Following the meeting of the Regional Statistical Coordination Committee of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the official launch of the project for the harmonization and improvement of statistics in West and Central Africa (PHASAOC) took place. It was last Friday, March 29 in Cotonou

The PHASAOC will contribute to the harmonization and strengthening of statistical systems in eight West African countries involved in its first phase. These are Benin, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. According to the director general of the National Institute of Statistics and Demographic Analysis of Benin, Laurent Hounsa, the project will make it possible to strengthen statistical capacities and to modernize the national statistical systems of the beneficiary countries. It will also help the statistical divisions of ECOWAS, the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and the African Union (AU) to better coordinate and harmonize statistical data in the