La statistique au service du débat démocratique en Afrique : l’exemple du projet MADIO à Madagascar

The wind of democratisation, which has been blowing across Sub-Saharan Africa for the last decade, must be considered as a superb opportunity for public statistics. The increase in power of the civil society and the liberation of the media have opened up a dynamic public space where statistics have a central role to play. Access to quality information is the basis for the vitality of the public debate on the main problems of society, as well as the emergence of an effective citizenship, integral parts of democracy. The double transition process, both political and economic (promotion of market economy) requires that African public statistics get out of the exclusive and sterilizing tête-à-tête with the central State, in which they have limited themselves until now. This paper presents the experience of the MADIO project in Madagascar, where the key to its success rested on a close joint between the production of quality statistics, economic analysis of the basic data, valuation and broad dissemination of the results. This strategy has manage to promote national public debate and has begun to create a "culture of numbers" in a country where it used to be previously inexistent. Through selected examples, we shall show the importance of mobilizing the media to reinforce the impact of economic and social information. It is a good way for the national statistics institutes to break the vicious circle in which they are stuck and regain their credibility (and starting from this, to regain their legitimacy) currently under dispute. Furthermore, we stress the pivotal role of innovation function, which must lead to address new topics more directly linked to social demand.