World Bank Kenya Country Director Diarietou Gaye says high-quality data is critical to measure progress in growing the economy, reducing poverty and fostering shared prosperity/FILE
The move is aimed at supporting the Kenyan Government fill data gaps, improve the quality of key official statistical products and processes, enhance dissemination practices and make data more accessible and contribute to strengthen the capacity and management systems of the KNBS.
World Bank Kenya Country Director Diarietou Gaye says high-quality data is critical to measure progress in growing the economy, reducing poverty and fostering shared prosperity.
“When statistics are up-to-date and regularly released publically, the data will inform decision making in the public and private sector alike, open data helps not only to measure progress, but also to push it forward. Kenya has made significant progress on the open data front, but more needs to be done to ensure the data are current and regularly updated,” Gaye said.
The Kenya Statistics Program-for-Results is funded by World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA).
The bank developed the Program-for-Results (PforR) financing instrument. Its unique features include using a country’s own institutions and processes and linking disbursement of funds directly to the achievement of specific program results.
This helps build capacity within the country, enhances effectiveness and efficiency and leads to achievement of tangible, sustainable program results.
The credit is provided under the standard IDA terms that include a maturity of 38 years with a grace period of six years.
“As Africa’s newest lower-middle income country, Kenya needs to generate the high-quality economic statistics required to inform and attract investments and help grow the economy,” said Johan A. Mistiaen, Economist and the Program’s Team Leader.
“Moreover, current estimates of poverty and inequality are based on data that are a decade old. This operation will support a program of economic and household surveys – including the ongoing 2015-16 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey – to update these statistics and henceforth produce these data on a regular basis,” Mistiaen said.
The activities supported by the new operation are aligned to the government’s Vision 2030 and the second Medium Term Plan, which underscore that data and statistics are essential for evidence-based policy making and also for monitoring the development impact.
This will create new jobs, reduce extreme poverty and contribute to shared prosperity in line with the bank’s country partnership strategy for Kenya.
Read more here >> Capital Business