December 17, 2021
El Salvador will modernize its statistical system and increase the use of statistical information in public and private decision-making with support from a $44 million loan approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The operation will finance a program to improve the quality of official statistical information in terms of relevance, timeliness, reliability, and accessibility. It will additionally strengthen the institutional framework of the General Directorate of Statistics and Censuses (DIGESTYC).
The program will provide technical and financial support for the country’s main census activities, including the National Population and Housing Census, the National Agricultural Census, the Economic Census, and the National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure, guaranteeing their quality by following international standards and good practices, and generating technical capacities at DIGESTYC.
Likewise, it will support strengthening DIGESTYC so it produces quality information through surveys, censuses, and administrative records by introducing innovations in all phases of the census process, particularly data collection and interaction with census respondents.
Beneficiaries of the program include the central government and its decentralized units, as they will count on reliable, timely, and relevant primary and strategic information for the development of policies concerning public order, plans, and socioeconomic projects. As the coordinating entity of the National Statistical Service, DIGESTYC will benefit from modern tools and an updated statistical base.
Other beneficiaries include civil society, by having data that promote transparency and accountability; and the productive sector, by counting on quality, updated, and disaggregated census information that allows it to formulate plans and make projections on investment and supply of goods and services, among other activities.
This operation is aligned with the IDB’s Vision 2025 – Reinvesting in the Americas: A Decade of Opportunities, a plan to achieve the recovery and inclusive growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, in the areas of digital economy, gender and inclusion, and climate change.
The IDB loan of $44 million has a 25-year repayment term, a 5.5-year grace period, and an interest rate based on LIBOR.