Hosted by the Collaborative on Citizen Data, with UNSD, UNECA, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, and UN Women
Africa is entering the final years of the 2030 Agenda while continuing to implement Agenda 2063, and making sure no one is left behind is still one of the hardest tasks for official statistics. Persons with disabilities, residents of informal settlements, remote communities and displaced populations are often underrepresented in the surveys and records that national statistics rely on. When they are missing from the data, governments struggle to design policies that reach them or to track whether progress includes them.
That gap sits at the center of this year’s StatCom-Africa theme, “Unleashing the Value of Data in Africa: Making Official Statistics a True Mirror of the Continent.” For official statistics to reflect the continent, they need to capture the realities and needs of every community.
Citizen data offers one practical way to do that. Communities produce information about their own lives, and national statistical offices bring it into official systems through partnerships with civil society organizations and local groups. Countries including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi and Lesotho are already using this approach to strengthen SDG monitoring, make people at risk of being left behind more visible, and build trust between governments and the people they serve.
What happens in the session
After opening remarks from the Global Partnership, on behalf of the Collaborative on Citizen Data, and UNECA, a panel takes up one question. What should citizen data in Africa be aiming for as a complement to official statistics, and how do countries get there? Panelists from IIRR Ethiopia, Lesotho and PARIS21 share their perspectives, in a discussion moderated by Isabella Schmidt of UN Women.
The floor then opens to national statistical offices to discuss the main opportunities and obstacles for citizen data across the region. Karen Bett of the Global Partnership moderates the event. The session closes with reflections on next steps and an invitation for statistical offices to take a more active part in the Collaborative on Citizen Data.
