02-08-2017, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia): The Director of Agriculture and Environment Division of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Mr. Mohamed Moussa on behalf of IGAD Executive Secretary, this morning opened a consultative workshop with Member States on establishing a systematic and regular Data Sharing Agreement (DSA).
This two-day workshop, held in Addis Ababa, is gathering officials in charge of statics bureaus in line ministries at respective Member States of IGAD.
The specific objectives of the workshop are to establish or consolidate formal institutional linkages and mechanisms for data/information sharing between IGAD Secretariat and national statistics offices, and also to improve coordination and collaboration between national statistics offices, regional, and continental organizations on harmonisation of statistics.
Mr Moussa, in his inauguration remarks, highlighted that “IGAD developed a road-map to establish a functional harmonized monitoring system to support the implementation of not only the IGAD Regional Strategy 2016-2020, but also the African Union Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals frameworks”.
He then explained that “the successful monitoring of these development agendas heavily” relied “on data and requires reliable and harmonized statistics from the National Statistical data systems”.
Thus, the need to develop “a comparatively structured regional statistics framework” that “requires the adoption of harmonized and standardised definitions and concepts, adaptation of international norms to regions realities and specificities, and the use of a common methodology for the production of statistics and their dissemination”.
Mr Moussa declared the meeting open after wishing the participants fruitful deliberations.
