Paris, March 5 (APS) – Senegal’s agricultural statistics are difficult to dispute, because they are analyzed and validated by experts from an international body, the Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), before they are published. publication, supported, Sunday, in Paris, the national director of the analysis, the forecast and the agricultural statistics, Ibrahima Mendy.
From APS Special Envoy Elhadji Souleymane Faye
”We have investigators in all the departments of Senegal. They collect the data and process it, which makes it possible to draw the first information, which is only published after validation by CILSS, which sends experienced experts to Senegal for this work. Once these experts validate our data, we consider them reliable and publish them,” Mr. Mendy said in an interview with APS at the close of the 59th edition of SIA, the International Exhibition of agriculture (February 25-March 5).
CILSS is a regional body created in 1973 by several West and Central African countries, including Senegal.
”Our statistics are often the subject of controversy. But those who debate it are usually people who don’t know how we collect data,” argued the director of analysis, forecasting and agricultural statistics at the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty (MAERSA).
Ibrahima Mendy, a doctor in statistics, argues that ”Senegal is one of the countries in the region which annually collects agricultural data, processes it and publishes it”. ”Our data is collected and processed with a methodology approved at a regional scale, of which CILSS is the guarantor.”
”Most often it is politicians who question our data […] I understand this because agricultural statistics are important in the development of the country’s macroeconomic indicators (…) But you can only dispute a statistic when you use a methodology that produces data that allows you to say that it is not accurate’ ‘, he argued.
”I respect the technicians who do this work. We consider that the data we publish are reliable, because they are validated by CILSS and institutions such as the FAO and the WFP (the United Nations agencies in charge of agriculture and food),” Ibrahima insisted. Mendy, also curator of MAERSA exhibitions at the SIA for several years.