The Africa Symposium on Statistical Development is a forum created to address a concern by African statisticians in a gathering in Yaounde, Cameroon in the year 2005. Taking place against a background of poor performance of African countries in undertaking population census previously and a report that painted an unimpressive picture of the continent’s state of readiness for the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses, it was decided that something needed to be done to improve the situation going forward. A fortification meeting was subsequently held in Cape Town in 2006 which ushered the ASSD as a standing platform with an initial objective of mobilising all African countries to ensure that they carried censuses in the 2010 round covering the period 2005- 2014.
ASSD has subsequently also focussed on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) – another area of official statistics where there is huge room for improvement.