AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK GROUP CHIEF ECONOMIST COMPLEX Africa Regional Status Report 7 th REGIONAL COORDINATOR S MEETING Conference Room MC2-800 The World Bank, Washington, D.C. September 19-21, Statistical Capacity Building Division Statistics Department Economic Complex African Development Bank Group September, 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS 0. INTRODUCTION 3 1. HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION SURVEY 3 1.1. LIST OF COUNTRIES/ECONOMIES THAT ARE INVOLVED IN THE SURVEY 3 1.2. STATUS OF DATA COLLECTION AND SUBMISSION 4 1.3. IMPORTANCE INDICATORS 4 1.4. STATUS OF DATA VALIDATION 5 1.5. STATUS OF THE CALCULATION OF ANNUAL AVERAGE PRICES 5 1.6. TIMETABLE FOR THE REMAINING ACTIVITIES 5 2. NON HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION SURVEYS (SPECIFIC SURVEYS) 6 2.1 DWELLING AND HOUSING SERVICES 6 2.2 MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT GOODS 7 2.3 CONSTRUCTION AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 7 2.4 COMPENSATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES 7 2.5 PRIVATE EDUCATION 7 2.6 WATER TARIFFS 8 3. NATIONAL ACCOUNTS ACTIVITIES 8 3.1. GDP SPLITTING- MORES AND EXHAUSTIVENESS 8 4. OVERALL RISK ASSESSMENT 8 5. UPCOMING REGIONAL ACTIVITIES 9 6. ANNEX: IMPLEMENTATION STATUS OF THE MAIN HOUSEHOLD SURVEY OF ICP-AFRICA AS AT THE END OF AUGUST 10 2
0. Introduction This report provides the implementation status of the International Comparison Programme (ICP) round in Africa since the last report in April, with specific emphasis on the following five topics: Household Consumption Survey Other price Surveys or Specific Surveys National Accounts activities Overall risk assessment Upcoming regional activities 1. Household Consumption Survey 1.1. List of countries/economies that are involved in the survey The following 50 African countries are involved in the survey for the ICP round. They are clustered by Regional Economic Community (REC): N Countries N Countries N Countries N Countries AMU ECOWAS COMESA SADC 1 Algeria 13 Benin 28 Burundi 38 Angola 2 Mauritania 14 Burkina Faso 29 Comoros 39 Botswana 3 Morocco 15 Cape Verde 30 Djibouti 40 Lesotho 4 Tunisia 16 Cote d'ivoire 31 Egypt 41 Malawi ECCAS 17 Gambia 32 Kenya 42 Mauritius 5 Cameroun 18 Ghana 33 Madagascar 43 Mozambique 6 Central African Republic. 19 Guinea Bissau 34 Rwanda 44 Namibia 7 Chad 20 Guinea 35 Sudan 45 Seychelles 8 Congo 21 Mali 36 Uganda 46 South Africa 9 Congo, DRC 22 Niger 37 Ethiopia 47 Swaziland 10 Equatorial Guinea 23 Liberia 48 Tanzania 11 Gabon 24 Nigeria 49 Zambia 12 Sao T & Principe 25 Senegal 50 Zimbabwe 26 Sierra Leone 27 Togo AMU: ECCAS: ECOWAS: COMESA: SADC: Arab Maghreb Union Economic Community of Central African States Economic Community of West African States Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Southern African Development Community 3
1.2. Status of data collection and submission The status of data collection during the reference year () and submission by countries to the AfDB is given in Table 1 below: Table 1: Status of data collection and submission in Quarter Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Number of countries 49 49 48 46 These data were submitted to the Global Office on August 12,. The AfDB and the participating African countries have continued the validation of the data. Although 50 African countries are participating in the ICP round, they did not start the data collection at the same time and the monthly data collection frequency were not followed by all countries. The details of the frequency of data collection, status of data submission and validation is given in annex of the report. Due to financial constraint, the scope and nature of the data collection varies: (i) Some countries have a national coverage using the regional basket of goods and services while others collected data in urban areas and in capital city; (ii) During the first two quarters in, some countries collected ICP-CPI products but improved the collection in the fourth quarter by using the ICP regional list.. A few countries like Equatorial Guinea and Angola which did not undertake any data collection in were requested to provide the data of products common to ICP and CPI for all months of. In order to assure consistence all countries were requested to collect data in February and April, although some countries collected for the all the months of the first quarter of. This approach was adopted to cater particularly for countries that did not collect data in the first quarter of. The status of the data collection in and submission is given in Table 2 below: Table 2: Status of data collection in and submission Month January February March April Number of countries 10 19 9 12 1.3. Importance indicators Before the Fourth ICP-Africa regional Workshop held in Tunisia from 4 to 8 June, Importance indicators had not received much attention in the implementation of the 4
Program in Africa because they were not well understood and operational guidelines were not given to the Regional Office. Countries collected and submitted data to the AfDB without taking into account the notion of important product. This notion was discussed in detail during the last ICP-Africa regional workshop in Tunisia. The matrix of importance indicators validation steps was presented and discussed. Inconsistencies in the definition of important products were also identified in view of reviewing the availability and importance matrix. Participating countries have since then reviewed the importance matrices they provided earlier and validation has continued. 