The 2009 African Statistical Yearbook, the first issue of a series, is a result of joint efforts by major African regional organisations to set up a join data collection mechanism of socioeconomic data on African countries as well as the development of a common harmonized database. It is expected that the joint collection and sharing of data between regional institutions will promote wider use of country data, reduce costs and significantly improve the quality of the data and lead to better monitoring of development initiatives on the continent. The data in this issue of the Yearbook are arranged generally for the years 2000 to 2008 or for the last eight years for which data are available. The Yearbook is published in one volume consisting of two parts: a set of summary tables followed by country profiles.