The Regional Specialised Technical Committee Meeting in Niamey On ECOWAS Statistical Policy Documents

11 October 2012
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

The ECOWAS Specialised Technical Committee on Statistical Issues meet in Niamey, Niger from 15 to 19 October 2012, to validate and adopt a set of key statistical programmes policy documents for the region.

The meeting will be attended by Heads of National Statistics Offices of Member States and representatives of regional institutions and international organisations., The documents to be endorsed include the Report of the Study on the operational and institutional mechanism of the Fund for sustainable Development of Statistics in the region, the Evaluation Report of the 2006- 2010 Regional Statistics Programme and the Framework of Reporting to Council of Ministers’ on the status of statistics in the region.

The meeting will also consider A Methodological Guide for compilation of Consumer Price Indices (CPIs) and the common nomenclature for harmonisation of national account statistics in the ECOWAS region, as well as the regional programme on environment statistics indicators and the guide for ECOAGRIS indicators. After adoption, the documents will later be submitted on to the Council of Ministers for approval and to the Authority of Heads of State and Government for adoption.

The ECOWAS Statistics Policy is aimed at implementing the international standards and adapted regional methodologies and procedures with a view to ensuring the production of harmonised and quality statistics within the Community.

The policy also seeks to build the capacities required for the realisation of regional self-sufficiency in production of statistical information necessary for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Community policies and programmes, as well as promoting sustained interaction between statistical data producers and users.

It is equally aimed at improving the dissemination of statistical information to government agencies, economic operators and the public at large in Member States with a view to ensuring greater public awareness on the importance of statistics.

In this regard and in conformity with Article 3 of the Regulation establishing the ECOWAS Statistical System, the Community has put in place a Regional Statistical System aimed at providing the basis for implementation of the policy.

The Regional Statistical System developed under the auspices of the ECOWAS Commission seeks to facilitate the harmonization procedures for the production of statistics with a view to improving the use of statistics produced by Member States.

At the Country level, the ECOWAS Regional Statistical System is being coordinated by the National Statistics Office while the ECOWAS Commission’s Directorate of Research and Statistics is the focal point for the System at the regional level. The Commission is expected to establish close cooperation and working relations with international statistical organisations with a view to ensuring compliance with international standards and the quality of the data produced by the system.

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