Press Release No. 23/114

Burundi Implements the International Monetary Fund’s Enhanced General Data Dissemination System

April 10, 2023

Washington, DC: Burundi has implemented a key recommendation of the IMF’s Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS) to publish essential macroeconomic and financial data. The implementation of the e-GDDS recommendation and the launch of the data portal—the National Summary Data Page —are a testament to Burundi’s commitment to data transparency.

The e-GDDS is the first tier of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives that promote transparency as a global public good and encourage countries to voluntarily publish timely data that is essential for monitoring and analyzing economic performance.

The National Summary Data Page will serve as a one-stop publication for disseminating the data recommended under the e-GDDS, covering national accounts and prices, government operations and debt, the monetary and financial sector, and the external sector. The National Summary Data Page will facilitate access for data users in Burundi and abroad, including policymakers, financial sector, private investors, think tanks, and the media. More broadly, aligning data with the e-GDDS will make it accessible in a standardized way to facilitate analysis of economic trends across countries, and to allow early detection of risks that could help avert economic crises. This supports sustainable economic growth and development.

Thanks to the National Summary Data Page, Burundi’s information has become easily accessible in both human- and machine-readable formats for users, resulting in greater data transparency. The page is hosted on Burundi’s national Open Data Platform (ODP), which is provided by the African Development Bank, and utilizes modern data publication technology. A link to Burundi’s National Summary Data Page is available on the IMF’s Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board . The data is provided by the National Statistical Office (ISTEEBU), the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, and the Bank of the Republic of Burundi.

Bert Kroese, Chief Statistician and Data Officer, and Director of the IMF’s Statistics Department, welcomed this major milestone in the country’s statistical development. “I am confident that Burundi will benefit from using the e-GDDS as a framework for further development of its statistical system,” Mr. Kroese stated. The benefits, including better sovereign financing conditions for countries participating in the e-GDDS, have recently been reviewed by the IMF Executive Board in the context of the Tenth Review of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives . The launch of Burundi’s National Summary Data Page was supported by an IMF capacity development project financed by the Government of Japan.