Martin Luther Oketch
19 August 2009
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has increased the number of Sub Saharan African countries it is helping to build a reliable statistics systems from 15 to 22.
Better statistics is expected to help in the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of sound macroeconomic policies and in making of prudent investment decisions.
The first phase of the project - based on the IMF's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) framework - was funded by the U.K. Department for International Development (Dfid). The $8 million three-year project, implemented jointly by the IMF and the World Bank, will be completed on September 30.The GDDS is a structured process through which IMF member countries voluntarily commit themselves to improve the quality of the data they produce.
The GDDS constitutes the following statistical elements: data coverage, periodicity and timeliness relates to the production and dissemination of economic, financial and socio-demographic data by member countries; quality of the data which relates to information that is available to users to access the information covered by the system; integrity of the data relates to the confidence of the user community in the data produced by the statistical systems while access by the public relates to the dissemination of official statistics to users in a convenient and equitable manner.
Statistics are the eyes and ears of any country's development programmes because it guides policy makers in the country to plan and design better programmes, which show whether the country is making progress or there is a decline in a specific sector of the economy.
"In the wake of the severe international financial crises that began in 1994, there was heightened awareness that the ready availability of comprehensive, reliable, and timely data would facilitate the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of sound macroeconomic policies and investment decisions, thereby reducing the frequency and moderating the severity of future crises," explains the IMF.
The IMF further explains that the first phase which consisted of 15 countries based on the GDDS framework offered a natural opportunity for collaboration between the IMF and the World Bank, as it includes both macroeconomic and socio-demographic statistics.
"In order to implement the project effectively, the two institutions agreed at the beginning of the project to a common structure, format, management, and reporting system for the provision of technical assistance," says the IMF.
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