As part of its 2012-2013 program activity, the Subregional Office for North Africa (SRO-NA) and the African Centre for Statistics of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is organizing from 21 to 23 January 2014 in Nouakchott, Mauritania, a training workshop on the implementation of the 2008 SNA.
The implementation of the 2008 SNA is an international initiative that provides an opportunity to improve the quality, availability, consistency, and harmonization of economic statistics and national accounts. In Africa, it is commonly recognized that there is a need to create synergies at all the levels of the African statistical system in order to address the challenges in implementing the 2008 SNA.
The African Strategy for the Implementation of the 2008 SNA was adopted by African Heads of State and Government in July 2010 in Kampala, Uganda as the first pillar of the Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA), which provides a framework for the production of timely, reliable, and harmonized statistical information in support of good economic governance, regional integration, and sustainable development in Africa.
The African Regional Strategy was considered to be consistent with the International Implementation Strategy for the 2008 SNA at the Seminar on the Implementation of the 2008 System of National Accounts in Africa held in April 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
It's in this context that the CEA has developed a project on 2008 SNA to strengthen the capacity of Member States and to assist them to better take into account the statistical standards and international recommendations SNA. The training will cover the following topics:
- Supply and Use Table to eliminate discrepancies in the measured flows of goods and services in order to crosscheck the compilation of GDP from three approaches, i.e. production, incomes, and expenditures to ensure the consistency of national accounts.
- Data sources to fill in the data gaps for supply and uses of products through the usage of many data sources after comparing and contrasting data from such sources.
- Informal Sector and Non-observed Economy to ensure all the activities are considered in the measurement of total activity and to achieve completeness and exhaustiveness of national accounts.
- ERETES an IT tool used for the compilation of national accounts.
- Classifications in national accounts are important for the compilation of Supply and Use Table, for data collection (surveys, censuses, and business registration); and dissemination of data; and to discuss how to adapt and adopt the international classifications for the African continent.
Heads, chiefs, and managers of national accounts of national statistical offices, ministries of finance, planning and economy, central banks from Francophone African countries attending the training.
