STATISTICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE WEST AFRICAN MONETARY ZONE

1. STATISTICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE WEST AFRICAN MONETARY ZONE FORUM FOR STATISTICAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE CENTRE ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA 12 – 13 MAY 2004

2. Layout • Introduction • Background of the WAMZ and WAMI • Objective and scope of the statistic programme in the WAMZ • The Magnitude of statistical activities • Sources of on-going assistance and coordination with partners • Areas for further intervention • Conclusion

3. Background • The WAMZ – 2nd Monetary Zone in West Africa – takes its root in the long standing pursuit of economic and monetary integration by ECOWAS • In April 2000, Heads of State and Government of six countries(Gambia, Ghana, Guinea,Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone) authorized a fast track approach • Created WAMI to take up day to day responsibility to implement the fast track action plan for monetary unification and establishment of common central bank, WACB

4. Background (cont’d) • WAMI’s mission consist of the following: • Monitoring macroeconomic convergencein the WAMZ • Preparation for the common currency in the WAMZ • Establishing the WAMZ central Bank, WACB

5. Objective and Scope of the Statistical Programme in the WAMZ • Overall Objective • Core instrument to promote the integration process • Focus on making available relevant, timely and reliable stats info to used in the WAMZ for planning, monitoring, policy formulation and decision making • Specific objective • Harmonisation of statistics and capacity building • To make available comparable, accurate and up to date stats for convergence surveillance • And support policy coordination at the level of the zone • Scope • Macroeconomic statistics in the real sector, fiscal sector, monetary sector and external sector from which the convergence criteria are measured and which support the assessment of overall economic performance

6. Magnitude of the Statistical Activities in the WAMZ • This is best appreciated from a general assessment of the quality of the current stats in the countries • The activities which are centered around harmonisation broadly include ensuring • Methodological soundness w.r.t. definitions,scope, coverage, and classification systems used • Comprehensiveness, Accuracy and reliability w.r.t. statistical techniques and source data • Serviceability of the statistics w.r.t. periodicity and timeliness • Will throw brief light on where we are and what we want to do in the WAMZ countries on the national accounts, the CPI, fiscal data, monetary statistics and trade data

7. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • The National Accounts/GDP • GDP – key indicator derived from N/ac – useful in calculation of most convergence criteria of the WAMZ • To ensure comparability of performance, compilation methods must be harmonised and uniform in the zone in line with SNA 93

8. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • What is the current status in the WAMZ? • Countries are at varying degrees of development of their national accounts systems and GDP estimates of varying qualities • Differences in coverage • Outdates censuses and surveys of institutional units and sectors and old registers • Differences in classification systems in use • Differences in base years • Varying lags in frequency of benchmarking and revisions of estimates • Lags in the dissemination of the national accounts statistics

9. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • What are we planning on doing in the countries? • Ensure that all countries fully attain the 1st stage in the implementation of SNA93 i.e. improving the quality of the basis indicator, GDP measured by both production and expenditure approaches • This involves: • Updating and fine-tuning sector surveys and institutional censuses to improve coverage • Updating the classification schemes; COICOP, COFOG, ISIC • Improve measurement of unrecorded activities and informal sector

10. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • Consumer Price Indices • The key statistic needed to measure the single digit inflation criterion • This means that there should be uniformity and comparability in the measurement of the CPI in member states w.r.t. coverage, classification, index calculation method, base years or reference period for index and weights and resolution of technical problems

11. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • What is the current status in the WAMZ? • Countries differ in these key measurement features of the CPI • Only two countries, Ghana and Nigeria, report composite indices of national coverage • Indices in the Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone cover only capital city, and for the Gambia only low income population • COICOP classification not adopted in Gambia and Sierra Leone • Base year older than 10 years and weights derived from old household budget surveys in Gambia and Sierra Leone • Some lags in the timeliness of CPI

12. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • What are we planning on doing in the countries ? • Ensuring the adoption of COICOP in all the countries – ECOWAS is doing this • Undertaking Household Budget Surveys to update base year and weights • Facilitate nationwide price collection based on new COICOP questionnaire to expand coverage

13. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • Government Fiscal Statistics • This data set very important for convergence monitoring • Countries required to follow GFS 1986 framework for definitions, concepts, classifications and accounting conventions • The status in the countries • Main area of difference is w.r.t. classification, comprehensiveness of data from source on both revenue and expenditure and timeliness

14. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • Differences in coverage, extra-budgetary and special funds not captured in some countries • Lack of data on stock of domestic arrears • Proliferation of government accounts in commercial banks • Misclassification problem monetary statistics due to inappropriate definition of government to commercial banks • Lack of appropriate integrated financial management system in all the countries which affect timeliness • Magnitude of task here for harmonisation is huge

15. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • Monetary and Financial Statistics • Most stable and timely data set in the countries • The task here is to compile zone wide monetary aggregate

16. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d) • Trade and Balance of Payment • The main data quality issue to be addressed is with respect to coverage of both import and export information for intra-zone and external trade

17. Challenges • Low statistical awareness and appreciation among policy and decision makers in the zone • Inadequate resource allocation to statistics in member countries • Disparities in human statistical resources • Lack of effective dissemination (data base and interconnectivity) • Lags in collection and dissemination

18. On-going Assistance and Collaboration • USAID – Advisory assistance • ECB and ESCB – Technical assistance on statistical issues of relevance to harmonisation • ECOWAS Secretariat – CPI; National A/c • ADB ICP- Africa • UNECA

19. Areas for Further Intervention • Funding • Additional technical cooperation • World Bank /IMF – Data sharing through a WAMZ live database • Participation in Training programme

20. Conclusion • Current efforts in the WAMZ undoubtedly need further developments • Partner assistance through funding, advisory and collaborative initiative is highly desired to foster our statistical capacity building efforts.

21. Magnitude of Activities (cont’d)