adminand dissemination for better policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation.
The programme was launched in November last year as part of the bank’s broader statistical capacity building programme on the continent. Work has been going on concurrently in several African countries and institutions and so far, significant progress has been achieved in 13 countries and one pan-Africa institution.
The countries are Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as the African Union Commission. The plan is to finalise the development and installation of data portals in all 54 African countries and 16 sub-regional and regional agencies by the end of July this year.
According to AfDB, the programme involves the development and installation of common information technology platforms in all 54 countries and 16 sub-regional and regional organisations in Africa.
“The aim is to establish live data links between the bank and national statistical agencies, central banks and line ministries in African countries, on one hand, and linking the countries with each other and with other external development partners, on the other,” said AfDB.
“This will facilitate easy data exchange, validation, analysis and dissemination using common international standards and guidelines. This approach will not only ease access to statistical data and meta-data in African countries, but it will also help to improve the quality of the country data by making it more internationally comparable, harmonised, meaningful and ultimately more usable.”
The IT platform being deployed in Africa also features a data submission tool for seamless transfer of country data to the AfDB’s statistical portal. In this context, the AfDB Statistics Department has teamed up with the IMF Statistics Department to help countries prepare national summary data pages, as part of the preparation for subscribing to the enhanced IMF special data dissemination standards.
The bank has also partnered with the European Union to provide easy access to agricultural data for simulating various agricultural policy alternatives. The data submission facility will position AfDB as the key depository for development data in Africa and the hub for data-sharing with other international partners.
This will also significantly reduce the data reporting burden of African countries since data will now only need to be uploaded once into the AfDB system and then shared with various development partners.
“This AfDB initiative provides a unique opportunity for African countries to take the lead in implementing statistical standards at a regional level and make their data easily accessible through a common platform. It will also significantly revolutionise data management and dissemination in Africa, and reposition the continent for more effective participation in the global information economy,” said the bank.
Online Reporter