Data collection and dissemination challenges were highlighted at several recent pan-African and international meetings, culminating in the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) creating a transparent, reliable and credible portal to improve data management and dissemination on the African continent.
After successful pilot tests, data portals and open data systems have been developed and installed in all 54 African countries and in 16 regional/sub-regional organisations. Other tools, such as the e-GovDP platform, are being piloted and will be rolled out this year.
The Africa Information Highway (AIH) Roadshow kicked off in Pretoria, South Africa yesterday, with a launch and live demonstration beforegGovernment officials, policymakers, analysts, business leaders, investors, researchers, and representatives of civil society and non-governmental organizations.
AfDB Chief Economist and Vice-President Mthuli Ncube will be joined by Pali Lehohla, Statistician General of Statistics South Africa, the local regional partner for official statistics.
“Access to reliable, relevant and credible data is the singular most important driver for growth on the continent,” Ncube said.
“It enables governments, business leaders, investors and the ordinary African citizen to not only make informed decisions, but, for the first time, to properly manage and monitor development outcomes,” he added.
“The Information Highway also responds to the Bank’s own need for statistical capacity building and the demand for timely data to monitor the development impact of our interventions on the continent and to ensure that these are in line with our Ten Year Strategy launched last year,” Ncube concluded.
Over the years, many African countries have significantly scaled up their data collection efforts, but challenges remain with regard to the timely dissemination of data to end-users.
Accordingly, under the AIH initiative, data portals/open data systems with common IT platforms have been developed and installed in all 54 African countries and in 16 African regional and sub-regional organizations.
Strong partnerships have been established with the International Monetary Fund, and other international organizations such as World Health Organization, European Union, International Labour Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Statistics Division to leverage the AfDB’s Open Data Platform for data submission by African countries to these institutions and to facilitate data exchange among the countries and institutions.
Image (Africa Data): Data portals and open data systems have been developed and installed in all 54 African countries and in 16 regional/sub-regional organisations.
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