News and Events

Somali government needs accurate and reliable data for use in development of policy and planning that promote its ability and capacity to deliver universal access to health, education and other essential services.  The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) renamed Somali Health and Demographic Survey (SHDS) for the Somali context will collect vast amount of data broadly covering demographic characteristics, fertility, health issues (maternal and child health; sexual and reproductive health and rights including family planning; and gender issues), and relevant socio-economic variables. This survey will assist the government to monitor indicators in the National Development Plan (2017-2019) especially quality basic education, health, water and sanitation services; improved health outcomes, reduced maternal and child mortality, reduction in malnutrition rates as well as prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases.

The survey will also promote the capacity building of the staff of government ministries of planning and health in the country, especially the staff of emerging Federal Member States and intends to fully utilize the personnel involved in PESS and further build their capacities in generating reliable statistics for Somalia. The successful implementation of the SHDS will largely depend on the establishment of close collaborative working partnerships between officials of ministries of Planning and Health from FGS and Federal Member States as well as other respective actors within the implementation structure.

The Government of Somalia launched the SDGs at an event on 6^th January 2016, organized by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation and the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Somalia office. Government leaders highlighted the SDGs’ relevance to Somalia’s National Development Plan, and discussed key actions to implement, monitor and achieve the goals.Bearing to mind the significance of awareness, creation and sensitization of SDG, the Directorate of National Statistics (DNS) of Ministry of Planning with support from UNFPA organized training workshop that brought together more than 35 persons mainly from Planning Department/Unit from Federal Government ministries and Institutions. The main purpose of this training workshop was aimed at building partnership and cooperation as well as enhancing the collaboration amongst government institutions to tackle SDG issues in Somalia.

During the training workshop the DNS and Directorate of Planning technical team conveyed to the participants through significant presentations thereby enabling the participants to grasp the concept of SDG in terms of Goals, Targets and Indicators and most importantly focus on statistical data sourcing for measuring sustainable development goals. In addition to that the participants understood the link between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and National Development Plan (NDP). It was fully agreed to all participants the noteworthy of measuring the SDG/NDP is through the availability of credible Statistical data therefore the necessity of data collection to commence. Hence, all participants from different government institutions highlighted the need of strengthening National Statistical System in which the participants took interest in commitment and collaboration with DNS so as to strengthen the National Statistical System. During the training workshop there were presentations by the DNS technical staff as well as group discussions based on the questions provided and plenary discussions. Through our presentations (DNS staff) we laid out the importance of collaboration among government institutions by providing explanation to the participants on what their roles are in terms of significant successful implementation of SDG/NDP in Somalia.

The establishment of Statistical Technical Committee was seen of importance among all the participants present at the training workshop, so as to enable strengthening the partnership and collaboration between government institutions and beyond. This technical team will also have dedicated focal point from government institution, Term of Reference and work plan. During the two days of the training, each day, one hour was set aside for group discussion through questions which were prepared based on the presentations of the day and later presentations of the group discussion were discussed. The questions consisted of the importance of SDG/NDP in Somalia, the role of Government institutions and the shortcomings of implementing of SDG/NDP in Somalia.

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 of 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.