18.7 Million Euros to Enhance African Statistical Sovereignty
The city of Casablanca hosted the final forum of the second African statistics program on October 27, 2025. This event marked the culmination of three years of fruitful collaboration between Africa and Europe aimed at establishing a cohesive, reliable, and sustainable African statistical system.
Organized with the support of the High Commission for Planning, the event brought together over one hundred representatives from national statistical institutes across African countries, regional economic groups, as well as the African Union Commission, the European Union, and various technical and financial partners.
The program is funded by the European Union and is being implemented in partnership with STATAFRIC, Eurostat, and Expertise France, with a total budget of 18.7 million euros. This funding has enabled significant achievements, including the modernization of national accounts, improvement of business registries, expansion of administrative data dissemination, and enhancement of digital innovation.
In his opening speech, Osama Marsli, Director of Statistics at the High Commission for Planning, expressed Morocco’s pride in hosting this continental event, highlighting the pivotal role of the PAS II program in enhancing South-South cooperation and sharing best practices in the field of statistics.
For her part, Claudia Juncker, Head of a Unit at Eurostat, affirmed that the PAS II program represents a crucial milestone toward achieving an “independent statistical Africa,” thanks to the launch of practical initiatives in trade, food balances, and digitization.
Ben Paul Mungereza, representative of the African Development Bank, announced plans for the upcoming SCB-VI program (2026–2030), which will build on the achievements of PAS II and SCB-V to reinforce a strategy for harmonizing statistics in Africa (SHaSA 2).
Additionally, Adoum Gagouloum, Head of Economic Statistics at STATAFRIC, highlighted that the program has completed over 200 technical missions and 40 regional workshops benefiting nearly 1,500 participants from 51 African countries.
The technical sessions of the forum shed light on several tangible successes, such as the preparation of the first quarterly accounts in Guinea, the development of food balances in Malawi, and the establishment of a unified methodology for measuring informal cross-border trade.
The forum concluded with a renewed commitment from all partners to continue this joint dynamic around a unified vision titled: “Reliable Statistics for Comprehensive and Sustainable Evidence-Based Development.”
