INVITATION FOR MEDIA REPRESENTATIVES

What:             Experts Group Meeting on Development of Methodologies on Migration and Mobility Statistics in Africa

Who:              African Union Commission, through the African Observatory for Migration and the African Union Institute for Statistics, in collaboration of IOM GMDAC and the IOM Rabat Office.

                       When:            11-12 April 2022

Where:           Marrakech, Kingdom of Morocco

Objective:

The overall objective of this meeting is to identify and share the information on the existing methodologies used at national, regional, continental and international level on migration and mobility, with a view of defining a clear roadmap for the development of methodological documents and guidelines for migration in Africa.

Expected outcome:

The outcomes of Experts Group Meeting are:

• Document on the status of concepts and definitions used for the production of statistics on migration in Africa.
• Roadmap on the production of methodologies on migration in Africa in connection with the revised Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA2) and the African Charter on Statistics.
• Perspectives to support African Union Member States for the conduct of specific surveys on migration.

Participants:

Experts on migration statistics from national statistics institutes of 25 AU Member States, RECs, AIR, AUDA NEPAD, ILO, IOM, IOM GMDAC, UNHCR, UNECA, AfDB, UNSD, EGRISS, Statistics Sweden, World Bank, Eurostat, ICMPD, EC KCMD, Migration Policy Centre, IDAC UNICEF, OECD, UNAIDS and other development partners, and Independent experts.

Background:

In recent years, migration has increased steadily in the African Continent. Key programs on migration have been developed by the African Union and the United Nations. Effective and efficient implementation of these programs requires that African countries produce quality, harmonized and up-to-date migration statistics.

However, reports shows that are there are still huge data gaps in the production of high quality, timely and reliable statistics on migration in Africa. Many African countries continue to face several challenges in producing quality and up-to-date statistics on migration. They also use different concepts and definitions, methodologies and tools for the compilation of migration statistics in Africa. Further, very few African national statistical institutes have statistical units in charge of migration statistics. All these different challenges make it very difficult to produce quality statistics on migration in Africa.

To address these challenges, the AU Commission aims to develop methodological documents and guidelines for migration in Africa in order to strengthen the capacities of AU Member States in the production of high quality and harmonized migration statistics that is comparable nationally, regionally and continentally.

To begin the development of these methodological documents and guidelines, the AU Commission, through the African Observatory for Migration and the AU Institute for Statistics, in collaboration of IOM GMDAC and IOM Rabat Office, is organizing a meeting with a group of experts to exchange on existing methodologies used at national, regional, continental and international level on migration, with a view of defining a clear roadmap for the development of these different documents.

Journalists are invited to cover the Experts Group Meeting on Development of Methodologies on Migration and Mobility Statistics in Africa, on Monday 11^th and Tuesday 12^th April 2022, in Marrakech, Kingdom of Morocco.

For further information please contact:

Ms. Leila Ben Ali | Head of Statistics Division, STATAFRIC and Ag. Director of the African Migration Observatory (AMO) | African Union Commission | E-mail: LeilaB@africa-union.org

For media inquiries;

Ms. Afrah Thabit I Information and Communication Directorate, African Union Commission | E-mail: Thabitma@africa-union.org

Directorate of Information and Communication | African Union Commission, E-mail: DIC@africa-union.org  I Website: www.au.africa  I Addis Ababa | Ethiopia

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