Argentina obtains Financing from the IDB to continue with the improvement of its official statistics and to move forward in a transparency program

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will grant financing to the country in order to continue with the improvement of the official statistics published by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC, for its acronym in Spanish) and to support a program of transparency, integrity and corruption control.

The projects financed by the IDB are part of the joint work between the international organization and the Ministry of Finance, which main purpose is to make progress in terms of transparency of the information gathered by INDEC and in the fight against corruption.

For the first initiative, USD 50 million will be used for the improvement of official statistics, increasing their credibility. The IDB project aims at promoting the use of the information by the National Government, the citizenship and the private sector.

This way, the gap between provisional and final economic indicators will narrow, reducing the non-answer rate in surveys by sampling, increasing the coverage of the economic and housing censuses and reducing the time between the conduction of the survey and the publication of the results. In order to achieve it, new technologies, methodologies and statistical infrastructure will be applied to improve the information production process.

Likewise, activities will be financed to strengthen INDEC’s institutional capacity, as well as activities to promote transparency and access to information, update sociodemographic and economic statistical databases and improve the coordination between INDEC and the other organizations belonging to the National Statistical System.

For the Support to Transparency and Integrity Reforms Program USD 200 million were obtained. The initiative is part of the National Government’s decision to strengthen standards in line with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The implementation of this agenda foresees key reforms in the access to public information and the ethical conduct of public officials; the management of resources in works, recruitment and Government personnel; and the management of the financial sector.

In order to strengthen transparency, the project establishes actions for the management of public resources in terms of public work recruitment and public employment, in particular through the implementation of the electronic management system for Recruitment and Concessions for Public Work, CONTRATAR and the implementation and execution of a comprehensive system for the management and administration of personnel (Human Resources Administration System – SARHA).

Actions to increase effectiveness of the financial system and to reduce transaction costs will be also implemented, thus strengthening financial transparency based on the adoption of measures that go in line with FATF and international rules and regulations regarding financial information.