Africa Survey book launch Statistics in Africa need greater attention if government performance on the continent is to improve, said Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s former finance minister, and two economists at the release Tuesday of the 2014 Africa Survey in Johannesburg. “The challenge with Africa is that the quality and quantity of data is lacking,” Mr Biti said. “The chief problem is that most governments on the African continent do not appreciate statistics.” Morten Jerven, economic historian and writer of “Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It”, explained in detail that African information is too often invalid and unreliable because it is not measured correctly. Governments should focus on reliable information that is collected regularly, he said. “There’s too much effort put into national censuses and surveys,” Mr Jerven said. “We should rather put money into real sector data, and targeted surveys in areas where we know very little, like labour productivity.” Simon Freemantle, senior political economist at Standard Bank, agreed that there were many problems with African numbers, but still thought it was possible to see positive trends particularly in the growth of the continent’s middle class. “The middle class matters more than just people to sell things to,” said Mr Freemantle, the author of recent study on the middle class. “It creates accountability for political systems and robustness in markets.” The three Africa experts agreed that although the numbers may be misleading, the importance of having reliable statistics is increasingly recognised. “There has been a sea change in the available data on Africa,” Mr Freemantle said. The Africa Survey is a comprehensive collection of African statistics compiled from a wide range of sources. Published by Good Governance Africa, a research organisation based in Johannesburg, this compendium provides information on each African country’s demographics, business environment, health, education and other indicators of government performance. Good Governance Africa is a Johannesburg-based research organisation founded in 2012 to promote better government performance. Its main publications are the Africa Survey, and Africa in Fact, a journal that examines issues related to government management.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 13:57:30 +0000
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