Concept Project Information Document (PID) - Lao PDR Statistical System Modernization - P178002 (English)

Sectoral and Institutional Context Lao PDR has made substantial progress in advancing its national statistical system in recent years.2 The national statistical system, commonly known as the Lao PDR Statistical System (LSS), consists of the Lao Statistics Bureau (LSB), the statistical centers of line ministries or equivalent organizations, the statistics offices of provincial departments, and the [...] A new statistics law has been in force since 2017, assigning the LSB the responsibility of providing the overall direction of the national statistical system through the power to draft the LSS’s development strategy. [...] The LSS ranks low in the second lowest quintile of the global ranking in the areas of data sources and data infrastructure, suggest weaknesses in collection of census, survey, administrative and geospatial data as well as standard and methodology for compiling statistics. [...] The largest gap in the LSS according to the World Bank’s SPI is in fact in data services, in which the country ranks in the lowest quintile of the global ranking, suggesting an opportunity for improvement in areas of data releases, online access, and other data services. [...] According to the 2017 Statistics Law, the LSB is responsible for guiding the overall direction of the national statistical system through the power to draft the LSS’s development strategy.