## 2026 — Statistics Capacity Development at a Glance

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**Canonical URL:** [2026 — Statistics Capacity Development at a Glance](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/data/statistics/2026-statistics-capacity-development-at-a-glance.pdf)

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---

### Overview and Medium-Term CD Strategy
- The IMF Statistics Department (STA) supports member countries to strengthen statistical institutions, build staff capacity, and address critical data gaps through diagnostics, technical assistance, and training tailored to country circumstances and regional priorities.
- STA emphasizes country ownership of reforms, stronger institutional coordination, and greater use of data in policymaking while promoting quality, comparability, and data governance frameworks.
- STA is developing a medium-term statistics capacity development (CD) strategy that is more flexible, integrated, and results-oriented, organized around five pillars.

- Five Pillars of the Medium-Term Statistics CD Strategy (as presented by STA):
  - PILLAR 1: Adopting a Flexible and Programmatic CD Delivery Model
    - Combine diagnostics, technical assistance, online and in-person training, and peer-to-peer learning within a coherent country-based medium-term framework.
    - Emphasize flexible resourcing, continuous engagement, multi-topic and blended CD to tailor support, accelerate implementation, and sustain reform momentum.
  - PILLAR 2: Strengthening CD Focus on Statistical Institutions and Governance Frameworks
    - Support institutional, legal, and governance frameworks that underpin statistical production, data sharing, and interagency coordination to improve access to source data and produce more reliable, timely, and policy-relevant statistics.
  - PILLAR 3: Integrating Change Management and Stakeholder Engagement
    - Prioritize political commitment, stakeholder buy-in, country ownership, and high-level policy dialogue to align statistical reforms with national priorities and sustain them over time.
  - PILLAR 4: Linking Data Work to Surveillance and Policy Priorities
    - Strengthen integration of CD with surveillance and high-level policy dialogue to ensure statistical improvements address pressing country needs.
    - Use the Data Adequacy Assessment (DAA) and the updated Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF) to identify key data gaps, align CD priorities with policy challenges, and measure impact within the IMF Strategic Results Framework.
  - PILLAR 5: Embedding Modernization and Innovation in CD Design and Delivery
    - Promote modernization of statistical production via new data sources, digital tools, and adoption of international statistical standards, including Big Data, geospatial information, scanner data, and other non-traditional sources.

### AI and Digital Innovation in Capacity Development
- STA is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to extend the reach of traditional CD, making expertise, guidance, and data more readily available.
- Talk2Manuals (launched in 2025) provides natural-language navigation of international statistical standards to help compilers apply global standards more consistently.
- StatGPT (launched in 2026) provides natural-language access to official statistics from trusted national and international databases, built on the principle that AI retrieves rather than generates statistics.
- STA supports countries in building AI-ready data ecosystems by promoting structured, well-documented, and machine-readable data and supporting integration of new data sources and technologies into official statistics compilation and dissemination.

### Delivery Modalities, Resourcing, and Personnel
- Delivery modalities: in-person, virtual, and blended, combining HQ-based experts, long-term resident advisors in Regional Capacity Development Centers (RCDCs), and short-term experts.
- Resourcing and personnel:
  - 100+ HQ-based statistical experts
  - 23 resident advisors in Regional Capacity Development Centers (RCDCs)
  - A pool of 230+ experts available for short-term assignments

### FY2026 Capacity Development Highlights (May 2025–April 2026)
- Statistics CD accounted for 11 percent of the Fund’s CD investment in FY2026, benefitting 150 countries and corresponding to US$33.6 million in spending.
- Regional distribution of CD spending (FY2026):
  - AFR 40%
  - APD 21%
  - MCD 20%
  - EUR 3%
  - WHD 12%
- Allocation by country-type and priority:
  - FCS received 30 percent of technical assistance resources.
  - 62 percent of resources supported low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs).
  - 20 percent supported small developing states (SDS).
  - Resident advisors support capacity building in almost 90 percent of the FCS.
- Workstream and modality distribution:
  - Real sector and fiscal statistics together accounted for 70 percent of resources.
  - Country-based technical assistance represented 68 percent of delivery.
  - Training accounted for 32 percent of delivery.