1.4. Status of data validation During the last ICP-Africa regional workshop, held on June 4-8 in Tunis, data validation was organized in five (5) working groups (COMESA, ECCAS, ECOWAS, SADC and AMU) to review and discuss data for quarters three and four as well as data collected in February and April. Countries conducted intra country validation using Time line file to check consistency of data collected in Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. Inter-country data validation was also conducted using Quaranta tables computed with the February and May data sets. Data of all products for each Basic Headings were reviewed. Problematic items were identified for further actions at the regional level. Discussions and sharing experiences among countries led to a better understanding of product specifications. The iterative process of data validation continued after the workshop through exchange of mails and as a way forward, countries were requested to revalidate and submit their final data accordingly. Most countries have complied with the request. 1.5. Status of the calculation of annual average prices As previously mentioned some African countries have a national coverage while others collected data in urban areas and in capital cities. In addition, due to budget constraints some countries provided data for two quarters out of four. These conditions necessitate some adjustments in calculating the national annual average prices are required. Countries were requested to provide the AfDB with additional information on their Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the computation of their annual average prices. The process is on-going and a write-up will be provided. 1.6. Timetable for the remaining activities The final country submissions will be validated in their respective sub regions [AMU, ECCAS, ECOWAS, COMESA and SADC] and then during a regional workshop. The sub regions will report on the findings, which will be a further investigated during the tentative workshops as described below: (i) ICP data validation workshops to review the final quarterly price data and calculate countries national annual average prices for Household consumption items, (2013 February 18-22) in each subregion (AMU, ECCAS, ECOWAS, COMESA and SADC); 5
(ii) (iii) The fifth regional ICP-Africa workshop to review and validate the national annual average price for Household Consumption survey for all countries, from 06-10 May 2013; Final submission of ICP-Africa price data (Quarterly and Annual prices) to the GO, end of June 2013; It is envisaged that technical missions will be undertaken to some of the problematic countries to resolve some outstanding issues before the workshop(s). 2. Non-Household Consumption Surveys (Specific Surveys) A good number of countries have conducted the ICP specific surveys (Dwellings and Housing services, machinery and Equipment Goods, Construction and Civil Engineering, Private Education and compensation of Government Employees) even though it was not done at the same time and the method of data collection was not similar. Some countries used consultants to undertake the surveys while others used their staff within the NSO. This was the situation especially for the Machinery and Equipment Goods surveys and Construction and Civil Engineering surveys. However to ensure consistence, international consultants have been hired to review and validate collected. In this regard we invited experts, Jim Meikle and Eric Bruggemann to the last Regional workshop to give presentations on various aspects relating to Construction and Civil Engineering and machinery and Equipment respectively. We have requested countries to send completed questionnaires directly to the experts so that they can perform intra and inter country validation, in case we do not afford another workshop before the end of the year, or time period of the project 2.1 Dwelling and Housing Services The resolution made during the Pretoria Regional workshop in June was that countries will only use the quantity approach to calculate volumes of housing services generated in the country. This resolution was made after realizing that most countries do not meet the data requirements of more than 25% of dwellings rented and rented dwellings distributed evenly across the country. After the relaxation of this data requirement, countries were asked at the last Regional workshop in Tunis to develop a survey framework to conduct the survey in the capital cities or the major cities. This means that data collection for this survey will be conducted in the third and fourth quarters of for both the latest year available (2009) and the reference year (). According to the schedule provided by the Global Office, these surveys were supposed to be conducted last year in the designated quarters but due to financial constraints they were postponed to the third and last quarters of as reported during the last RC meeting. 6
2.2 Machinery and Equipment Goods We had resolved during the Pretoria Regional workshop in that the National Accounts experts in the NSOs would spearhead the data collection of this survey in collaboration with their price and trade experts. Instructions were sent to the Sub-Regional Organizations (SROs) and countries to start preparing for the survey and collect the data on machinery and equipment between September and November. This was on the understanding that funding would be provided to countries in the third and fourth quarters of. Since the funding was not availed as expected, implementation of the survey was not systematic. A few countries have conducted the survey using their own experts while other countries engaged consultants. During the 4 th Regional Workshop in June, the consultant made a presentation which clearly showed that countries don t need to hire consultants to conduct this survey. We expect all countries to complete the data collection in the third and fourth quarters of this year. 2.3 Construction and Civil Engineering Briefing notes for the regional coordinators and NSOs on the selection criteria for national experts were only received in mid-august from the Global office. Because of the delay of the notes and also the funding constraints, we proposed to participating countries to start data collection in the first quarter of instead of scheduled month of July, but still collect