Social Science > Demography
Abstract
The IMF's work on data dissemination standards consists of two tiers: the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), which applies to all IMF member countries, and the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), for those members having or seeking access to international capital markets. The GDDS framework provide governments with guidance on the overall development of the macroeconomic, financial, and sociodemographic data that are essential for policymaking and analysis in an environment that increasingly requires relevant, comprehensive, and accurate statistical data. This Guide explains the nature, objectives, and operation of the GDDS; the data dimensions it covers; and how countries participate. It provides national statistical authorities with a management tool and a framework to foster sound statistical methodology, professional data compilation, and data dissemination. The Guide supersedes the version updated in March 2002 and incorporates the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as specific elements of the GDDS sociodemographic component, which was articulated with the collaboration of the World Bank.
Abstract
IMF technical assistance provided by the Statistics Department--toward assisting IMF member countries in developing the ability to provide reliable and comparable economic and financial data on a timely basis to policymakers and markets--has increased more than fourfold over the past decade. This assistance has proven critical in countries building their statistical capacity so as to come into line with international data standards in an increasingly globalized and electronically interconnected world. Statistical Capacity Building: Case Studies and Lessons Learned presents four case studies drawn from experience in three countries in transition to the market, two of which were also in postconflict situations, in the 1990s and early 2000s: Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ukraine. Issues of setting, institutional and statistical arrangements, strategies, and implementation are examined, and lessons learned.