Technical assistance in computing the SDG indicators 2.3.1, 2.3.2 and 5.a.1 in The Gambia

Background

The Office of the Chief Statistician (OCS) completed a Statistical Capacity Assessment for the 21 SDG indicators under FAO custodianship in 2019 and found that more than 80% of countries require capacity improvement to produce and report on most SDG indicators. As a result, OCS has been collaborating with FAO Regional offices through Regional Roadmaps to assist nations in ensuring that high-quality comparable data for the SDGs is available.

In this context, the FAO Regional Office for Africa and the Office of the Chief Statistician organized a series of training sessions in May 2023 to assist the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS) in computing SDG indicators 2.3.1, 2.3.2, and 5.a.1, as well as integrating them into current survey instruments.

Main activities and outcomes

The first training (from May 2 to 5, 2023) was held for 15 participants from the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), as well as other members from the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Gender, and Ministry of Trade, who are involved in computing indicators 2.3.1, 2.3.2, and 5.a.1.

The second training (from May 8 to 12, 2023) was held for a smaller team of 7 persons who work directly with questionnaire development, Indicator reporting, and questionnaire programming into CAPI for data collection as well as the head of the survey implementation team.

The sessions were designed to address the theoretical introduction to the indicators. 

The training also included pen and paper computation of the indicators after the theoretical introduction of the indicators.