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African
countries urged to adequately fund statistical development
Accra, Dec. 7, Ghanadot/GNA - African countries have been
urged to give a higher priority to the provision of adequate
funding for the development of statistics to support
evidence based development strategies.
A resolution presented at the end of the third African
Symposium on statistics and development in Accra on Friday
noted that resource allocation for conducting of censuses
was extremely important since knowing the size and
demography of the population goes a long way to enhance
effective development planning.
Professor Ben Kiregyera, Director of the African Centre for
Statistics (ACS) of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
said it was pertinent to take into account the acute demand
for reliable, timely, accurate and relevant statistics the
world over, to manage development results and measure
progress.
He said it was important for African countries to ensure
that they undertook the census before the end of 2010 to aid
development planning agendas.
The Symposium, with participants from 50 African countries
was on the theme: "Best Practice and Exchanging Experience:
Africa 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses" and
was aimed at restoring statistical development at the
national, sub-regional and regional levels of Africa.
Presenting the recommendations of the symposium, Professor
Kiregyera said governments should increase advocacy and
sensitization of the 2010 round of the population and
housing census as well as promote statistical harmonization
and development in Africa.
He said the 2010 census taking must ensure gender
mainstreaming and take cognizance of emerging issues like
climate change, conflict situations, migration trends,
HIV/AIDS, poverty and life expectancy among others.
Dr. Grace Bediako, Government Statistician, presenting the
Accra declaration said African governments must implement
the Reference Regional Strategic Framework (RRSF) for
statistical building by implementing the National Strategies
for the Development of Statistics (NSDS).
She commended the African Development Bank (ADB) and the
other donors for their support and appealed to them to
follow up on statistical capacity building programmes to
assist African countries to strengthen their statistical
capacities to support the Millennium Development Goals.
Dr. Bediako called for the re-invigoration of the
collaboration between the ADB, the ECA and African Capacity
Building Foundation to enhance Statistical development.
She urged them to support the statistical training centres
on the continent to enhance human resource development and
to scale up their adherence to international standards.
GNA
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