1. Strengthening Statistical Capacity in support of progress towards the internationally agreed development goals in the SADC region: ECA’s Potential Contribution First Steering Committee Meeting of the SADC Development Account Project 14-16 July 2006, Durban, South Africa United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

2. 2 Outline  ECA Repositioning  Elements of Programme  Potential Areas of Contribution  The Way Forward

3. 3 Background  The project is aimed at strengthening statistical capacity-building in support of the MDGs in the region of the SADC  Period: 4 years (2006-2009)  Executing agency: UNSD/DESA  Co-operating Agencies:  SADC Secretariat  Division of Sustainable Development/DESA  UNECA  This development account is timely in terms of the revamping of statistical activities at ECA

4. 4 ECA Repositioning  The new Executive Secretary has launched the process of repositioning ECA to better serve Africa  The proposed repositioned ECA structure:  Recognizes the importance of statistics as a cross-cutting issue  Includes a new entity with financial and administrative autonomy: STATISTICS AND STATISTICAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT  The new entity will be provided with adequate financial and human resources staff

5. 5 Potential Areas of Contribution  In the framework of the SADC development account project, the ECA should undertake the following activities

6. 6 Elements of Programme of the CSSC  Promotion, coordination of, and advocacy for statistical activities in Africa and monitoring progress of statistical capacity building  Building a data hub at ECA for the provision of development data on Africa  Implementing the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA)  Supporting statistical training programmes  Establishing a regional programme for population and housing censuses  Providing technical assistance to African countries

7. 7 Potential Areas of Contribution (1)  Promotion, coordination of, and advocacy for statistical activities in Africa and monitoring progress of statistical capacity building  Activities:  To promote the RRSF among SADC countries  To support countries in the design and implementation of their NSDS (organization, legislative framework)  To prepare specific advocacy material for SADC countries for the celebration of the African Statistics Day  Potential partnership:  PARIS21 on advocacy  ADB

8. 8 Potential Areas of Contribution (2)  Building a data hub at ECA for the provision of development data on Africa  Activities:  facilitate storage and dissemination of statistical information  Design and establish Websites for SADSC NSOs that do not have one to facilitate dissemination of data and increase visibility  Establishing a SADC database on household surveys data to feed the ECA regional household surveys database  Potential partnership:  AFRISTAT for the Websites (best practice)  World Bank (Household Surveys database)  ECE (macro time series database)  IMF (GDDS, Metadata)

9. 9 Potential Areas of Contribution (3)  Implementing the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA)  Activities:  To prepare a substantive assessment of the implementation status of the 1993 SNA in SADC countries  To identify impeding factors  To organise a workshop for experts to potentially address impeding factors  To produce a manual on best practices in this region based on experts’ workshop  Potential partnership:  ADB (ICP project)  IMF-EAST AFRITAC (Manuel SNA for SADC countries)  Afristat

10. 10 Potential Areas of Contribution (4)  Establishing a regional programme for population and housing censuses  Activities:  During the Census workshop, to organize workgroups on:  Effective use of IT and GIS for census operations  Using the census for measuring new and emerging priority issues  Planning and financing the next censuses  Analysis, dissemination and utilization of census data  Identify resources and expertise to be shared, e.g. IT expertise, exchange of professionals, training materials  Potential partnership:  UNFPA, UNFPA-CST  ICP, US Bureau of Census

11. 11 Potential Areas of Contribution (5)  Providing technical assistance to African countries  Activities:  Advisory services in the field of collection and dissemination of statistics and databases  Advisory services in organization and management of NSOS (ECA has a regional adviser in the area)  Advisory services in household surveys  Potential partnership:  ECA should also contribute in terms of substance and organizational matters in other workshops and activities under this project

12. 12 Other initiatives  Development Account on Gender disaggregated data

13. 13 Thank you!