On Tuesday, July 5, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) introduced the ECA Monthly Press Briefing, a platform through which the Commission hopes to improve media relations and make its experts and knowledge products more regularly accessible.
The African Center for Statistics (ACS) of ECA gave a presentation at the event, highlighting some of its ongoing work and the significance of cooperation between ECA and the media journalists who frequently use data and statistics to report on the news and contextualize stories.
Oliver Chinganya, the director of the ACS, gave a presentation outlining the work being done by the Center in areas like geospatial information statistics, economic statistics, and demographic and social statistics.
The Centre’s recognition of the need to update the 2008 Systems of National Accounts (SNA), the generally accepted set of guidelines on how to compile measures of economic activity, was covered by Mr. Chinganya.
“With the help of this process, we can make sure that measurements of our economies across the continent take new regions and developments into account.
We are helping nations change the way their economies are assessed, according to Mr. Chinganya.
The presentation also highlighted the Center’s initiatives for innovation, training, and the modernization of national statistical systems in Africa.
According to Mr. Chinganya, “Innovation is a part of modernisation, which is why we have established a data science campus. It has been paired with the Rwandan campus for data science.
The actual focus of this campus is utilizing the potential of big data, administrative data usage, and other sources, including the application of contemporary technology.
According to the ACS Director, COVID-19 was a mixed blessing because the lockdowns made it difficult in most situations to gather data in person. He claimed that it had become nearly hard to document births and deaths, for instance.
Thus, the adoption of contemporary technology to facilitate data collection was prompted by this.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Dashboard was the subject of the presentation’s concluding section. a system designed to monitor Africa’s advancement in implementing Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063 15 of the 17 SDGs have shown advancement in Africa thus far. But this is insufficient to carry out Agenda 2030’s objectives.
Furthermore, if Africa’s current course is maintained, it will be difficult to achieve these objectives by 2030.
According to Oliver Chinganya, just 5 of the 94 measurable targets are likely to be met by Africa at the current rate of development.
He also emphasized places with very limited data availability. such includes target 13 on climate change and goal 5 on gender and equality.
In his closing remarks, he emphasized the need of journalists gathering information from official government sources and of governments making information available so that nations’ development can be tracked.
To increase journalistic data literacy and interest in the subject, ACS will be working with the ECA Communication and Media Relations Section (CMRS) to provide a number of seminars on data and statistics.
A media award that will honor and recognize excellent reporting on data and statistics as well as in other areas of work covered by the Commission was also announced by CMRS.
Additionally speaking, Nita Deerpalsing, Director of the ECA’s Publications, Conference and Knowledge Management Division, welcomed the media to the monthly press briefing, which is held the first week of each month.
She emphasized the “crucial role” journalists play in assisting Africa in achieving its development objectives.