OREANDA-NEWS. The African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched a training of trainers workshop on the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) under the theme “Create a cadre of African experts in NSDS processes that will assist African countries to design, implement and evaluate NSDS in Africa”.

The workshop is being conducted from August 24-28 in Accra, Ghana, within the framework of the Bank’s Statistical Capacity Building Program and is targeted at the top-level African experts involved in NSDS processes within Africa. Participants come from 20 of the Bank’s regional member countries (RMCs), pan-African institutions, sub-regional organizations and UN agencies. The Bank team is conducted by Fessou Emessan Lawson, Principal Statistician, and composed of Ngwa Godlove Sache, Principal Interpreter, and AfDB consultants Ben Kiregyera and Oladepo Ajayi.

The workshop was officially opened by Mona Quartey, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Republic of Ghana. Other officials at the opening ceremony included the Government Statistician, Philomena Nyarko. This workshop is of special significance for the AfDB as the outcomes will contribute immensely to attaining the Bank’s overarching core objective of creating a cadre of African experts in NSDS processes that will assist African countries to design, implement and evaluate NSDS in Africa. The goal is to improve official statistics through the NSDS framework that uses the sectoral approach in the Bank’s regional member countries. The NSDS design and implementation are also the overarching strategy of the Reference Regional Strategic Framework for the Development of Statistics in Africa (RRSF). The NSDS is expected to play a big role in driving the data revolution in Africa to support the post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda.