The Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), formerly the ''Central Bureau of Statistics'' ''(CBS)'', is the national statistical authority of

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

, which is located in the capital

Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 20 ...

History

Before Namibian Independence in 1990, there was no stand-alone statistical authority. Statistical data was managed through a department of the South African Statistical Services. After independence, the Central Statistical Office was launched as a division of the National Planning Commission. It was later renamed the Central Bureau of Statistics. In 2011, the Namibia Statistics Agency was formalised on the basis of the Statistics Act, 20 (Act No 9 of 2011) after it had already existed for several years. It reports to the National Planning Commission (NPC).

Legal Basis

The statistical authority until 2011 operated on the basis of the Statistics Act, No 66 of 1976. A new Statistics Bill was discussed by the national assembly during 2010 to 2011, including the formation of an entirely independent Namibia Statistics Agency. With the endorsement of the Statistics Act, 2011 (Act No 9 of 2011) this was implemented.

Mandate and Organisation

The main responsibility of NSA are the preparation, publication and dissemination of objective, relevant, comparable, trustworthy, timely and easy to access official statistics in all areas of national interest. In addition, NSA coordinates the creation of official datasets, ensuring compliance with defined quality criteria. NSA is headed by the Statistician General, currently Alex Shimuafeni.

Statistical Information

The NSA regularly publishes various statistical datasets and publications.

Economic Data

In the area of economics, NSA mainly publishes information on agriculture, consumer prices, foreign trade and macroeconomic data. * National Accounts: quarterly publications as well as summaries spanning across several years (exampl
2000–2009
* Annual Agricultural Survey and industrial statistics * Consumer Price Index (NCPI) and inflation: monthly publication since February 2005, following the Interim Consumer Price Index for Windhoek that existed since January 1993 * Foreign Trade: quarterly publications

Demographic and Geospatial Data

This department deals with the

social structure In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...

of Namibia. *

Demography Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and Population dynamics, dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups ...

Social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

s *

Geographic Information Systems A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a br ...

and

Cartography Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

The main surveys include the Namibia Household Income and Expenditure Survey (NHIES) as well as the Namibia Inter-censal Demographic Survey (NIDS) conducted every five years, as well as the National Household

Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

conducted once in ten years. The first Geographic Information System created under the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (''NSDI'') policy, is the Bush Information System that provides a national dataset on

bush encroachment Woody plant encroachment (also called bush encroachment, shrub encroachment, woody encroachment, bush thickening, or woody plant proliferation) is a natural phenomenon characterised by the increase in density of woody plants, bushes and shrubs, ...

br>

External links

* Official website o
''Namibia Statistics Agency''

website of the National Planning Commission

References

{{National statistics agencies Government of Namibia National statistical services Government agencies established in 2011 2011 establishments in Namibia