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The Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA) is
going to implement a newly formulated National
Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) as
of September 2009, though it is yet to secure the
tens of millions of dollars needed for its
implementation, its officials disclosed.
The strategy that CSA says is different in content,
scope and coverage from the already phased-out
Medium Term Statistical Programme is planned to
become CSA’s five year strategic plan. It was
approved by the statistical council, which is headed
by Sufian Ahmed, minister of Finance and Economic
Development (MoFED), last Tuesday, May 19, 2009.
Ensuring the standardization concepts, definitions,
classifications and methodologies used by all
agencies, coordination of the national statistical
system (NSS) and avoiding duplications in
undertaking statistical activities, which confuse
data users, are among the expected outcomes of
implementing the strategy, according to Samia
Zekaria, director general of CSA.
The strategy is hoped to eliminate the data
inconsistency problems between CSA and other
government agencies like the ministries of Education
(MoE), and Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD).
Quality assurance, the speed of analysis, along with
the speed and network of dissemination are asserted
as areas of improvements NSDS has come up with.
“All these issues are what we have been discussing
with CSA and they tried to improve these aspects,”
Fidele Sarassoro, UNDP resident representative, told
Fortune. “We are very satisfied.”
World Bank (WB) has covered the total cost of
110,000 dollars for the preparation of strategy
documents.
CSA has organized a consultative meeting with
donors, including UNDP-DAG (Development Assistance
Group), to mobilize resources for improving the
statistical activities in Ethiopia, and to introduce
the new NSDS on Thursday, May 21, 2009. Before
implementing the strategy, the CSA is demanding 28.6
million dollars to cover around 31pc of the total
estimated 92.5 million dollars implementation cost;
the remaining 64 million dollars – 69pc – is
expected to be covered by the Ethiopian government.
But CSA’s need for assistance is not limited to only
a financial one. “We also expect some technical
support from donors,” Samia told journalists.
The donors seem to be interested to finance the
project.
“We have some interest in working with them, and we
will work with other partners to see how we can
support their effort,” Fidele told Fortune.
Household Welfare Monitoring (HWM) and Household
Income, Consumption and Expenditure (HICE) surveys
are among the regular major surveys which have been
conducted since 1995/96, according to CSA officials.
They will also be part of the new strategy.
HWM survey, which CSA introduced to monitor and
evaluate the socio-economic impact of the
government’s economic reform and subsequent poverty
reduction programs, needs a total of a little over
10.3 million dollars.
Assessing the level and distribution of non-income
dimensions of poverty, and the quality of household
life is among the objectives CSA is set to achieve
from this specific survey.
From the total budget of this specific survey, CSA
expects to get 2.9 million dollars (28.1pc of the
total cost) from the government and the balance is
expected to be covered by donors.
On the contrary, of the budget for the HWM survey,
CSA is planning to get the largest share from
donors’ contribution.
“In this case, donors’ usual big interest in
financing studies like welfare and poverty reduction
is considered,” Yassin Mossa, deputy director of
Economic Statistics, told Fortune.
The DAG group of donors, coordinated by UNDP, has
been participating in supporting activities and has
shown interest to take part in CSA’s latest strategy
implementation, Yassin told Fortune.
HICE survey, whose sample covered all the sedentary
population of the country, is anticipated to provide
income, expenditure and consumption statistics
useful for the assessment of the economic wellbeing
of the households and individuals, according a paper
Yassin presented last Thursday at the event the
agency organized to mobilize assistance from the
DAG.
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