Ethiopia: New National Statistical Strategy in the Cards
The Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA) is going to implement a newly formulated National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) as of September 2009, though it is yet to secure the tens of millions of dollars needed for its implementation, its officials disclosed.
The strategy that CSA says is different in content, scope and coverage from the already phased-out Medium Term Statistical Programme is planned to become CSA’s five year strategic plan. It was approved by the statistical council, which is headed by Sufian Ahmed, minister of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED), last Tuesday, May 19, 2009.
Ensuring the standardization concepts, definitions, classifications and methodologies used by all agencies, coordination of the national statistical system (NSS) and avoiding duplications in undertaking statistical activities, which confuse data users, are among the expected outcomes of implementing the strategy, according to Samia Zekaria, director general of CSA.
The strategy is hoped to eliminate the data inconsistency problems between CSA and other government agencies like the ministries of Education (MoE), and Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD).
Quality assurance, the speed of analysis, along with the speed and network of dissemination are asserted as areas of improvements NSDS has come up with.
“All these issues are what we have been discussing with CSA and they tried to improve these aspects,” Fidele Sarassoro, UNDP resident representative, told Fortune. “We are very satisfied.”
World Bank (WB) has covered the total cost of 110,000 dollars for the preparation of strategy documents.
CSA has organized a consultative meeting with donors, including UNDP-DAG (Development Assistance Group), to mobilize resources for improving the statistical activities in Ethiopia, and to introduce the new NSDS on Thursday, May 21, 2009. Before implementing the strategy, the CSA is demanding 28.6 million dollars to cover around 31pc of the total estimated 92.5 million dollars implementation cost; the remaining 64 million dollars – 69pc – is expected to be covered by the Ethiopian government. But CSA’s need for assistance is not limited to only a financial one. “We also expect some technical support from donors,” Samia told journalists.
The donors seem to be interested to finance the project.
“We have some interest in working with them, and we will work with other partners to see how we can support their effort,” Fidele told Fortune.
Household Welfare Monitoring (HWM) and Household Income, Consumption and Expenditure (HICE) surveys are among the regular major surveys which have been conducted since 1995/96, according to CSA officials. They will also be part of the new strategy.
HWM survey, which CSA introduced to monitor and evaluate the socio-economic impact of the government’s economic reform and subsequent poverty reduction programs, needs a total of a little over 10.3 million dollars.
Assessing the level and distribution of non-income dimensions of poverty, and the quality of household life is among the objectives CSA is set to achieve from this specific survey.
From the total budget of this specific survey, CSA expects to get 2.9 million dollars (28.1pc of the total cost) from the government and the balance is expected to be covered by donors.
On the contrary, of the budget for the HWM survey, CSA is planning to get the largest share from donors’ contribution.
“In this case, donors’ usual big interest in financing studies like welfare and poverty reduction is considered,” Yassin Mossa, deputy director of Economic Statistics, told Fortune.
The DAG group of donors, coordinated by UNDP, has been participating in supporting activities and has shown interest to take part in CSA’s latest strategy implementation, Yassin told Fortune.
HICE survey, whose sample covered all the sedentary population of the country, is anticipated to provide income, expenditure and consumption statistics useful for the assessment of the economic wellbeing of the households and individuals, according a paper Yassin presented last Thursday at the event the agency organized to mobilize assistance from the DAG.
- By ABIY WENDIFRAW | Addis Fortune
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