other users

3. New FAO assistance strategy and programme to countries CountrySTAT Programme. A strategic framework for the integration of food and agriculture statistics The components of the programme are developed around the following available framework, tools and methods: The CountrySTAT system: pilot tested and country results presented and discussed at several international meetings of experts (Statistical Advisory Committee of Experts, Regional Commissions on Agricultural Statistics for Asiaand Pacific, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, Europe, etc..). National Strategies for Development of Statistics (NSDS) as a way of rationalising and optimising the use of resources for improved national statistics systems. In order to facilitate the mainstreaming of sector statistics in this process, supplements to the NSDS guidelines, related to specific sectors (Agriculture, Health, Labour, etc..) are being prepared. FAO and PARIS21 are working on the supplement for the food and agriculture sector.

3. New FAO assistance strategy and programme to countries CountrySTAT Programme. A strategic framework for the integration of food and agriculture statistics New and innovative approaches and tools regarding data collection and analysis: The new World Programme for Census of Agriculture 2010 has been prepared to provide guidelines to countries undertaking their Census of Agriculture during the period This programme is the reference in the World for Agricultural Censuses and FAO has been preparing the programme each 10 years for more than 50 years The new programme includes important changes as compared to past programmes. It adopts an integrated and modular approach in order to better respond in a cost-effective manner to increasing and changing data needs and developments in agricultural practices. The programme has been prepared in close coordination with the UN Statistical Division and the UNFPA. In particular, it includes for the first time a chapter on coordinating Population census and agricultural census. Supply/Utilisation Accounts and Food Balance Sheet, including training programme has been prepared and is being implemented in many countries. The system generates important indicators for monitoring the food security situation in countries.

3. New FAO assistance strategy and programme to countries CountrySTAT Programme. A strategic framework for the integration of food and agriculture statistics Food Security Indicators from existing Household Income Expenditure Surveys data. The purpose is to improve countries statistical capacity to effectively use existing food consumption data to derive food security statistics for monitoring food insecure population groups as input to the decision-making process to better design policy and actions in the fight against hunger and poverty. These indicators are also being used for monitoring Monitoring Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG1) on Food Poverty and Food Deprivation A system for collection and analysis of Agricultural Price : the price module in CountrySTAT, which will combine national data with data in or derived from the new FAOSTAT, will help building capacity in the countries by providing them with a methodology to aggregate data at different level (time, geographic, item), a methodology to compile and analyze indicators based on these data and on other internationally available data and a set of templates to perform the calculations. Improvement of trade statistics: Trade Matrix and Trade Flow. The tools developed aim at building and strengthening the capacities of the national authorities in establishing a sustainable and technically up-dated system of trade statistics in order to (i) Harmonize the national methodology on trade statistics with the international practice implementing (ii) Implement the standard classifications (HS or SITC) in collecting and processing the primary trade data; (iii) Create the technical potential at country level for dissemination/reporting the trade statistics according to standards formulated by FAO and UN.

4. Partnership with other Institutions Projects: World Bank: TFSCB funded project: Strengthening Agricultural Statistics for Poverty Reduction and Food Security in Rural Africa - Interim Proposal. French Cooperation: Appui au Programme de Renforcement des Systèmes d’Information et de Statistiques Rurales en Afrique Other donors: EU, WB, FAO/TCP NSDS/Advocacy PARIS21 Supplement on Agriculture Sector Statistics to NSDS Advocacy Video Training Joint Workshop back to back with 19th AFCAS, Maputo, Mozambique AfDB Joint Workshop on using statistical data in support of policies AFRISTAT Up-coming Table Ronde on the World Programme for Census of Agriculture 2010 Regional Training Centers ENSEA EASTC

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