Djibouti: National Strategy for Development of Statistics (NSDS) and Strengthening of National Account Production

The proposed project with two fundamental pillars will, if implemented, help establish a realistic and well-grounded national strategy for the statistical development and strengthen the national account system, and a sustainable data production in Djibouti 1. The development objective of the NSDS pillar of the proposed project is to prepare a new national strategy document for statistics development that will be feasible and realistic. This will entails sectorial analyses to identify the main constraints to the statistical system development in Djibouti and organization of workshops to discuss and disseminate the strategies among stakeholders and donors. 2. The development objective of the National account pillar of the project: The achievements with the supports from the ADB and UNDP remain partial and preliminary. Meanwhile, the capacity of the technical staff of the DISED remains weak with the short live of the previous training period. Securing the current achievements and further strengthening the statistical capacity in Djibouti reqires some short and medium term efforts. Mainly: (i) the continuation of the technical team’s capacity building to engage resolutely in sustained production of national accounts indicators; (ii) Putting in place important devices allowing the provision of relevant inputs to the compilation of national accounts at constant prices to measure the actual performance of the economy. These include among others: enterprise statistics from the establishment of a business directory and associated indicators; indicators of economic activity: price indexes and volume of industrial activities, index of turnover, foreign trade indices, etc; the development of the accounts for 2015 and 2016 (final accounts 2015 and provisional 2016 to the year 2017); retropolation of old series (2008-2012) using the new system of accounts; and publication and training in the use of classifications of activities and products.