The Government Finance Statistics: Compilation Guide for Developing Countries represents a new approach by the IMF’s Statistics Department (STA) to assist developing countries to compile government finance statistics (GFS) in accordance with the guidelines of the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 (GFSM 2001). The Guide specifically addresses issues relevant to developing countries.
The Guide is based on our experience over many years of technical assistance and training to member countries, addressing common problems they face, and answering questions that often arise. Examples, figures, and tables are used to facilitate the reader’s understanding of the topics discussed.
The Guide was mainly funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), under its Enhanced Data Dissemination Initiative (EDDI) for Africa.
We express our gratitude to DFID for their support. This publication is a collaborative product of the IMF’s Government Finance Division. The primary author of the Guide was Alberto F. Jiménez de Lucio, Senior Economist.
The design of the examples, figures and tables was mainly the work of Carlos Gutiérrez Mangas, Economist. General guidance was provided by Claudia Dziobek, Division Chief, and methodological guidance by Robert Dippelsman, Deputy Division Chief.
Members of the division provided comments to different parts of the Guide, in particular Sagé de Clerck and Tobias Wickens. Roderico De Nitti, Staff Assistant, prepared the draft for publication. The IMF’s Data Dissemination and Review Dissemination reviewed the chapter on data dissemination (Ethan Weismann, Louis Venter, and Zdravko Balyozov). Robert Heath, Senior Advisor STA, provided valuable advice.
The Guide was peer-reviewed by Betty Gruber, an international GFS expert, formerly from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Members of the GFS Advisory Committee provided insightful suggestions, in particular Héctor Hernández (Chile) and Nelly Mireku (Ghana). Other colleagues from the IMF contributed useful ideas, including Adrienne Cheasty, Guilhem Blondy, Nikolay Gueorguiev, Tidiane Kinda, Olga Kroytor, Jimmy McHugh, Daban Sanchez, and Victor Thuronyi.
It is our expectation that this Guide will prove useful to all users interested in compiling GFS or gaining a better understanding of fiscal statistics.
We welcome comments on the Guide at
[email protected], as we intend to update the document over time to reflect feedback from
users and new developments in the field.
