| Posted to the web on November 22, 2007 |
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November 20, 2007 (Addis Ababa) - The Ethiopian government has long ago recognized that good quality and official statistics is highly essential for good governance, polices and development outcomes, said Central Statistical Agency (CSA).
Speaking at the celebration of the African Statistics Day here on Tuesday, CSA Director General, Samia Zekaria said the government strongly believes that better statistics could help policy makers to choose evidence-based interventions and monitor their effects.
To realize this, she said the government has allocated progressively a reasonable amount of budget for the Agency’s capacity building and for census and survey activities over the past decade.
The theme of this year’s celebration is “Improving Employment and Related Indicators to Better Inform Labor Policies and Programs in Africa,” the Director General said adding in this respect CSA has accomplished a lot in availing employment and related data over the last few years.
Professor Ben Kiregyera, Director of African Centre for Statistics, ECA also said high-quality statistical information is a key component of sound policy-making and effective decision-making and thus represents a crucial building block in the socio-economic development of any country.
Better and more reliable statistical information is an essential element in improving the ability of government to formulate appropriate policies, manage the economic and social development process and monitor improvements in the living standards of the people.
In an endeavor to strengthen statistical capacity in Africa an African Statistical Commission, an African Statistical Coordination Committee was established he said and added that the African Union Commission in close collaboration with regional partners has also formulated an African Charter for Statistics.
The Director said at ECA an African Centre for Statistics was established as part of the exercise to reposition ECA to serve Africa better.
The Agency has also launched EthioInfo, an updated and a web based Ethiopian socio-economic and demographic database on the occasion.
The purpose of launching the EthioInfo is to raise the awareness of various stakeholders including the government, regional States, NGOs, donor community and the public.
Statisticians, development experts, officials from various organizations and representatives of the international community attended the event which is believed to contribute in raising awareness about statistics by the data users, producers, respondents and the public at large.
(ENA)
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