ADDIS ABABA, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on Wednesday launched a program to support African countries in modernizing administrative data for statistical purposes.
The program followed the Roadmap for Transformation and Modernization of Official Statistics in Africa for 2023 to 2030, which was approved by the UNECA's Conference of Ministers of Finance and Economic Planning that was held last week, the UNECA said in a statement.
The UNECA said administrative data sources offer high-frequency disaggregated data, which is critical in the sustainable development goals context of leaving no one behind; reducing production costs as data is collected routinely for administrative activities; and decreasing respondent burden.
Two workshops are currently underway in Cameroon and Uganda to kickstart the process as part of the new program, the UNECA said.
Adama Coulibaly, chief of the Sub Regional Initiatives Section at UNECA's Office for Central Africa, emphasized the need for national statistical systems to "transform and modernize to be more agile and resilient to crises" while addressing the three-day workshop in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon.
"COVID-19 has shown that our statistical systems need to move away from current traditional ways of operating to be able to effectively support countries' sustainable development and transformation agendas," the UNECA statement quoted Coulibaly as saying. ■