African statisticians called upon to include statistics in development strategies

African statisticians have been called upon to convince their governments to insert statistics into their development strategies.

They were urged to get political commitment from their governments to make statistical data and information a part of development strategies in their countries.

“As statisticians, you should be able to get your governments’ commitment,” Jean le Nay of the PARIS 21 organization said at one of the technical committee meetings of the ongoing First Joint Session of the Committee of Directors General of National Statistics Offices and the Statistical Commission for Africa, Tuesday December 9, 2014, in Tunis, Tunisia.

He was making a presentation on the 10 Implementation Principles of the National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS).

He also called on statisticians to encourage their governments to ensure that their financing strategies consider an increasing role for natural resources using the medium term expenditure framework.

“You should also have communication strategies to build commitment among users of statistical data,” he said.

He asked the statisticians to develop communication strategies to reach out to users such as the media, NGOs, the private sector, academia  as well as train these users and promote literacy in statistics.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi, in Tunis, Tunisia