Distinguished representatives from the African Union; UN Agencies, Regional Economic Communities and National Statistical Offices;

Ladies and gentlemen

Dear statisticians

(all protocol observed)

There is a strong emphasis on the individual in Agenda 2030 and the Agenda 2063 as expressed in the Leave no one behind principle.

For the Agenda 2030, Out of the 17 sustainable development goals 10 contain targets and indicators that are related to migration or mobility.

As a representative from Statistics Sweden let’s start by reminding us why we are gathered here. This training is part of the activities funded by the Swedish government through Statistics Sweden.

Statistics Sweden, which is the Swedish National Statistical Office, has been engaged as a development partner throughout the world for almost 40 years.

Since the beginning of 2019, Statistics Sweden is involved in a cooperation project with the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities on improving migration statistics in Africa.

This training that starting  today is organized together with our partners the African Union through the African Migration Observatory and the Institute of Statistics STATAFRIC - and with IOM's Global Migration Data Analysis Centre GMDAC - and its one example of the joint activities aiming at (in very broad terms) assisting countries in producing better and more useful data on migration. In other words to improve the production of timely, accurate and comparable statistics for an evidence-based policy.

Dear statisticians, Dear colleagues,

We know, the official statistics are (of course) used by policy makers to “assess the effectiveness of migration policies”.

The goal of the migration and integration policy in the world in general and in Africa in particular is that everyone should have equal rights, obligations and opportunities. How well the integration policy works can be measured/assessed with the help of statistics on migrant’s situation on the labor market, their housing situation, the income and living conditions of immigrants but also how they participate in the democracy. All this is crucial statistics and information for policy makers in evaluating migration policies and programmes.

A training helping countries to report on SDGs and Agenda 2063 indicators disaggregated by migratory status is coming on the right time to fulfil the actual needs from countries, the region and the African continent.

Dear statisticians, Dear colleagues,

On behalf of Statistics Sweden, I wish you all a successful training and workshop devoted to this important subject.