Bangladesh Strategic Plan on Agricultural and Rural Statistics (2016-2030).

This Bangladesh Strategic Plan for Agricultural and Rural Statistics (SPARS) is a sectoral policy document at the national level for the period of 2016-2030. It will facilitate to buildup strong basis of agriculture and rural statistics in the country to provide data for monitoring Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The agriculture sector is the major contributor to sustained food, nutrition and livelihood security of its large population to achieve self-sufficiency in food production, reduce rural poverty and foster sustainable economic development. Creation of enabling conditions to improve statistical system and taking sustainable measures to improve timely availability of quality statistics is at the centre stage of strategies for increasing food security, reducing poverty and promoting overall economic growth. This aspect has been re-stressed in the 7th Five Year Plan (SFYP) of Bangladesh. The SPARS provides an opportunity for developing pathway towards taking agriculture development programmes for meeting the targets in SDG and monitoring the achievements. The Strategic Goals of the SPARS are identified as: 1. Improve competencies of National Statistical System to produce and disseminate core set of Agricultural and Rural Statistics (ARS) in accordance with international standards and best practices; 2. Strengthen partnership and coordination among Ministries / Departments and attain harmonized definitions and statistical practices to efficiently produce coherent ARS; 3. Strengthen capacity to adopt cost effective and scientific survey methodology using sampling frame based on Censuses; 4. Develop a comprehensive human resources and capacity building mechanism with corresponding organizational setup to ensure participation in policy formulation; 5. Improve Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, develop ICT applications for collection, compilation and processing of ARS and establish Integrated Data Management and dissemination system. Key outputs include: i) Competencies of NSS strengthened; (ii) Enhanced use of official statistics in planning/decision making process; (iii) All ARS data follow international standards and quality; (iv) National Quality Assurance Framework for ARS developed; (v) Core-set of indicators available according to the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS); (vi) Updated methodologies/best practices followed by other countries adopted; (vi) Efficient production of coherent and consistent agriculture and rural statistics; (vii) Improved coordination between BBS and other data producing agencies of ARS; (viii) Harmonized concepts and definitions used by all ministries/agencies of ARS; ix) More administrative data used as official statistics; (x) Increased participation of stakeholders for assessing data demands; etc.