Africa's national statistics agencies have, at the request of their respective heads of state, recommended a draft charter on statistics for the continent.
This was undertaken recently after three days of intense meetings chaired by the African Union (AU) Commission, in collaboration with the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank.
The draft charter will be presented to Africa's ministers of finance, economics and planning in October, for further consideration. AU heads of state and government will then be asked to ratify it when they meet next January.
The African Statistics Charter has been developed against a background of programmes aimed at establishing an African economic community, which presupposes the availability of regular and reliable statistical data.
The main aim of the charter is to serve as an "ethical code building responsibility and an operational framework for statistical development in Africa, including the production, management and dissemination of data and statistical information at national, regional and continental levels".
More specifically, the charter aims to: serve as an advocacy tool for the development of statistics in Africa; ensure quality statistics that are comparable across countries and regions; promote professionalism and the fundamental principles of official statistics; strengthen the institutional and infrastructural capacity of statistical authorities; ensure their autonomy and independence from political interference in their operations and scientific integrity; serve as a professional code of ethics and good practices for statisticians; promote a culture of evidence-based decision making, policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation; and contribute to the strengthening and effective functioning of an African statistical system.
The charter embodies six key principles: professional independence of official statistical agencies; improved data quality; a legal mandate for data collection; appropriate dissemination of data; protection and confidentiality of sources of data; and co-ordination and co-operation between statistical organisations.
The principle of professional independence includes the right of statistical authorities to carry out their activities on a basis of scientific independence, regardless of political power or any interest group.
This right should be enshrined in law, as it is in South Africa's Statistics Act of 1999. Statistical authorities and African statisticians are called upon to use clear and relevant methods of collection, processing, analysis and presentation of statistical data, and to make observations on erroneous interpretations and improper uses of the statistical information that they disseminate.
They are also enjoined to facilitate correct interpretation of the data by providing scientific information on the sources, methods and procedures that have been used.
The principle of quality in African statistics receives considerable elaboration in the charter, with the dimensions of relevance, durability, accuracy, reliability, continuity, coherence and comparability, timeliness and topicality identified as particularly important.
The charter states that African statistics should be presented in a way that ensures internal coherence, in a time and in a way that enables comparison between regions and countries; for this purpose, it should be possible to jointly combine and use related data coming from different sources.
"The concepts, classifications, definitions and methods developed and recognised at the international level should be used."
The development of statistics that allow for comparisons between different African countries and between the various regions is a necessary condition for meaningful measurement and monitoring of indicators such as the Millennium Development Goals, and poverty reduction initiatives.
The charter forms part of a long evolutionary process relating to socioeconomic development in Africa.
n The adoption in 2000 of the AU Constitutive Act, which transformed the Organisation for African Unity into an integrated organisation for the continent's sustainable development; and n The operationalisation of the AU in 2001, with the aim of promoting Africa's socioeconomic development, the implementation of which requires harmonised, coherent, and viable statistics.
It also takes account of the provisions of a resolution on the fundamental principles of public statistics, adopted by a special session of the UN Statistical Commission in 1994, and of the professional code of ethics adopted by the International Statistical Institute at its 45th session, held in Amsterdam in 1985.
By the time the International Statistical Institute moves to South Africa for its 57th session in 2009, the evolution of the charter should be more advanced - although, with its long ancestry, the African Statistics Charter could face the danger of becoming just another document expressing noble sentiments.
However, there is a growing commitment to its principles on the part of African statisticians and their organisations.
This was demonstrated at the launch of the African Symposium on Statistical Development in Cape Town, and recently confirmed at the second such gathering, held in Rwanda.
The African Symposium on Statistical Development next comes to South Africa in 2058, once it has been hosted in rotation by each of the member states of the AU.
By this time, statistical practice based on the provisions of the African Statistics Charter should be firmly entrenched as the basis for the continent's programmes of social and economic development.