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Data dissemination moves up a notch with Namibia’s subscription to IMF SDDS

Data dissemination moves up a notch with Namibia’s subscription to IMF SDDS

Namibia became only the fifth sub-Sahara country in December 2022 to subscribe to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), moving up one notch from the previous Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS) applied since 2016.

IMF Chief Statistician and Data Officer, Bert Kroese congratulated the Namibia Statistics Agency, saying it underscores Namibia’s strong commitment to transparency and is a significant achievement in implementing internationally accepted best practices in statistics and data dissemination.

“This achievement will serve Namibia well, especially, in this fast changing and vulnerable global environment. As IMF research showed, the implementation of the data dissemination standards, including subscription to SDDS, is associated with a significant improvement in a country’s sovereign financing conditions” he said.

SDDS, operational since 1996, provides a framework for sovereign statistics authorities to make available economic and financial data to the public

“Subscription to the SDDS enhances the availability of timely statistics according to an advance release calendar, thereby contributing to sound macroeconomic policies and the proper functioning of financial markets. Although voluntary, a subscribing member commits to observe the standard and to publish information (metadata) about its data dissemination practices,” the IMF said.

The National Summary Data Page of Namibia, maintained by the Namibia Statistics Agency, includes the SDDS data categories, and comprehensive documentation on the related statistical practices is published at the IMF’s Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB).


 

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