- July 27, 2020
- Posted by: Jonathan Musariri
- Categories: Current News, macroeconomic management
MEFMI will be hosting a webinar on Covid-19 and macroeconomic statistics on 29 July 2020. The webinar will constitute expert presentations and peer to peer sharing of information.
How do world-wide major pandemics such as Covid-19 affect economic activity in the short, medium to long term? To answer this question, economists require reliable and timely macroeconomic data. Covid-19 disruptions are posing unprecedented challenges on data collection, compilation, dissemination and economic forecasting of key macroeconomic indicators. The increasing spread of the pandemic across countries has prompted most governments to introduce unprecedented measures to contain the pandemic. Among others, the response measures have led to indefinite business lock downs, widespread restrictions on travel and mobility, financial market turmoil, erosion of confidence and heightened uncertainty regarding the future of economic activity. Consequently, this is posing new challenges in data collection and associated processes. It is making it difficult for forecasters to quantify the magnitude of the impact of the response measures on economic activity.
Amid Covid-19 induced lockdowns, officials in member country national statistical offices are working remotely. As such, they have limited access to data collection instruments needed to produce and disseminate macroeconomic statistics. They cannot do physical visits to sampled companies and businesses that are also on indefinite lock downs. Most of the companies and businesses are also unable to complete statistics survey questionnaires remotely.
The Covid-19 induced data collection and production disruptions imply that among others, data on prices and production, which are critical for crafting monetary and fiscal stimulus measures may suffer from further data dissemination delays or be estimated based on incomplete information. Beyond data collection, relief measures distributed by governments to the public have implications on public debt and fiscal deficits, among others. Covid-19 has also disrupted attempts by governments to produce high frequency data, an agenda that countries had started working on before this pandemic. Above all and at least in the interim, forecasting units in member countries may not produce accurate forecasts amid the significant data disruptions.
Against this backdrop, MEFMI will be hosting a webinar on Covid-19 and macroeconomic statistics on 29 July 2020. The webinar will constitute expert presentations and peer to peer sharing of information. It will cover the following statistical and forecasting issues, among others.
- Covid-19 and macroeconomic statistics (four accounts).
- Data collection challenges posed by Covid-19: survey interview questionnaire administration, remote working enumerators, data entry issues, etc.
- Transparency on data challenges and how they are being addressed.
- Identification and development of new data sources, given remote working conditions and other lock down restrictions.
- Development of appropriate methodological approaches to deal with missing data.
- Methodological challenges posed by Covid-19.
- Estimation of macroeconomic accounts aggregates, concepts and classifications.
- Macroeconomic forecasting frameworks – challenges posed by Covid-19 on forecasting and how they are being addressed.
- International and regional experiences on statistics and Pandemics.
- Importance of statistics in pandemics for policy formulation.
- Timely, reliable economic data for policy analysis.
- Policy implications and responses to data disruptions.
- Innovative data collection methods and data sources. Standards for dissemination of economic data which enhance the availability of timely and comprehensive statistics, contributes to sound macroeconomic policies.
It is expected that the webinar recommendations to countries to produce accurate and timely statistics amid Covid-19 will better place the countries to respond more appropriately to the pandemic and pave way to a smooth recovery process, post Covid-19.
Target Group
- Junior to middle-level officials from National Statistics Offices, Central Banks and Ministries of Finance whose main responsibility is compiling national accounts, balance of payments, statement of government operations and depositary corporation surveys.
- Officials from budget offices and economic forecasting units in client institutions.
- Members of national macroeconomic forecasting task forces in client institutions.
- Economic statisticians and modellers.
Moderator
Dr. Sehliselo Mpofu (Director – Macroeconomic Management Programme, MEFMI)
Speakers
- Anna Lennblad (Macroeconomic Statistician – South Africa)
- Fred Kakongoro Muhumuza (Development Policy Researcher and Practitioner – Kyambogo University and School of Business and Ethics Uganda)
- Roza Mamuye Bora (Senior Statistician, Statistics Department – African Development Bank)
- Pamela Achieng Audi (Statistician – Kenya)
Date: 29 July 2020
Venue: Online via Zoom
Start time: 10:00 hrs (CAT) and 11:00 hrs (EAT)
Duration: 2 hours
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ILWD5TuST7CLNDsZ5Ksrzw
Meeting ID: 816 7287 1852
Password: 026938
For any questions, please contact Sehliselo.Mpofu@Mefmi.org & Senei.Molapo@Mefmi.org