Premised on these major guidelines and the main challenges facing AFRISTAT during the period 2006-2010, ASPA’s intervention strategy seeks basically to build on the achievements recorded during the initial years of operation. It is also based on demands from States implicitly expressed in their NSS progress reports. Lastly, this strategy will be driven by a desire to invest in applied research as well as in scientific and technological monitoring to enhance AFRISTAT’s role as the leading body providing technical advice and support to Member States and sub-regional economic integration institutions in the area of statistics.

To attain this global objective, the ASPA hinges on the following six components :

1. support to institutional capacity building of Member States for organizing national statistical systems ;
2. support to the development of information systems for designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating poverty reduction strategies, as well as for implementing MDGs;
3. support to capacity building for collecting, processing and analyzing economic data and for compiling statistical and economic reports;
4. provision of technical assistance to NSS in developing capacities for disseminating statistics;
5. applied research for the development of appropriate methodologies for national statistical system capacities;
6. scaling up AFRISTAT’s operational resources.

For each of these components, a general objective and specific objectives have been identified, as well as expected outcomes and corresponding activities.