African Statistics Day: From Documentation To Implementation

The African Executive, a libertarian website, writes: "Africa has just celebrated the African Statistics Day, a day dedicated to increase public awareness on the important role of statistics in social and economic life. The sanctioning of this move by African leaders ought to be hailed as measurements are key to development. It is sad that Africa has largely depended on statistics generated outside the continent by nations and groups who have their own agenda. Such groups have presented inflated indices on poverty and disease that on thorough scrutiny have been found to be wanting. These statistics which often portray the African continent as hopeless and poor - with its populations living on 'less than one dollar per day' make Africans to believe that they are poor.Consequently, they don't become proactive in harnessing the immense wealth on the continent, but succumb to foreign aid and IMF/World Bank dictates, as donor nations plunder the continent's resources."

The Kenyan-based website continues its commentary: "The standards that are mostly used to justify the economic prowess of the world may not necessarily take into account the true essence of their economic strengths, as clearly is the case in Africa. GDP statistics of African nations and many other developing nations do not adequately reflect their cultural output, whilst cultural output forms a significant proportion of the GDP of western nations. Africa therefore ought to rethink the existing statistics. On the other hand, the colonial-age infrastructure prevalent in many African countries is a clear indication that the continent's leaders have not gone beyond gathering statistics to acting on the findings."