Opening remark by Ahmed Shide, State Minister of MoFED at the 21st annual conference of ESA

Dear representatives of Africa Center for Statistics/Economic Commission for Africa, representatives of UNICEF, dear members of Ethiopian Statistical Association (ESA), invited guests, ladies and gentle man.

It gives me great pleasure to give an opening remark on the 21st annual conference of ESA. The theme of the 21st annual conference of ESA which is “the role of statistics in monitoring and evaluation of the GTP” is a timely and important issue for our country.

Our country has designed and started implementing a five year growth and transformation plan (GTP). The GTP was designed with a wide public participation both at federal and regional level. Different consultative meetings with different groups of the society and with international and local partners were made at the design stage. The GTP basically uses statistical baseline data in the design.

Ladies and gentlemen, our government understands the importance of statistical data and emphasized this by incorporating the monitoring and evaluation and statistical issues as part of the GTP document. The council of ministers and the house of people’s representatives have adopted the GTP as the national planning document of the country for the period 2010/11-2014/15.

The GTP takes in to account two alternative economic growth scenarios, a base case and a high case. The base case scenario assumes that the previous five years average annual GDP growth rate will be maintained. The high case scenario assumes that the GDP and agricultural value added achieved in 2009/10 will be doubled by the end of the GTP period, 2014/15.

The GTP is an ambitious development plan and it requires effective public participation in the implementation and monitoring and evaluation of the plan. The contribution of professional association like Ethiopian statistical association is vital in this regard.

The GTP has seven pillars. Different activities related to the seven pillars conducted in the last one year. Our government was able to maintain the 11.4 % economic growth.

Activities which help to improve the agricultural sector have been implemented by creating a massive public movement in the rural part. The government is also trying to make the industry more competitive to the international market to help the sector play key role in the economy. By understanding the major role of the infrastructure to the economic growth, a lot is done in this direction. Significant activities are also done to expand social development, to deepen good governance, and promote gender and youth empowerment and equity.

Dear representatives, invited guests, participants, ladies and gentlemen,

Now one year passed since GTP implementation started. The monitoring and evaluation of the last one year performance and achievements have been evaluated with data from different sources, basically from surveys conducted by CSA. The progress made in the last one year was encouraging.

MoFED understands the importance of good quality data and is working hard to strengthen CSA in all aspects. The government also understands the significant role which can be played by professional associations like Ethiopian statistical association in the implementation and evaluation of the GTP.

To this end, I urge the Ethiopian statistical association to support the implementation and monitoring and evaluation of the GTP by coordinating the enormous capacity of the members.

I know declare that 21st annual conference of the Ethiopian statistical association is officially opened.

I thank you,