New project will help African countries identify and address statistical needs

• Pages: 24-27

Page 24

It's hard to solve a problem whose dimensions can't be grasped. And for many countries, an essential step toward redressing poverty and integrating with the world economy is a statistical system capable of assessing domestic needs,monitoring progress toward a goal, and exchanging reliable data with the global community. In recent years, the IMF's Statistics Department has been on the front lines helping countries do just that. Carol Carson, Director of the IMF's Statistics Department, and Jan Bové, Chief of the General Data Dissemination System Unit, discuss one of the Department's latest projects-an ambitious effort to help 14 anglophone African countries improve their statistical systems through the guidance provided by the IMF's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS, see box, page 25).

IMF SURVEY: What is the anglophone Africa project?

CARSON: Using the GDDS as a framework, the project seeks sustainable improvement in statistical capacity in 14 African countries-Botswana, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia,Malawi,Namibia,Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe-that have been invited to participate.

The project takes an integrated approach to building statistical capacity. It is designed to identify strengths and weaknesses in current systems, develop plans to make improvements, and provide technical assistance to help countries implement their plans.

The project will be implemented in two stages. The first phase will help countries develop their GDDS metadata-which is a description of current practices as well as plans for improvement-and the second phase will help countries realize their plans.

The heart of the project is the GDDS framework, which is a compendium of good statistical practices.

The project will use a regional approach and is fortunate to have the very strong financial support of the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID). All in all, the project is quite a large undertaking; it will involve assistance from project staff, the World Bank, and other international, regional, and bilateral providers of technical assistance.

IMF SURVEY: To what extent does this project represent a new direction for the Statistics Department?

CARSON: Rather than a new direction, it pulls together several different aspects of our experience in recent years. Technical assistance to help countries implement the IMF's various standards and codes initiatives is now a part of our...