The Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics prepared by the World Bank in collaboration with the UN Food and Agricultural Organization under the auspices of the UN Statistical Commission addresses the declining quantity and quality of data in developing countries. It also responds to increasing demand from policy makers for information to deal with sky-rocketing food prices and emerging issues relating to the use of bio-fuels, the environment, climate change, and monitoring progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

The Global Strategy responds to the current poor state of agricultural statistics and the rising demand for a broader scope by providing the basis for a re-engineering of the statistical system. The Global Strategy provides the framework to integrate agriculture into the national statistical system by the development of a master sample frame for agriculture, its use in an integrated survey system, and the implementation of a data management system. The master frame will provide a linkage between the farm as a business with the household as a social unit and the land they use. The Global Strategy provides a choice of methodologies to achieve these linkages. The paper will provide the steps to achieve the integration of agriculture into the national statistical system and also the implications this has for other sectors.

Keywords: Integration of agriculture into national statistical system; Master sample frame; Integrated survey framework; Statistical capacity building

Biography: Consultant on international statistics –The World Bank–principal author of the “Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics”

Former Global Manager of the International Comparison Program