UN Economic Commission for Africa – Statement on Rwanda

Over the years we have witnessed Rwanda’s consistent efforts in developing and strengthening its statistical system and improving the quality of official statistics. Using internationalprinciples andrecommendations, the country has formulatedtheNationalStrategy forDevelopment ofStatisticsfor the period of2014/15-2018/19in its determinationto improve data and statistics. In economic statistics,the countryhas made tremendous progress inthe production and dissemination of statistics, such as the Supply-Use Tables, to help validate GDP estimates. It has also worked withdevelopmentpartners, including our African Centre for Statistics, to continuously build the technical capacity of its staff members.

Withtheincreasing demand for statistics, especially in thisera of SDGs, more will be demanded of national statistical offices to continuously review the methodologies including identifying new data sources for areas where critical data may be lacking.

GDP measurement and compilationisa complex undertaking,entailing theuse ofdifferent sources of data, including data from household expenditure surveys to measure household consumption and poverty estimates. Household survey data are complementedand/adjusted with additional source data, to getthecomplete Final Household Consumption as an input to GDP. Rwanda uses (standard ) international methodology as prescribed in the 2008 SNA for this purpose.

ECA is committed to continue its supporttomemberStates to improve and adhere to internationally accepted statistical norms and standards, including reviewing the robustness of the statistical systemin order tocontinue producing reliable, quality and timely statistics which comply to UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, Strategy forHarmonizingStatistics inAfricaand the African Charter on Statistics.

We welcome objective discussions which further support the strengtheningofthe statistical system of Rwanda.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).