The African Union and the Government of Sweden through its embassy in Ethiopia has signed a cooperation agreement for the Phase II of the four-year project (2023 – 2026) on Migration Statistics in Africa. The agreement was signed today—by H.E. Albert M. Muchang, Commissioner for Economic Development, Tourism, Trade, Industry, Mining (ETTIM), African Union and Ambassador Hans Henric Lundquist, Swedish Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti, Permanent Representative to AU, IGAD and UNECA, on 26th June, 2023, at AUC Headquarters,—to improve regional harmonization of migration statistics in order to continue and deepen the cooperation with the African Union Institute for statistics (STATAFRIC) and six of eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs) namely the East African Community (EAC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU). The collaboration, which began in 2019, aims at strengthening capacities to improve the availability and quality of migration statistics in Africa, for use in decision-making.
As part of the first phase of the project, it has contributed significantly to addressing staff shortages by recruiting statisticians working on migration statistics at the various RECs, increasing access to migration statistics by publishing continental and regional migration reports, increasing capacity in the production of migration statistics analyses at both the AUC, RECs and country level, and raising the profile of the RECs as key actors in the development of migration statistics on the continent. In addition, cooperation between migration statistics stakeholders, including partners, has fostered capacity development and improved data production on the continent.
According to the AU evaluation, the four years of cooperation between Statistics Sweden and the African Union, hadseen tangible and positive results in the field of migration statistics in Africa. Nevertheless, much effort is still needed. This second phase is timely as it improves the availability of regular, timely and good quality migration statistics for use in policy making such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the Joint AU/ILO/IOM/ECA Labour Migration Programme (JLMP), the Migration Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA), the AU Plan of Action 2018-2030 and the Agenda 2063.
The new project phase, Migration statistics II, has been developed in collaboration between Statistics Sweden, STATAFRIC, and the six RECs in Africa. The scope of the work has been broadened from mainly focusing on labour migration to include statistics now also on forced displacement. The Norwegian statistical institute, Statistics Norway-SSB, has taken part in the planning of the new phase, with the aim of contributing especially to the area of statistics on refugees, IDPs and statelessness.
The project partners at regional and continental level will cooperate to improve: 1) the production, 2) the harmonisation of concepts and methods, 3) the dissemination and use and 4) the coordination between different actors regarding statistics on migration and forced displacement.
In addition, the provided technical support of the project is in line with the revised Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA 2) which aims at enabling the African Statistical System to generate quality, timely and harmonized statistics to monitor regional integration policies and support national, regional, continental and international development agendas.
For further information kindly contact:
For AU:
Mrs. Leila Ben Ali, Ag. Executive Director,
STATAFRIC, African Union;
Email: leilab@africa-union.org;
Mr. Houssem Touil, Communication Expert,
STATAFRIC, African Union;
Email: TouilH@africa-union.org;
For Sweden:
Ms Ulla Andrén
Head of Regional Development Cooperation in Africa
Swedish Embassy, Addis Ababa
Email: ulla.andren@gov.se
