“Well informed, people are citizens; ill informed, they become subjects,” wrote Alfred Sauvy. With only 0.5% of official development assistance (ODA) allotted to support the generation of statistics, official statistics are the poor man of international assistance. Africa is particularly affected by a deficit of socio-economic and demographic data, described as a “statistical tragedy” by some experts. Expectations and possibilities are high in the era of datafication – or making data out of – our lives and societies, a product and factor of the digital transition.