Somalia’s Cabinet Appoints the Director-General and Deputy for the newly established independent National Bureau of Statistics

The Council of Ministers of the Federal Government of Somalia has appointed Sharmarke Farah as the Director-General of the National Bureau of Statistics and Abdirahman Omar Dahir as his deputy.

The Cabinet stated that Sharmarke, who currently serves as the Lead Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister and the Coordinator of the Nation Economic Roadmap, brings with him a wealth of experience having served as an economic researcher and social sector development including lead technical expert roles with the UN, World Bank, DfID, USAID and private sector. Sharmarke worked with UNICEF for over seven years in various capacity in Somalia, New York HQ and North Korea. He has MSc on Public Policy and Management from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK.

The amended Statistics Law, which was assent to the law in February 2020, replaces the Directorate of National Statistics (DNS) with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The new NBS will be governed by a Board of Directors and a Director-General, which will act as the highest policy-making body of the NBS; and will formulate policies and set its internal regulations, priorities, standards and criteria for all censuses and surveys to be carried out in Somalia.  NBS is mandated to collect, analyse and disseminate all official economic, social and demographic statistics. Its immediate priorities include the strengthen of the quality of source data and the production and dissemination of macroeconomic statistics, including the development of a production-based GDP-estimate.