In a speech delivered yesterday in Yaoundé, the Director General of the National Institute of Statistics (INS) chaired the first face-to-face meeting of the Regional Heads of Agencies of 2025, marking an important turning point in the coordination of statistical activities at the regional level.
This meeting, which precedes the annual meeting of the Institute’s central and decentralised services, is part of a dynamic to strengthen statistical decentralisation. A strategic choice that responds to the growing demand for support from Decentralized Local Authorities.
“We have embarked on a process of gradual decentralization of activities, accompanied by permanent monitoring to harmonize statistical production,” said the Director General. This approach has already borne fruit, notably with the successful implementation of the Harmonized Index of Household Consumer Prices (HICP) in 2023 and the production of bilingual regional statistical yearbooks.
However, several challenges remain. The Institute faces problems of consistency between national and regional statistical yearbooks, as well as difficulties in the monthly collection of prices. “The quality of our index is impacted by the persistence of missing prices in the monthly readings,” the CEO acknowledged.
Faced with these challenges, the INS intends to strengthen the systematic involvement of the Regional Agencies in its statistical operations. An action plan for 2025 will be developed, with a focus on sharing experiences between the different regional agencies.
The year 2025 promises to be particularly crucial for the Regional Agencies, which will be more solicited by the Regions and Municipalities. Their expertise will be required in particular for local capacity building and support in the drafting and monitoring of territorial development plans.
This meeting marks an important step in the modernization of the Cameroonian statistical system, with a strong desire to bring statistical production closer to local needs while maintaining high quality standards.