African Statistical Newsletter = Bulletin d’Information Statistique 2014

Abstract

The Joint Session of CoDG and StatCom-Africa contributes to the progress of policies on statistics and statistical activities in Africa, as each body had done hitherto, in a more integrated manner. The Joint Session considers issues of concern in national and continental statistical development, methodological issues, coordination and integration of the African Statistical System, support of technical cooperation activities in statistics and organizational matters. It shall provide strategic direction to the work of ECA and AUC on statistics and statistical development in Africa, covering all the relevant areas of statistics. Since two decades, the statistical community celebrates the African Statistics Day every 18 November. The celebration of this year puts the emphasis on the openness of data. The idea of “Open Data” is about making data freely available to the public. It means making consultable and freely usable all statistical data that are available in public institutions and public administration. Doing so allows fulfilling one of the dimensions of quality, which is data availability. Data accessibility is defined as the ease with which users can get data from the producer. This accessibility concerns both the synthetic indicators produced by statistical services and individual data collected during census and other operations, such as surveys and activities of public administrations.