The Future of International Statistical Data Sharing and New Issues of Interaction

Abstract

The article deals with challenges and prospects of implementation of the Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) standard and using it in the international sharing of statistical data and metadata. The authors identified potential areas where this standard can be used, described a mechanism for data and metadata sharing according to SDMX standard. Major issues classified into three groups - general, statistical, information technology - were outlined by applying both domestic and foreign experience of implementation of the standard. These issues may arise at the national level (if the standard is implemented domestically), at the international level (when the standard is applied by international organizations), and at the national-international level (if the information is exchanged between national statistical data providers and international organizations). General issues arise at the regulatory level and are associated with establishing boundaries of responsibility of counterpart organizations at all three levels of interaction, as well as in terms of increasing the capacity to apply the SDMX standard. Issues of statistical nature are most often encountered due to the sharing of large amounts of data and metadata related to various thematic areas of statistics; there should be a unified structure of data and metadata generation and transmission. With the development of information sharing, arise challenges and issues associated with continuous monitoring and expanding SDMX code lists. At the same time, there is a lack of a universal data structure at the international level and, as a result, it is difficult to understand and apply at the national level the existing data structures developed by international organizations. Challenges of information technology are related to creating an IT infrastructure for data and metadata sharing using the SDMX standard. The IT infrastructure (depending on the participant status) includes the following elements: tools for the receiving organizations, tools for sending organization and the infrastructure for the IT professionals. For each of the outlined issues, the authors formulated some practical recommendations based on the complexity principle as applied to the implementation of the international SDMX standard for the exchange of data and metadata.