### Training and Online Learning Outcomes
- In FY2026:
  - STA delivered 96 courses and workshops to more than 3,500 participants worldwide.
  - Regional share of training participants (FY2026):
    - AFR 34%
    - APD 22%
    - WHD 16%
    - MCD 22%
    - EUR 6%
  - Women represented 43 percent of participants.
  - 17 percent of participants were from fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS).
- Online learning program:
  - Launched in 2014; offers 13 macroeconomic statistics courses across four languages (English, French, Spanish, and Arabic).
  - Over the past five years, more than 21,000 participants worldwide have completed one or more courses.
  - Over 80 percent of online learning participants are from LLMICs.
  - Around one in six online learning participants are from FCS.
  - Work is underway to expand language coverage and update course content to reflect evolving statistical standards.

### Partnerships, Funding, and Results
- Development partners financed close to three-quarters of Statistics CD delivery in FY2026.
- RCDCs accounted for 63 percent of partner-funded CD; the remainder was financed through multi-partner trust funds and bilateral partnerships.
- Among non-RCDC funding vehicles, the Data for Decisions Fund (D4D) accounted for nearly half of the share.
- Japan-funded bilateral projects were the second-largest contributor.
- New partners in FY2026 included the Gates Foundation.
- Partner financial support strengthens STA’s ability to provide technical assistance and training, respond to emerging policy-relevant data needs (including environment and climate change statistics, digitalization, and big data), and promote country ownership and a stronger focus on results.

### BOX 3 — Building Data Foundations for Climate-Informed Policymaking: Scope and Objectives
- Climate change is macro-critical, affecting macroeconomic, financial, and fiscal systems and requiring reliable and internationally comparable data to understand vulnerabilities, monitor the transition to a low-carbon economy, and design policy responses.
- The IMF launched the Environment and Climate Change Statistics (ECCS) Pilot Program in 2023 with support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
- The CD program supports countries in developing macro-relevant climate statistics aligned with international standards and integrated into national statistical systems through diagnostic assessments, technical assistance, training, and sustained engagement.
- Core statistical areas supported: energy accounts, air-emissions accounts, carbon-footprint measures, and physical risk indicators.

### Pilot Program Coverage and Country Participation
- Pilot program covered ten countries: Algeria (subsequently replaced by Tunisia), Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Mozambique, Peru, South Africa, and Vietnam.
- The program aims to integrate climate and environment information into national statistical systems used for economic decision-making.

### Tangible Outputs and Country-Level Results (Climate Statistics)
- South Africa:
  - Statistics South Africa released Physical Energy Flow Accounts for 2015–21, with an update covering 2022 released in November 2025.
  - Energy accounts were compiled in line with the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA).
  - A major milestone: release of energy accounts for 2015–2021 in March 2025.
- Peru: disseminated experimental energy and air-emissions accounts.
- Bangladesh: compiled draft energy and air-emissions accounts.
- Colombia:
  - Developed energy asset accounts and carbon-footprint estimates.
  - DANE advanced Environmentally Extended Input-Output Tables (EE-IOT), Carbon Footprints, and monetary valuation of mineral and energy resource assets.
  - Colombia developed its first monetary estimates of mineral and energy resource assets within SEEA-related frameworks.

### Tools, Analytics, and Spillovers to IMF Work
- The IMF developed the GeoPulse platform to support analysis and visualization of physical climate risks, covering impacts of droughts, floods, typhoons, and cyclones on people, produced assets, and GDP, and enabling near-real-time event tracking.
- Advances strengthen countries’ capacity to measure emissions, monitor the energy transition and climate risks, and support evidence-based resilience-building and climate policymaking.
- The experience showed synergies with IMF surveillance, analytical work, and Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) operations.

### Pilot Program Evaluation and Forward Arrangements
- An independent evaluation rated pilot program implementation as “largely achieved” and identified STA’s continuous-engagement model as an innovative and effective approach to CD.
- The pilot program approaches completion in October 2026; lessons are informing the next phase of IMF climate statistics work under the D4D Fund, focusing on embedding climate statistics into routine statistical and policymaking processes.

