Country Assessment of Agricultural Statistical Systems in Africa : Measuring the Capacity of African Countries to Produce Timely, Reliable, and Sustainable Agricultural Statistics

Abstract

The Statistics Department of the African Development Bank (AfDB) is pleased to present this “Assessment of Agricultural Statistical Systems in Africa: Measuring the Capacity of African Countries to Produce Timely, Reliable, and SustainableAgricultural Statistics.” The agricultural sector remains the engine of growth for many countries in Africa – as it does for many other developing regions of the world; however, agricultural statistics to inform the development of this sector have remained inadequate. Concerned about the state of agricultural statistics in the world, the UN Statistical Commission endorsed in 2010 a “Global Strategy for Improving Agricultural and Rural Statistics.” Africa was the first region to develop an Action Plan titled “Improving Statistics for Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture, and Rural Development – An Action Plan Africa 2011-2015,” to guide the implementation of the Global Strategy. The Action Plan provided for the undertaking of statistical capacity and needs assessment in African countries to: (i) establish baselines against which targets could be set and performance measured; (ii) support a comprehensive technical assistance program for Africa, covering also training and research; and (iii) establish a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system to measure changes in the level of statistical capacity over time. The assessment was to be effected in two stages. The first stage would focus on establishing baseline information on African countries’ statistical capacity. Stage two would comprise an in-depth assessment of the state of statistics in the agricultural sector in selected countries on a needs basis, to inform the design of country Strategic Plans for Agricultural and Rural Statistics (SPARS). In 2013, the first-stage assessment collected data from 52 African countries. These data were used to compile Agricultural Statistics Capacity Indicators (ASCIs), which were validated by countries at a workshop held in Rabat, Morocco, in November 2013. These indica-tors are presented in this publication, which also gives background information about the Action Plan for Africa of the Global Strategy, the methodology used to make the assessment and collect the data, and how data compilation was carried out. The successful completion of the country assessments was due in no small measure to a concerted effort on the part of country teams from the National Statistical Offices and Ministries of Agriculture, as well as a broad cross-section of stakeholders. On behalf of the AfDB, I would like to thank all those involved for the making the exercise a huge success. I especially would like to take this opportunity to thank the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations for providing the methodology and instruments without which the assessments would not have been possible. Thanks are also due to the African countries themselves, for the enthusiasm they have shown in the implementation of the Action Plan and for their participation in the assessments.