Washington, DC:
With the successful launch of a new data portal, Zimbabwe has implemented a
key recommendation of the
IMF’s Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS)
to publish essential macroeconomic and financial data. The e-GDDS is the
first tier of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives that promote transparency
as a global public good and encourage countries to voluntarily publish
timely data that is essential for monitoring and analyzing economic
performance.
The implementation of the e-GDDS recommendation and the launch of the data
portal—the
National Summary Data Page
—are a testament to Zimbabwe’s commitment to data transparency. The
National Summary Data Page will serve as a one-stop publication for
disseminating the data recommended under the e-GDDS, covering national
accounts and prices, government operations and debt, the monetary and
financial sector, and the external sector. The National Summary Data Page
will facilitate access for data users in Zimbabwe and abroad, including
policymakers, financial sector, private investors, think tanks, and the
media. More broadly, having data in line with the e-GDDS means it should be
accessible in a standardized way to facilitate analysis of economic trends
across countries and to provide an early detection of risks to help avert
economic crises, thus supporting sustainable economic growth and
development.
Thanks to the National Summary Data Page, Zimbabwe’s information has become
easily accessible in both human- and machine-readable formats for users,
resulting in greater data transparency.
It is hosted on Zimbabwe’s national Open Data Platform (ODP),
which is provided by the African Development Bank, and utilizes a modern
data publication technology. A
link
to Zimbabwe’s National Summary Data Page is available on the
IMF’s Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board
. The data is provided by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, the
Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, and the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe.
Bert Kroese, Chief Statistician and Data Officer, and Director of the IMF’s
Statistics Department, welcomed this major milestone in the country’s
statistical development. “I am confident that Zimbabwe will benefit from
using the e-GDDS as a framework for further development of its statistical
system,” Mr. Kroese stated. The benefits, including better sovereign
financing conditions for countries participating in the e-GDDS, have
recently been reviewed by the IMF Executive Board in the context of the
Tenth Review of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives
.
The launch of Zimbabwe’s National Summary Data Page was supported by an IMF
technical assistance project financed by the Government of Japan.