The report was launched in the Ghanaian capital at an event co-hosted with Afrobarometer, a research outfit preparing periodic updates on various issues in collaboration with locally based economic research groups.
Titled “The power of data for governance: Closing data gaps to accelerate Africa’s transformation,” the report underscored its role in driving progress, assessing government performance, setting policy priorities and ensuring trust in governments.
Noting that sound data is at the heart of Africa’s governance and development agendas, it drew from the 2022 IIAG dataset, revealing a strong positive correlation between access to high-quality statistics and effective governance across African countries, cumulatively from 2012 to 2021.
He asserted all the same that Africa remains the continent most impacted by data gaps globally, possessing the lowest availability of civil registration and vital statistics.
When it comes to the basic building blocks of statistics that are key to defining public policies, such as population censuses and birth and death registration, many African countries are missing crucial data, he said in summary remarks.
Even in areas where strides have been made, critical governance data gaps persist on issues like health structures, the informal economy, the environment, violence against women, child labour and illicit financial flows, he stated.
The underfunding of data remains a serious challenge globally, with statistics receiving just 0.34 per cent of total Official Development Assistance (ODA), the report lamented, pointing out that in Africa, ODA received for data and statistics nearly halved between 2018 and 2021.
In addition to investing in data, critical strategies to enhance data impact and accelerate development progress on the continent are needed, including ensuring the independence of National Statistical Offices, the philanthropist noted.
Harnessing alternative data sources like citizen-generated data and private company data, plus leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning are equally significant, he elaborated.
Mo Ibrahim, the founder and chairman of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, stressed the importance of data for Africa in achieving key development and policy agenda.
“Without data, we are driving blind – policies are misdirected and progress on the road to development is stunted. We must act urgently to close the data gap in Africa if we genuinely want to leave no one behind. Data is key to achieving both the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the UN’ Sustainable Development Goals,” he declared, reasserting the view that “what UN Agenda 2030 should have begun with is an SDG 0 – Sound Data for Governance.”
From its inception, MIF has been a strong supporter of Afrobarometer, now the leading African research institution conducting public attitude surveys on the continent.
Afrobarometer is the only source of the Citizens’ Voices dataset, which complements the IIAG dataset, launched following a two-day meeting of the IIAG expert panel in Accra.
The renewed advisory body meets once a year in a different African country for in-person consultations on the IIAG, officials noted.
_0.jpg?itok=QU87XW8D){kind=tracking}
.jpeg?itok=vCj6bCRe)
