National statistical systems in Africa present “profound weaknesses”, including poor political support, inadequate legal and institutional frameworks, a lack of coordination and weak management, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said yesterday.

Speaking at the opening of this year's African Symposium on Statistical Development, the Minister said these shortcomings were a key obstacle to attracting international aid and investment to the continent, and to the achievement of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one of which is to halve poverty across the world by 2015.

“How do we continue to lobby for the centrality of African development initiatives if the data we present has little credibility?”

“Secondly, how can we ask governments and donors to direct resources towards areas of need if we cannot empirically establish where the needs exist?” Manuel said.

The symposium is being held to facilitate the strengthening of the role of African countries in UN's 2010 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses, as the continent has fallen behind the rest of the world in the process.

Manuel expressed concern about the decline in statistics on the continent, saying 19 of 56 African countries and areas had conducted no population censuses in the last 10 years, while that data which did exist was often unreliable.

Manuel conceded that a key issue for African statistical agencies is their relationship with their respective governments, who apply pressure on the agencies to release unrealistically optimistic stats.

“However good that may make us feel, the paradox is that it might generate a disinclination on the part of donors to resource our needs, if we have made the case that such resources are no longer required,” he cautioned.

He said that, as a result of nonexistent or inaccurate population statistic, many African countries are unable to produce national trends to inform and monitor the implementation of development policies.

“The history of census-taking in Africa has been characterised by irregularity, incompleteness, inaccuracies and, subsequently, a gross underutilisation of census data,” he said.

In response to these problems, Manuel called for all African countries to make plans and begin to develop the necessary capacity to undertake a population and housing census in the global 2010 census round, as well as to foster linkages in the international MDG-related and census campaigns.

Further, he encouraged the development of improved reporting mechanisms between national statistical agencies and international agencies.

The symposium, which ends today, was attended by Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, as well as executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Ambassador Abdellai Jenna.