UNFPA today handed over two servers to the Sidama and Central Ethiopia regions through the Ethiopian Statistical Service to support the Integrated Management Information System to strengthen accessibility of and utilization of data for development planning, monitoring and evidence-based decision making.  

As the lead UN agency in the domain of data for development, UNFPA has been supporting the government of Ethiopia in the generation and utilization of data for policies and programmes. UNFPA’s long standing partnership with the Ethiopian Statistics Service (ESS) dates back to 1978 consistently supporting capacity strengthening of ESS for the production, analysis, utilization and dissemination of high-quality disaggregated population data.

UNFPA supported the consecutive national population and housing censuses that were undertaken in 1984, 1994 and 2007 as they provide vital information for the planning, monitoring and evaluation of development programming and the implementation of global development goals such as the MDGs and SDGs as well as the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). UNFPA was the sole partner of ESS in the implementation of the 1984 census.

In support of the preparatory activities for the 4th Population and Housing Census, UNFPA and its partners (UK, European Commission, The Netherlands) provided office and field equipment and supplies such as hand-held digital devices, laptops, heavy-duty printers, servers and power banks.

UNFPA partnered with the ESS for the establishment of a functional web-based Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) at the ESS and 10 regions in Ethiopia. The IMIS which was officially launched in 2020 is a repository of data collected through censuses, surveys, and administrative or routine service-based data. It enables users to access data online, process and calculate indicators as well as produce customized tables and thematic maps up to the lowest administrative levels.

Currently, IMIS has 79 datasets collected by the ESS through different surveys and censuses, including the 1994 and 2007 Population and Housing Censuses. In addition to the Sidama region, IMIS has been made functional in Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Harari, Oromia, Somali and Tigray regions and the Dire Dawa City Administration.

The support provided today demonstrates UNFPA’s commitment to enhance the technological infrastructure and empower regions to reinforce data dissemination through the web-based IMIS. Officials of the Ethiopian Statistical Service, the Sidama and Central Ethiopia regions and UNFPA were present at the handover ceremony.