The city of seven hills will host the 44th Meeting of the Steering Committee of the Economic and Statistical Observatory of Sub-Saharan Africa (AFRISTAT) on April 8 and 9, 2022 at the La Falaise Hotel. The opening ceremony of this work was chaired by Alamine Ousmane Mey, Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Development.
This meeting is an opportunity for the 45 delegates from the 22 member countries of AFRISTAT to examine, in person and by videoconference, administrative and budgetary issues in order to improve the governance of this institution and guarantee its performance. With regard to administrative affairs, the Committee provided an update on the status of contributions to the AFRISTAT Fund for the period 2006-2025. Indeed, the contributions expected from member countries to the financing of the Observatory are arriving in dribs and drabs. This forces the structure to take out bank loans and consequently to limit its operational capacity in the member countries in terms of statistics.
In addition, given that the mandate of the current DG of the institution, Paul-Henri NGUEMA-MEYE comes to an end in 2023, the Committee launched a recruitment notice for the position of Director General of AFRISTAT for the period 2024-2027. In terms of budgetary issues, the organization’s 2021 budget execution report was presented by the institution’s new Deputy Director General, Ivorian Serge Jean EDI. It was learned that the implementation rate of the Observatory’s activities is more than 60%, despite a low rate of resource mobilization, attributable, according to the Director General of AFRISTAT, to the international situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, AFRISTAT’s overall budget amounted to about 2 billion 200 million.
In terms of the internal management of the Observatory, the Management Committee is considering the adoption of a Code of Ethics as well as the Staff Regulations. The Yaoundé meeting is of a special nature, because it will also be an opportunity for this organization to celebrate its quarter century of existence. A banquet will be offered on this subject.
AFRISTAT was created on 21 September 1993 at the request of the member countries of the franc zone, with the support of France, to set up an African centre of excellence in statistics. To date, this organization has many projects to improve statistics south of the Sahara, in particular, the Harmonized Index of Household Consumer Prices (HICP).