The Bureau of Statistics provides comprehensive, timely, relevant, responsive and customer focused Statistical Information relating to the social and economic activities as well as conditions of the inhabitants of Nigeria.Vigorouslycollaborate with all the tiers of Government and their agencies in the production of administrative statistics; coordinate statistical orderliness; and promote general use of statistical standards.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) came into being with the merger of the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS) and the National Data Bank (NDB). The creation is part of the implementation of the Statistical Master Plan (SMP), a programme document of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN). The document’s preparation was funded by the World Bank in 2003. The implementation is designed to span five years, 2005-2009.
Hitherto, the FOS, which had been the apex data producing agency of Government in Nigeria since 1947, had failed to meet its mandate of producing adequate, accurate and timely data needed for decision making. Falling into decay in much of the 1990s, the agency’s performance got to its lowest ebb between 2000 and 2003. Among the reasons for this appalling state were the poor attention from Government, bad management, a bloated and low quality workforce, preponderance of non-professional staff (particularly administrative and accounting personnel), archaic data production and management technologies, and low morale and productivity of workers.
All these manifested in non-production of relevant statistics for planning and evidence-based policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, or, at best, the production of data that were untimely and often without any iota of integrity. This situation necessitated the current process of reforms in the NBS.
The broad objective of the reforms in the NBS is to implement the SMP and also transform the Bureau along the dictates of the ongoing Federal Government Public Service Reform Programme. The Agency is involved in the Economic Reform and Governance Programme (ERGP) of the World Bank and the European Union’s (EU’s) EMCAP programme, which are both managed through the Federal Ministry of Finance. The goal of the entire reform programme for NBS is to transform the Agency into a world class National Statistical Office (NSO), which will be able to produce adequate, high quality and timely data relevant to the demands of users in Government, the universities and research Institutes, private sector organizations and international agencies. The reform process is in four areas:
Infrastructure and Equipment.
Human Resources Management and Development.
Improved Data Production Methodology.
Data Management, Dissemination and Access.
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