News and Events

Mogadishu, Saturday, August 19, 2023. Somalia National Bureau of Statistics (SNBS) conducts a validation workshop for Somalia’s Poverty and Inequality Analysis Report. The event, whose participants were drawn from across relevant ministries, departments and agencies, took place at the Bureau’s offices in Mogadishu.

The workshop presented participants with an opportunity to go through the report, understand the basis of its compilation and incorporate their feedbacks and comments into the final draft before the ultimate launch of the report later this month. It was noted that throughout this session, participants conducted a cordial and collaborative analysis of the documents, with a view to achieving a holistic understanding and earn a buy-in from all partakers. The SNBS stives to involve stakeholders and relevant government institutions in its statistical activities in order to coordinate generation and dissemination of official government statistics. 

More about the findings and key highlights of the report will be published during the launch of the Final Poverty Report.

Statistics User Producer Consultation Forum

PRESS RELEASE

Mogadishu, Sunday, 6 August, 2023. Somali Integrated Statistics and Economic Planning Capacity Building Project holds User-Producer Consultation forum of official statistics for relevant ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), representatives from the academia, civil society, research firms, media fraternity, among other stakeholders.

User—producer of Statistics forum is crucial in enhancing effective communication and coordination of statistical work both within the Government as well as with universities, researchers and the private sector. The event presents an opportunity to engage with stakeholders, sensitize parties about the importance of coordination and optimization of an effective national statistical system. The availability of quality official statistics is prerequisite to the formulation of prudent and compelling public policies that are data-driven.

Users of statistics rely on data to inform the decisions, allocate basic services based on facts and scientific findings, help spur investments and lay the foundation for economic growth in the country. Whether it is analysing trends, identifying patterns, or identifying areas of improvement, statistics helps policy makers to make informed choices. Producers of statistics ought to present information in a clear, concise, and persuasive manner since the power of statistics manifests in effectively communicating info, hence influence opinions.

Federal Minister of Planning, Investment & Economic Development, H.E Mohamud Beenebeene who unveiled the event stated, “statistics work is critical for development initiatives that seek to advance government programs, projects and interventions that effectively respond to public needs, including the provisions of basic services. I commend the SNBS for helping to empower some government institutions with vital statics that drive the quest for effective governance through evidence-based decisions. The Honorable Minister further applauded ministries that taken crucial steps towards advancing administrative data, nothing that it is imperative to empower government institutions that produce statistics in terms of technical capacitation, statistical infrastructure to improve their production.

SNBS Director General, Sharmarke Farah gave an update on statistical publications the Bureau had made since the launch of the User Satisfaction Survey. The DG illuminated to the esteemed audience that the event provides an avenue to exchange notes with stakeholders, see where the Bureau has made progress with respect to production, coordination and publication of official statistics and the status of overall institutional perceptions regarding improvement in user satisfaction since the previous survey.

The Statistics Project Implementation Unit Coordinator, Mohamed Abdinur presented about the number of publications the Bureau has produced so far, all of which can be downloaded from the website. He was supported by the SNBS IT team who presented to participants on the website layout and how to easily access all publications that have been uploaded therein.

Presentations were also made by the ministries of Health and Education on HMIS and EMIS respectively and Central Bank of Somalia on financial systems that propel economic reforms.

Statistics User Producer Consultation Forum Photos

Two weeks GDP meeting organized by Statistics Sweden held in Nairobi, Kenya. This meeting was intended to review the current estimates (GDP estimates for 2012-2016), calculate 2017 GDP estimates and Harmonization of the different methods used by international partners (IMF, WB) and Somali government together with Statistics Sweden.

The main aim o

f the meeting was to engage all various stakeholders such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Statistics Sweden and Somalia Government of the GDP estimates to harmonize the existing GDP compilation systems include methods, sources and figures to come up with one harmonized Somali’s GDP estimates that presents the country’s GDP indicators and also to review the current estimates and incorporate with the new results from Somali High Frequency Survey Wave 2.

The overall objective of the Economic statistics component is to improve the quality of economic statistics and specially the Consumer price index (CPI) and develop the Gross domestic product (GDP). The outcome of this mission is to finalize the calculation of GDP-estimates for Somalia.

African statistics day was initiated in 1990 by the joint African conference of planners, statisticians and demographers, which is a subsidiary body of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). On 27^th November 2018, Somalia joined her counterparts of other African nations in the marking of the African Statistics Day. The events were organized by the Directorate of National Statistics of the Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic Development. The main role of the adoption of African Statistics day is to increase public awareness about the importance of statistics in both economic and social development for African countries, therefore the Directorate of National Statistics of Somalia aims for the same goal of promoting awareness of official statistics in its availability and accessibility to both the public and private sectors.

The theme for this year “High quality official statistics to ensure transparency, good governance and inclusive development “highlights the importance of official statistics in addressing transparency, good governance and inclusive development in both social and economic sectors thereby enabling the production, dissemination and use of administrative and official statistics. The Deputy Minister, Hon.Fahma Ahmed Noor had moment of speech deliverance and through her address, she emphasized the importance of statistics as well as the role ministry of planning in both economic and social development sectors in the country.

Other guest of honors through their speech focused on the availability and appropriate use of good economic and social statistics can translate into better lives for people through providing evidence as a base for policy and decision-making by the nation or by firms and citizen as well as clarifying that statistics can provide information for monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of the progress in meeting the goals and targets of Somalia government, as well as a basis for effective economic governance to promote the welfare of the nation. The celebration of African statistics day aims to increase public awareness about importance of official statistics in addressing transparency good governance and inclusive development in all sectors of the country.

Accurate statistics are critical for proper economic and social planning in any given country. The essence of getting accurate statistics is the basis for any economic as well as social planning and therefore keeping accounts and official statistics to improve Somalia leads for a brighter future.

A consultation meeting on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) was conducted by the Somali National Bureau of Statistics (SNBS) where participants were drawn from across various government institutions. The objective of the workshop was to assess and learn about Somali SDG performance as the country plans to present its first ever National Voluntary Review (VNR) to the United Nations.

The two-days event was also an opportunity to share ideas, thoughts, insights, experiences on fast-tracking Somalia’s attainment towards the global goals, hence help the SNBS and other domestic stakeholders in the compilation of the Voluntary National Report which will be a historic milestone for Somalia.   

The workshop was opened by the Deputy Director General, Abdirahman Dahir, whose remarks revolved around the accessibility and availability of data in Somalia and the attendant challenges. He emphasized on the commitment of the SNBS to play its role in ensuring the Government attains its commitments to implement the 2030 SDG Agenda. “SNBS will continue to work with all stakeholders to produce official statistics which are critical for measuring the realization of the global goals both at the national and regional levels.

The workshop also discussed about the progress being made by Somalia towards achieving the SDGs as well as ways to atone for the existing data gaps, including the need to establish intra-governmental  synergy that is key to implementing and pushing through the accomplishment of the 2030 global agenda.