### CD Results Management Context and Portfolio Performance (FY2026)
- The IMF uses a results-based management framework (RBM) to plan, monitor, and report on CD results; CD projects are linked to agreed outcomes assessed annually on a standardized 1-4 rating scale.
- STA’s CD portfolio in FY2026:
  - 782 Projects
  - 1,456 Outcomes
  - Overall average outcome score: 2.32
  - 31 percent of projects began within the past two years
- Outcome ratings distribution:
  - Fully Achieved: 13%
  - Largely Achieved: 25%
  - Partially Achieved: 42%
  - Not Achieved: 20%
- Regional average outcome scores:
  - EUR: 3.0 (33 projects, 54 outcomes; 4 percent of total projects)
  - MCD: 2.4 (137 projects, 284 outcomes)
  - APD: 2.3 (166 projects, 259 outcomes)
  - WHD: 2.3 (136 projects, 209 outcomes)
  - AFR: 2.3 (285 projects, 629 outcomes; AFR represented 43 percent of total projects)

### Data Adequacy Assessment (DAA) Linkage to CD and Surveillance
- The DAA assesses whether countries’ macroeconomic statistics are adequate to support policy analysis and macroeconomic surveillance and serves as a bridge between CD (statistics) and surveillance mandates.
- The DAA uses a four-point scale:
  - 1 = data provided to the Fund have serious shortcomings that significantly hamper surveillance
  - 2 = data provided to the Fund have shortcomings that hamper surveillance
  - 3 = data provided to the Fund have some shortcomings but are broadly adequate for surveillance
  - 4 = data provided to the Fund are adequate for surveillance
- Latest DAA results for CD recipient countries indicate macroeconomic statistics are broadly adequate for surveillance across most regions and statistical domains.
- EUR records relatively high scores across workstreams, while AFR, APD, MCD, and WHD perform relatively well in prices and monetary and financial statistics.
- Differences in DAA scores across regions and statistical domains help identify priority areas for further CD support, particularly in LLMICs and FCS.

### Key Implications for Policy and Statistical Practice
- Embedding climate and environment statistics into national statistical systems enhances the ability to:
  - Track exposure to climate-related risks.
  - Monitor progress on the energy transition.
  - Inform decisions on investment, public finances, and management of natural capital.
- Continuous engagement, diagnostic assessments, and integration with national macroeconomic statistics are central to producing policy-relevant climate indicators.
- Tools like GeoPulse facilitate near-real-time monitoring of physical climate risks, improving timeliness and usability for policymakers.

*IMF Statistics Department, Capacity Development at a Glance, 2026 — Preface and Box 3.*

### Preface

### Preface

### Overview
- The IMF Statistics Department (STA) supports member countries to strengthen statistical institutions, build staff capacity, and address critical data gaps through diagnostics, technical assistance, and training tailored to country circumstances and regional priorities.
- STA emphasizes country ownership of reforms, stronger institutional coordination, and greater use of data in policymaking while promoting quality, comparability, and data governance frameworks.
- STA is developing a medium-term statistics capacity development (CD) strategy that is more flexible, integrated, and results-oriented, organized around five pillars.

### Medium-Term Statistics CD Strategy — Five Pillars (as presented by STA)
- PILLAR 1: Adopting a Flexible and Programmatic CD Delivery Model
  - Combine diagnostics, technical assistance, online and in-person training, and peer-to-peer learning within a coherent country-based medium-term framework.
  - Emphasize flexible resourcing, continuous engagement, multi-topic and blended CD to tailor support, accelerate implementation, and sustain reform momentum.
- PILLAR 2: Strengthening CD Focus on Statistical Institutions and Governance Frameworks
  - Support institutional, legal, and governance frameworks that underpin statistical production, data sharing, and interagency coordination to improve access to source data and produce more reliable, timely, and policy-relevant statistics.
- PILLAR 3: Integrating Change Management and Stakeholder Engagement
  - Prioritize political commitment, stakeholder buy-in, country ownership, and high-level policy dialogue to align statistical reforms with national priorities and sustain them over time.
- PILLAR 4: Linking Data Work to Surveillance and Policy Priorities
  - Strengthen integration of CD with surveillance and high-level policy dialogue to ensure statistical improvements address pressing country needs.
  - Use the Data Adequacy Assessment (DAA) and the updated Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF) to identify key data gaps, align CD priorities with policy challenges, and measure impact within the IMF Strategic Results Framework.
- PILLAR 5: Embedding Modernization and Innovation in CD Design and Delivery
  - Promote modernization of statistical production via new data sources, digital tools, and adoption of international statistical standards, including Big Data, geospatial information, scanner data, and other non-traditional sources.

