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Initials M74-563



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Background: Participants from Algeria Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Upper Volta, Zaire and Zambia, representing a total of 18 African States are expected to arrive in Addis Ababa for a training workshop which will be officially opened by H.E. Ato Habte Echeti, the Ethiopian Vice Minister of Statistics.

The Workshop is jointly sponsored by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) -- as part of the Commission's Census Programmes Project -- the Ethiopian Government, the International Statistical Programmes Division of the United States Bureau of Census and the Statistics Canada. It is hoped that the course to be given by instructors from both the United States of America and Canada will give African statisticians, analysts and economists the opportunity to familiarize themselves with some new and more practicable tools to tackle more meaningfully the various problems facing African development.

The Workshop, which is the second venture of its kind to be organized in Africa, will be held at ECA headquarters in Addis Ababa from Monday, 25 March to Wednesday, 17 March 1974, and it is considered to be a step forward when compared to the first one sponsored by ???CA in Yaound??? (Cameroon) last year. During their ??? in Addis Ababa. participate will study ??? ??? system, a more advanced development in ??? Tabulation system, and a very up-to-date one, which enables statis??? to produce tabulation on a wider variety of computers.

The CONCENTS system was developed by the United States Bureau of Census, and the Bureau is supplying instructors for the Workshop, together with Statistics Canada; the Ethiopian Government has kindly consented to provide computer facilities and services which form an essential part of the course.

The COCENTS system is a simplified method enabling tables of results to be produced quickly with less effort and cost. Before this system was developed, the production of tables of results was a long and arduous task, even with the aid of modern electronic computers. The new system will be advantageous in producing meaningful information needed by African planners and analysts called upon to assist in defining government priorities in the field of development; the system can be used for all kinds of data analysis.

An up-to-date consus, being one of the basic and most valuable tools for national planning, and the important part of the consus being to analyse the data and present it in a meaningful form, it in to be hoped that the Workshop will help in achieving a break-through in the darkness of the unknown parameters in the way of African development.