FSB and IMF Publish 2021 Progress Report on the G20 Data Gaps Initiative

IMF News, October 7, 2021

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Significant progress has been achieved in closing identified policy-relevant data gaps during phases 1 and 2 of the Data Gaps Initiative.
The initiative proved its value during the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, helping policymakers to access key information to assess developments and risks in the financial and nonfinancial sectors, and to analyze interconnectedness and cross-border spillovers.
2021 marks the final year of the second phase of the Data Gaps Initiative (DGI-2), and the twelfth year since the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors endorsed the twenty recommendations made by IMF staff and the FSB Secretariat to address the data gaps identified during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08.

The pandemic continues to affect the DGI-2 work program.
Given the limited time available, it is very likely that some recommendations will not be fully completed by the end of 2021.
Specific challenges are observed in:
- securities financing transaction data;
- institutional sectoral accounts;
- household distributional information;
- data on general government debt and operations;
- commercial property price indices.

Participating economies continue to take forward the agreed DGI-2 recommendations, building on the collaboration and peer pressure mechanism.
Participating economies and international organizations recognize the need for a new international cooperation initiative on data gaps after the conclusion of the DGI at the end of 2021.
A detailed workplan for the new initiative will be developed.

Building on the DGI process, the new initiative will:
- focus on priorities of policymakers; and
- avoid duplication with other existing initiatives.
Four main statistical and data priorities to be covered by a possible new DGI have been identified:
- (i) climate change;
- (ii) household distributional information;
- (iii) fintech and financial inclusion data; and
- (iv) access to private sources of data and administrative data, and data sharing.

In October 2009, the FSB and IMF published The Financial Crisis and Information Gaps in response to a G20 request; that report set out recommendations that led to the first phase of work (DGI-1).
In September 2015, it was agreed that the DGI work should continue into a second phase.
The main objective of DGI-2 is to implement the regular collection and dissemination of reliable and timely statistics for policy use.
DGI-2 includes new recommendations to reflect evolving policymaker needs and clusters its twenty recommendations under three main headings:
- (i) monitoring risk in the financial sector;
- (ii) vulnerabilities, interconnections and spillovers; and
- (iii) data sharing and communication of official statistics.
DGI-2 maintains continuity with the DGI-1 recommendations while setting more specific objectives for G20 economies to compile and disseminate minimum common datasets for these recommendations.

The member agencies of the IAG are the Bank for International Settlements, European Central Bank, Eurostat, IMF (Chair), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, United Nations and the World Bank.
The FSB participates in the IAG meetings.

Press Release No. 21/290, October 7, 2021 — IMF Communications Department.

G20 Data Gaps Initiative Dgi 2 Sixth Progress Report
- G20 Data Gaps Initiative Dgi 2 Sixth Progress Report (Markdown version)
- G20 Data Gaps Initiative Dgi 2 Sixth Progress Report (PDF)