### AI and Digital Innovation in CD
- STA is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to extend the reach of traditional CD, making expertise, guidance, and data more readily available.
- Talk2Manuals (launched in 2025) provides natural-language navigation of international statistical standards to help compilers apply global standards more consistently.
- StatGPT (launched in 2026) provides natural-language access to official statistics from trusted national and international databases, built on the principle that AI retrieves rather than generates statistics.
- STA is helping countries build AI-ready data ecosystems by promoting structured, well-documented, and machine-readable data and supporting integration of new data sources and technologies into official statistics compilation and dissemination.

### How STA Delivers Capacity Development
- Delivery modalities: in-person, virtual, and blended, combining HQ-based experts, long-term resident advisors in RCDCs, and short-term experts.
- Resourcing and personnel:
  - 100+ HQ-based statistical experts
  - 23 resident advisors in Regional Capacity Development Centers (RCDCs)
  - A pool of 230+ experts available for short-term assignments

### FY2026 Capacity Development Highlights (May 2025–April 2026)
- Statistics CD accounted for 11 percent of the Fund’s CD investment in FY2026, benefitting 150 countries and corresponding to US$33.6 million in spending.
- Regional distribution of CD spending (FY2026):
  - AFR 40%
  - APD 21%
  - MCD 20%
  - EUR 3%
  - WHD 12%
- Allocation by country-type and priority:
  - FCS received 30 percent of technical assistance resources.
  - 62 percent of resources supported low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs).
  - 20 percent supported small developing states (SDS).
  - Resident advisors support capacity building in almost 90 percent of the FCS.
- Workstream and modality distribution:
  - Real sector and fiscal statistics together accounted for 70 percent of resources.
  - Country-based technical assistance represented 68 percent of delivery.
  - Training accounted for 32 percent of delivery.

### Training and Online Learning Outcomes (FY2026 and recent years)
- In FY2026:
  - STA delivered 96 courses and workshops to more than 3,500 participants worldwide.
  - Regional share of training participants (FY2026):
    - AFR 34%
    - APD 22%
    - WHD 16%
    - MCD 22%
    - EUR 6%
  - Women represented 43 percent of participants.
  - 17 percent of participants were from fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS).
- Online learning program:
  - Launched in 2014; offers 13 macroeconomic statistics courses across four languages (English, French, Spanish, and Arabic).
  - Over the past five years, more than 21,000 participants worldwide have completed one or more courses.
  - Over 80 percent of online learning participants are from LLMICs.
  - Around one in six online learning participants are from FCS.
  - Work is underway to expand language coverage and update course content to reflect evolving statistical standards.

### Partnerships, Funding, and Results
- Development partners financed close to three-quarters of Statistics CD delivery in FY2026.
- RCDCs accounted for 63 percent of partner-funded CD; the remainder was financed through multi-partner trust funds and bilateral partnerships.
- Among non-RCDC funding vehicles, the Data for Decisions Fund (D4D) accounted for nearly half of the share, making it a leading contributor; Japan-funded bilateral projects were the second-largest contributor.
- New partners in FY2026 included the Gates Foundation.
- The financial support of development partners strengthens STA’s ability to provide technical assistance and training, respond to emerging policy-relevant data needs (including environment and climate change statistics, digitalization, and big data), and promote country ownership and a stronger focus on results.

*Source: IMF Statistics Department, Capacity Development at a Glance, 2026 — Preface.*

### BOX  3. Building Data Foundations for Climate-Informed Policymaking

### BOX 3. Building Data Foundations for Climate-Informed Policymaking

### Climate-statistics capacity development: scope and objectives
- Climate change has become macro-critical, affecting macroeconomic, financial, and fiscal systems, requiring reliable and internationally comparable data to understand vulnerabilities, monitor the transition to a low-carbon economy, and design policy responses.
- The IMF launched the Environment and Climate Change Statistics (ECCS) Pilot Program in 2023 with support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
- The Capacity Development (CD) program supports countries in developing macro-relevant climate statistics aligned with international standards and integrated into national statistical systems through diagnostic assessments, technical assistance, training, and sustained engagement.
- Core statistical areas supported: energy accounts, air-emissions accounts, carbon-footprint measures, and physical risk indicators.

### Pilot program coverage and country participation
- The pilot program covered ten countries: Algeria (subsequently replaced by Tunisia), Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Mozambique, Peru, South Africa, and Vietnam.
- The program aims to integrate climate and environment information into national statistical systems used for economic decision-making.