data for the reference year. We had hoped that by this time we would have provided funding to the countries to undertake data collection. However, some countries have collected data with the help of consultants and a few using their own staff from the NSO. Upon engaging the consultant we have instructed all the countries to submit completed forms directly to him for intra and inter country validation. We expect all countries to collect and submit the data by in the third and fourth quarters of this year. 2.4 Compensation of Government employees Most countries have collected the data on Government occupations and Government expenditure from Government Finance Statistics and other administrative sources. What is remaining is data entry and validation. We had hoped that all the participating countries will be able to complete the data collection and validation during the 4 th ICP Regional workshop scheduled to be held in June. However this could not be accomplished due to reasons alluded above. We expect to receive the completed forms from all countries in the third and fourth quarters of this year. 2.5 Private Education Data collection should have been undertaken in the first quarter of this year. However, due to funding problems, not all countries have conducted the survey. Most countries in the SADC and COMESA countries have completed the survey. What is remaining is data 7
validation. We expect all countries to complete this in the third and fourth quarters of this year 2.6 Water tariffs Countries have yet to submit data on water tariff. However reports from our SROs indicate that the survey is ongoing in most countries. We expect all countries to submit the completed questionnaires in the third and fourth quarters of this year 3. National Accounts activities 3.1. GDP Splitting- MORES and Exhaustiveness As reported during the last RC meeting in April, National Accounts aggregates for the latest year available (2009) including basic heading data were submitted to the Global office as required, although there were not accompanied by the MORES completed templates. During the last ICP-Africa Regional workshop in June, countries were asked to update the submissions they had provided earlier. All countries confirmed that they did not make any revisions to the data already submitted. In line with the agreement arrived at during the retreat held in Tunis with the Global Office in March, we had expected all the countries to complete their respective MORES templates during the Regional workshop including the quality assurance and exhaustiveness questionnaires. This was not accomplished mainly due to the fact that there were so many items that the countries had to attend to. Secondly most participants who attended the Regional workshop were attending for the first time and thus required more time to understand the MORES template. We resolved that countries would complete the templates and submit to us before the RC meetings. We have received completed templates from most of the SADC and COMESA countries. We have a problem with AFRISTAT countries because we no longer have an AfDB staff stationed at AFRISTAT to follow up with countries. South Africa is the only country that has submitted the completed MORES template for the reference year. Most countries will produce the final accounts for at the end of this month. 4. Overall risk assessment As indicated in the April report, Eritrea is not participating in the ICP round and due to the political events which, took place in Libya, it is not participating in the program as the political situation is still volatile. 8
5. Upcoming regional activities It is envisaged that the fifth regional ICP-Africa workshop will be conducted in Nairobi, Kenya from 06-10 May 2013 prior to the final submission of data to the GO. It will bring together price statisticians and national account experts of participating countries. Other participants will include representatives from sub-regional organizations (AFRISTAT ECOWAS, ECCAS, COMESA, and SADC) as well as the Global Office. The objective of the workshop is to (i) undertake a final review and validation of the national annual average price for Household Consumption survey for all countries (iii) review and validate ICP Specific Surveys data, (iv) review and validate the national accounts data for the reference year, and (v) discuss and document the experience of ICP round, as well as chart a way forward 9
6. Annex: Implementation Status of the Main Household Survey of ICP- AFRICA as at the end of August Country HHC Data Collection frequency HHC Data Collection status HHC submission status Submission of revalidated data for after the validation workshop in Tunis Angola Collected in April Apr-12 4 th Quarter (CPI- ICP data) Submitted revalidated CPI-ICP data for Botswana Up to Apr Apr-12 Lesotho Up to Apr Apr-12 Malawi Quarterly Up to Apr Apr-12 Mauritius Quarterly Up to Apr Apr-12 Mozambique Quarterly Up to Apr Apr-12 Namibia Up to Apr (Except the 3 rd Quarter) Seychelles Up to Apr Apr-12 South Africa Up to Apr Apr-12 Swaziland Dec-11 Tanzania Quarterly Up to Apr Apr-12 Zambia Up to Apr Oct-11 Zimbabwe Up to Apr Apr-12 Morocco Up to Apr Mar-12 Tunisia Dec-11 Algeria Up to June Jun-12 Mauritania Up to March Mar-12 Burundi Dec-11 Rwanda Dec-11 Uganda Up to Apr Apr-12 Sudan Madagascar Quarterly Egypt Feb-12 10
Kenya Ethiopia Comoros Up to November Up to November Up to November Djibouti Mar-12 Cameroun Cen. Afr.Rep. Dec-11 Chad Congo Congo, DRC Feb-12 Feb-12 Equatorial Guinea Quarterly Up to Dec Dec-11 Gabon Up to Dec Dec-11 Sao T & Principe Up to Dec Dec-11 Benin Up to Dec Dec-11 Burkina Faso Quarterly Up to Dec Dec-11 Cap Vert Up to Apr Dec-11 Cote d'ivoire Quarterly Up to Aug Aug-12 Gambia Up to Apr Apr-12 Ghana Up to Dec Dec-11 Guinea Bissau Up to Apr Apr-11 Guinea Conakry Up to Apr Dec-11 Mali Up to Apr Feb-12 Niger Up to Apr Apr-12 Liberia Up to Apr Apr-12 Nigeria Senegal Up to November Feb-12 Togo Up to Dec Dec-11 Sierra Leone Up to November 11