Tenth session of the Statistical Commission for Africa (STATCOM) and twelfth meeting of the Regional Committee of United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management for Africa (UN-GGIM: Africa)
Opening Remarks By
Claver Gatete
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 21 October 2026
H.E. Taye Atske Selassie, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,
Hon. Yusuf Murangwa, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of the Republic of Rwanda,
Distinguished Chairs and Heads of Statistical and Geospatial Institutions,
Distinguished Partners, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to Addis Ababa for this joint gathering of Africa's statistical and geospatial communities.
I thank the Government of Ethiopia for its hospitality and the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Statistics Division for their continued partnership.
Excellencies,
Every government must decide how best to allocate limited public resources.
Yet, when data and statistics are outdated, incomplete or unavailable, governments risk investing in the wrong priorities, overlooking underserved communities and failing to identify opportunities for economic growth.
Reliable data and statistics are therefore essential to effective public policy, investment decisions and national development.
This year's theme, “Unleashing the value of data in Africa: making official statistics a true mirror of the continent,” challenges us to ensure that our statistical systems accurately reflect Africa's economic and social realities.
We must move beyond producing statistics for reporting purposes and ensure that the data and statistical information we generate inform decisions, anticipate emerging needs and support development.
Translating this ambition into results will require stronger collective action in five key areas.
First, we must modernise and adequately finance foundational data and statistical systems.
The 2030 round of population and housing censuses presents an opportunity to strengthen the information on which national development decisions depend.
However, modernisation requires an integrated approach. Countries must establish national data architectures that connect population and housing censuses with national identification systems, civil registration, business registers and geographic address identifiers.
This calls for a coordinated, whole-of-government approach, with clear institutional responsibilities and effective arrangements for data integration and sharing.
Governments must also provide predictable financing for the entire census process, including enumeration, data processing, quality assurance, publication and dissemination.
A census loses much of its policy value when results are released years after enumeration, remain disconnected from other national statistical products, cannot be reconciled with international estimates or fail to respond to national policy priorities.
I urge national statistical offices to establish clear census implementation schedules, mobilise support across government ministries and the public, and ensure that results are available in time to guide public investment.
We must also integrate census data with geospatial information to identify population distribution, settlement patterns and gaps in access to essential services.
This requires closer cooperation between statistical offices, national mapping agencies, civil registration authorities and relevant ministries.
Second, we must produce data and statistics that reflect Africa's development realities.
Consider the labour market.
Africa's unemployment rate stood at 6.3 per cent in 2025. Yet, 84.4 per cent of employment was informal.
These figures illustrate why unemployment rates alone cannot adequately explain labour market conditions.
Statistical institutions must also measure underemployment, working poverty, job quality and access to social protection.
National statistical offices should publish these indicators together, strengthen the comparability of labour statistics and align their release schedules with national planning and budgeting processes.
We must apply the same approach to measuring poverty. Income-based poverty measures remain important, but they do not fully capture the multiple disadvantages households experience.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index brings together information on health, education and living standards, helping governments understand where different forms of deprivation overlap.
Used alongside income poverty statistics, it can help identify communities facing multiple disadvantages and guide investments in schools, healthcare, water, sanitation and other essential services.
I encourage countries to strengthen the collection and geographic disaggregation of multidimensional poverty data and integrate these findings into national development plans, social protection programmes and public investment decisions.
Third, we must harness artificial intelligence and emerging data sources while safeguarding statistical integrity.
Artificial intelligence, satellite imagery and digital records can improve the timeliness and detail of statistical information.
But these technologies also introduce risks. AI systems trained on incomplete or unrepresentative data can generate misleading results and reinforce existing biases.
National statistical offices must therefore lead the development of standards for validating emerging data sources, assessing AI-generated outputs and protecting confidentiality.
They must also work with other public institutions to ensure that new technologies complement censuses, representative surveys and administrative records.
Equally important, reliable and representative national data and statistics must inform the development and use of artificial intelligence, so that these technologies reflect African realities.
Our objective should be to use innovation to improve statistical quality and relevance without compromising professional independence or public trust.
Fourth, we must strengthen the integration of statistical and geospatial information to address emerging development priorities.
Climate change is increasing the need for reliable information on population exposure, environmental risks and infrastructure vulnerability.
By combining statistical and geographic data, governments can identify communities at risk of floods and droughts, improve land-use planning and direct climate adaptation investments where they are most needed.
I encourage national statistical offices, mapping agencies, meteorological services and planning authorities to establish joint workplans, harmonise standards and develop practical arrangements for sharing information.
These capabilities should also support economic transformation.
Africa needs reliable, forward-looking data and statistics on productive capacity, investment opportunities, trade flows and regional value chains to guide industrial policy and implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Stronger economic data, transparency and consistent statistical reporting can also contribute to more credible credit assessments and help investors better understand the opportunities and risks across African economies.
Fifth, we must strengthen the financing, independence and policy relevance of national statistical systems.
We cannot expect statistical institutions to deliver timely, credible and comprehensive data and statistics without adequate investment.
Governments should provide dedicated and predictable funding for national statistical development plans, including census programmes, modern infrastructure and skilled personnel.
At the same time, statistical agencies must engage more consistently with ministries of finance, planning authorities and other policymakers to ensure their outputs respond to national priorities.
This includes domestic resource mobilisation, employment, industrialisation, climate resilience and the financing for development agenda.
Data and statistics must help governments assess policy choices, understand trade-offs and direct scarce resources towards investments with the greatest development impact. Professional independence, methodological integrity and public trust must remain central to this work.
For our part, the Economic Commission for Africa, through its African Centre for Statistics, will work with national statistical offices to engage relevant government institutions and development partners on the need for predictable, adequate and sustainable financing for statistical systems.
Excellencies,
The measure of our success will be the extent to which reliable data and statistics improve public decisions and development outcomes.
I therefore encourage this Commission to agree on practical commitments to strengthen census data and statistics readiness, improve the relevance of national statistics, establish safeguards for emerging technologies and advance statistical and geospatial integration.
These commitments should be supported by clear responsibilities, realistic financing and measurable milestones for review at the next session.
The Economic Commission for Africa will continue working with member States, the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and other partners to advance these priorities.
Let us ensure that Africa's data and statistical systems provide the evidence our governments need to invest wisely, plan effectively and deliver better outcomes for our people.
I thank you.