DUSHANBE, October 20, Asia-Plus - US$5 million provided to Tajikistan’s State Committee for Statistics by international organization and the country’s government may not be enough for modernizing and improving capacity of the national statistical system, the committee deputy head Bakhtiya Muhammadiyeva remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe today.  

According to her, the project desgined for five years is aimed at modernizing the national statistical system and improve its efficiency and effectiveness to ensure the provision of relevant, timely and reliable data.  

The major components of the project include organizational development through improving policy, regulatory and institutional framework and organizational structure of the national statistical system; human resource development through human resource management framework, training of statistical data producers to improve their technical skills including introduction of new standards, methodologies and managerial skills; development of statistical infrastructure  which includes improving sample frames, establishment and improvement of registers for enterprises and individual entrepreneurs, and developing a unified classification system; data development through upgrading data collection mechanisms -household surveys and censuses, sectoral statistics, including National Accounts, price statistics, and socio-demographic statistics; and physical infrastructure and equipment including improvement of IT structure, transportation and other equipment. 

“The provided funds may possibly not be enough for implementing all 150 tasks of the project,” Muhammadiyeva noted.   

The Government of Tajikistan and the World Bank signed the IDA- Financing Agreement and SIDA and DFID Grant Agreement for a project to strengthen the Tajikistan National Statistical System on June 19 2006.  The estimated total cost of the project is around US$5.07 million. The Government of Tajikistan’s contribution is around US$872,000, and pledges from other donors, including DFID and SIDA, to date amount to US$ 3.2 million.