Botswana implements IMF’s enhanced General Data Dissemination System

Botswana has become the first African country to implement the IMF’s Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS).

The e-GDDS was established by the IMF’s Executive Board in May 2015 to support improved data transparency, encourage statistical development, and help create synergies between data dissemination and surveillance. The e-GDDS superseded the GDDS, which had been established in 1997.

At the request of the authorities a mission from the IMF’s Statistics Department visited Gaborone during November 2-6, 2015, to assist with the implementation of the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS), which was endorsed by the Executive Board in May 2015.

The mission helped redevelop the National Summary Data Page (NSDP), currently on the central bank website, utilizing the Open Data Platform installed with the support of the African Development Bank, to serve as a one-stop publication vehicle for essential macroeconomic data. This makes Botswana the first IMF member country to implement the recommendations of the e-GDDS.

Publication of essential macroeconomic data through the new NSDP will provide national policy makers, a broad range of domestic and international stakeholders, including investors and rating agencies with easy access to information that the IMF’s Executive Board has identified as critical for monitoring economic conditions and policies. Making this information easily accessible in both human and machine readable formats will allow all users to have simultaneous access to timely data released on a disciplined dissemination schedule based on an Advance Release Calendar (ARC), which will bring greater data transparency, which will also be developed.

The authorities are very pleased that Botswana is the first country to implement the e-GDDS. The new National Summary Data Page will give users access to full information about the e-GDDS data categories by end-January 2016.