### Tangible outputs and country-level results
- South Africa: Statistics South Africa released Physical Energy Flow Accounts for 2015–21, with an update covering 2022 released in November 2025; energy accounts were compiled in line with the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA). A major milestone: release of energy accounts for 2015–2021 in March 2025.
- Peru: disseminated experimental energy and air-emissions accounts.
- Bangladesh: compiled draft energy and air-emissions accounts.
- Colombia: developed energy asset accounts and carbon-footprint estimates.
- Colombia (DANE) advanced Environmentally Extended Input-Output Tables (EE-IOT), Carbon Footprints, and monetary valuation of mineral and energy resource assets; Colombia developed its first monetary estimates of mineral and energy resource assets within SEEA-related frameworks.

### Tools, analytics, and spillovers to IMF work
- The IMF developed the GeoPulse platform to support analysis and visualization of physical climate risks, covering impacts of droughts, floods, typhoons, and cyclones on people, produced assets, and GDP, and enabling near-real-time event tracking.
- Advances strengthen countries’ capacity to measure emissions, monitor the energy transition and climate risks, and support evidence-based resilience-building and climate policymaking.
- The experience showed synergies with IMF surveillance, analytical work, and Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) operations.

### Program evaluation and forward-looking arrangements
- An independent evaluation rated pilot program implementation as “largely achieved” and identified STA’s continuous-engagement model as an innovative and effective approach to CD.
- The pilot program approaches completion in October 2026; lessons are informing the next phase of IMF climate statistics work under the D4D Fund, focusing on embedding climate statistics into routine statistical and policymaking processes.

### CD results management context and portfolio performance (FY2026)
- The IMF uses a results-based management framework (RBM) to plan, monitor, and report on CD results; CD projects are linked to agreed outcomes assessed annually on a standardized 1-4 rating scale.
- STA’s CD portfolio in FY2026:
  - 782 Projects
  - 1,456 Outcomes
  - Overall average outcome score: 2.32 (positioned between partially achieved and largely achieved)
  - 31 percent of projects began within the past two years
  - Outcome ratings distribution:
    - Fully Achieved: 13%
    - Largely Achieved: 25%
    - Partially Achieved: 42%
    - Not Achieved: 20%
  - Regional average outcome scores:
    - EUR: 3.0 (33 projects, 54 outcomes; 4 percent of total projects)
    - MCD: 2.4 (137 projects, 284 outcomes)
    - APD: 2.3 (166 projects, 259 outcomes)
    - WHD: 2.3 (136 projects, 209 outcomes)
    - AFR: 2.3 (285 projects, 629 outcomes; AFR represented 43 percent of total projects)

### Data Adequacy Assessment (DAA) linkage to CD and surveillance
- The Data Adequacy Assessment (DAA) assesses whether countries’ macroeconomic statistics are adequate to support policy analysis and macroeconomic surveillance and serves as a bridge between CD (statistics) and surveillance mandates.
- The DAA uses a four-point scale: 1 = data provided to the Fund have serious shortcomings that significantly hamper surveillance; 2 = data provided to the Fund have shortcomings that hamper surveillance; 3 = data provided to the Fund have some shortcomings but are broadly adequate for surveillance; and 4 = data provided to the Fund are adequate for surveillance.
- Latest DAA results for CD recipient countries indicate macroeconomic statistics are broadly adequate for surveillance across most regions and statistical domains; EUR records relatively high scores across workstreams, while AFR, APD, MCD, and WHD perform relatively well in prices and monetary and financial statistics.
- Differences in DAA scores across regions and statistical domains help identify priority areas for further CD support, particularly in LLMICs and FCS.

### Key implications for policy and statistical practice
- Embedding climate and environment statistics into national statistical systems enhances the ability to:
  - Track exposure to climate-related risks.
  - Monitor progress on the energy transition.
  - Inform decisions on investment, public finances, and management of natural capital.
- Continuous engagement, diagnostic assessments, and integration with national macroeconomic statistics are central to producing policy-relevant climate indicators.
- Tools like GeoPulse facilitate near-real-time monitoring of physical climate risks, improving timeliness and usability for policymakers.

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/data/statistics/2026-statistics-capacity-development-at-a-glance.pdf_