MEDIA ADVISORY

17^h Session of the Committee of Director-Generals of the National Statistics Offices (CoDGs)

INVITATION TO THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MEDIA

What:  The 17^th Session of the Committee of Director-Generals of the National Statistics Offices (CoDGs) under the AU Year 2023 theme “Acceleration of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Implementation”

When:            13-15 December 2023, Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia.

Who: The African Union Institute for Statistics (STATAFRIC), in collaboration AU Humanitarian Partners, namely, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Objectives:

The main objectives of the CoDGs are to focus on the Acceleration of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Implementation, which it includes among others:
(i) To provide a forum for member states to review and advise on the statistical programmes of the pan-African institutions (STATAFRIC) of the AUC, African Centre of Statistics of the ECA and Department of Statistics of the AfDB) based on the Second Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA 2) guidelines, and ensure their relevance to the needs of African countries;
(ii) The forum will provide the way to eliminate trade barriers and boost intra-Africa trade by using statistical information;
(iii) To discuss challenges related to the acceleration of African AfCFTA through statistics in Africa;
(iv) Discuss the challenges of producing data on Agenda 2063/2030 SDGs;
(v) Ensure the coordination of statistical work of the various actors and mechanisms and their implementation in the continent; and
(vi) Examine progress, identify problems, and propose solutions to existing and emerging issues on statistical development in Africa.
 

The specific objectives include:

1) To evaluate and take stock of the progress made in the implementation of the AU commitments on the Acceleration of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implementation;

2) Discuss the production of a core set of data to monitor AfCFTA Implementation for all AU Member States;

3) Discuss the role of statistics in the formulation of the Acceleration of AfCFTA Implementation;

4) Review data collection process as part of the Agenda 2063/2030 SDGs (Analysis of the gap between national and international sources on indicators of the Agenda 2063/2030 SDGs);

5) The exchange of experiences and best practices on countries’ efforts in their quest to support their national, regional, and international development initiatives with quality statistics based on the Peer review developed by AUC;

6) Update of the work done by the various working groups on SHaSA 2;

7) Review the implementation of the Charter and the advocacy strategy to accelerate its ratification;

8) To provide a forum for member states to review and advise on the statistical programmes of the pan-African institutions (AUC, ECA and AfDB), and ensure their relevance to the needs of countries;

10) Discuss rules and format of the African Statistical Coordination Committee (ASCC) meetings.

Expected Outcomes:

The following outputs are envisaged from the 17h Session of the Committee of Director-Generals of the National Statistics Offices:

1. Provide the Statistics Governance platform for AfCfTA;
2. Draft Terms of Reference for African trade statistics for AfCfTA linked with African Trade Center;
3. Recommendation for future priority Statistics areas & African Data;
4. Promoting policy coherence in Statistics (fit-for -purpose administration and use by AfCFTA);
5. Re-ENGINEERING Data Architecture.

Participants:

Participants will include Senior Officials from AU Member States, Heads of the National Statistical Office (NSO); Regional Economic Communities (RECs); statistics training centers; regional and pan African organisations; United Nations agencies, sub-regional, regional and international, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations; academic and research institutions; civil society organizations; media and private practitioners.

Journalists are invited to cover the 17^th Session of the Committee of Director-Generals of the National Statistics Offices (CoDGs)

For media inquiries, please contact:

Mr. Gamal Eldin Ahmed A. Karrar | Senior Communication Officer | Information and Communication Directorate (ICD), African Union Commission | E-mail: GamalK@africa-union.org

Information and Communication Directorate, African Union Commission I E-mail: DIC@africa-union.org
Web: www.au.int | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | Follow Us: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube