Abstract
The global economy is in a state of constant transformation, shaped by digital disruption, climate change, shifting demographics, and evolving global value chains. This ongoing change presents challenges not only for researchers, businesses, and governments striving to understand economic realities, but also for macroeconomic statisticians, who must develop and maintain the international statistical standards that support the measurement of economic activity. Recently, the System of National Accounts (SNA) and the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM) underwent updates; notably, there was a 17-year gap between the previous and current versions, and it is expected to take an additional 5 years for countries to implement the new standards. This article argues that a 25-year cycle from one update's conception to full implementation may no longer be sufficient to meet the needs of users in today's rapidly changing environment. The article contends that the process for updating statistical standards must evolve. It first highlights the SNA/BPM research program over the short to medium term (as it is now understood) and then proposes a path forward for addressing and resolving this research in a more agile and adaptive approach.
Keywords
Introduction
The global economy is in a state of continuous transformation. Technological advancements, demographic shifts, geopolitical changes, and evolving consumption and production patterns constantly reshape the economic landscape. Official statistics must keep pace with these dynamic changes to remain relevant and accurate. This presents a foundational challenge, and opportunity, for international economic statistical standards (IESS): the measurement of an ever-changing world.1,–3
My awareness of the extent of economic transformation began not in an academic setting, but on a construction site in the summer of 1987. As a student laborer, I worked for a senior executive from NorTel, one of Canada's telecommunications giants (long since bankrupt). During our breaks, he would describe a future that seemed more aligned with science fiction than realistic projection. He told me that in the future we would be doing business from anywhere. He told me that NorTel envisioned a world where individuals could make business calls from any location, even a golf course putting green. Beyond voice calls, he told me that the time would come when meetings could be conducted face-to-face via video, in real-time, irrespective of physical distance.
In those days, the only phone I had access to was a rotary dial landline in my family's kitchen, and the occasional payphone. The concept of conducting business from anywhere at any time seemed both implausible and abstract. Yet today, we live in the very world he described, made possible by the convergence of mobile technology, cloud computing, and digital platforms. We now hold video meetings from airports, collaborate on shared documents from hotel rooms, and manage complex business operations remotely using devices small enough to fit in our pockets.
This narrative underscores a profound truth I have come to understand as someone tasked with helping develop statistical standards to measure economic activity: envisioning the magnitude and nature of future economic transformations is extraordinarily challenging. Consequently, it is equally difficult, perhaps impossible, to fully “future-proof” our statistical standards by predicting the specific types of transactions, institutional arrangements, or technologies that will emerge. This inherent uncertainty places a demand on the international statistical community to create standards and update processes that are methodologically sound, coordinated and consensus-based, and yet agile and adaptive.1,2
The 2025 updates to the System of National Accounts (SNA) and the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM7) represent a significant stride in this direction.4,5 These revisions respond to the growing importance of digitalization, sustainability, globalization, and inclusivity in shaping economic outcomes. More importantly, they demonstrate the potential of a harmonized, collaborative, and forward-looking update process.2,3 However, as the pace of economic change continues to accelerate, so too must the pace at which our statistical standards evolve.
Over successive revisions, the scope of the SNA and BPM has expanded well beyond traditional market production and monetary transactions. This widening scope has created a growing need for collaboration with subject-matter experts beyond the national accounts and balance of payments communities. For example, the measurement of natural resource stocks requires geophysical, environmental, and engineering expertise to understand physical quantities, extraction viability, and depletion dynamics. As a result, the updating of international statistical standards can no longer be undertaken solely by macroeconomic statisticians but must increasingly rely on broad, interdisciplinary consultation.
This article contends that the process for updating statistical standards must evolve. It first highlights the SNA/BPM research program over the short to medium term (as it is now understood) and then proposes a path forward for addressing and resolving this research in a more agile and adaptive approach.2,3 The proposed path forward draws on insights from the 2025 SNA/BPM7 update process and recommendations from recent reports to the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) and IMF Balance of Payments Committee.2,–5 The goal is to ensure that future updates are not only timelier and more consistent, but also more manageable for national statistical systems to implement.3,6 In doing so, we can construct a statistical architecture that not only reflects the present but is also resilient enough to accommodate the future, irrespective of how unimaginable it may seem today.
Examples of provisional recommendations in the SNA / BPM.
Examples of provisional recommendations in the SNA / BPM.
Examples of conceptual agreement with measurement gaps.
Items where further conceptual development is required.
Examples of watch areas requiring new frameworks.
After each major update to international statistical standards, such as the SNA or BPM, the governing bodies establish a formal research agenda comprising outstanding conceptual and methodological questions. 2 These unresolved issues typically arise because the update process, by necessity, must prioritize those topics where sufficient consensus and methodological readiness exist. The items that are not addressed during a given update process can be categorized into four broad categories.
First, there are issues involving economic activities or phenomena that remain in a state of flux (Table 1), such as nascent markets or technologies, where the landscape has not yet settled into a steady state. For these cases, only provisional classifications or interim guidance can be provided, as the ultimate economic function and institutional arrangements are not fully apparent.2,4,5
Second, some topics are characterized as achieving broad conceptual agreement regarding their economic substance (Table 2), but the statistical community lacks mature data sources or sufficiently robust methods to enable meaningful and internationally comparable measurement.2,3 For these, further work is required to develop and standardize new measurement techniques and data collection strategies.
Third, there are issues where more time is needed to establish a consensus on the concepts and accounting methods (Table 3). While general ideas may exist, the community simply needs more time to ensure that the proposed concepts are properly articulated and accounted for in international statistical standards. 3
The final category comprises items that are not yet on the research agenda (Table 4) but for which there is some concern within the macroeconomic statistics community that the current standards may not sufficiently address those types of activities and transactions visible within the immediate horizon. 2 This includes items consisting of emergent trends—so novel and dynamic that it is not currently possible to postulate even a tentative accounting approach. These areas of the research agenda are typically subject to continuous monitoring and dialogue, as the statistical community seeks to build foundational understanding before formal guidance can be developed.2,3
The four categories described above form a research continuum—from provisional treatments reflecting evolving economic realities, through areas of conceptual agreement constrained by measurement gaps, to topics requiring deeper conceptual development, and finally to emerging “watch areas” that may necessitate entirely new statistical frameworks. The four substantive sections that follow are organized directly around these four categories, providing illustrative examples and discussing their implications for the evolution of international statistical standards.
Currently, there are 35 items (although this is being constantly updated) included in the joint SNA/BPM research agenda. 2 The following series of tables groups these items into the categories outlined above.
Provisional recommendations based on current economic realities
Certain items within the 2025 update reflect temporary guidance or recommendations that are appropriate given the current behavior of specific economic phenomena but are expected to evolve. 4 The case of crypto-assets without a corresponding liability (e.g., bitcoin) is the most prominent issue that falls in this category. Under the current treatment, crypto-assets without a corresponding liability are classified as a non-produced, non-financial asset, based on its observed characteristics such as limited use as a medium of exchange, high volatility, and lack of an identifiable issuer. 4 However, should crypto-assets begin to operate more like fiat currencies—becoming more stable, widely accepted, and integrated into financial markets—their classification would need to shift, likely toward financial assets, triggering an update to both the SNA and BPM.4,5
This provisional approach balances the need for conceptual consistency with the recognition that economic functions may change over time. It also underscores the need for regular monitoring of usage patterns, institutional developments (e.g., legal frameworks), and technological adoption that could necessitate reclassification.2,4 Other examples of this type of “interim” recommendation include the treatment of staking rewards and some digital tokens. 2 The SNA 2025 also highlights the need to monitor the valuation and recording of crypto-mining activity, especially where economic ownership and the environmental costs of production may shift how such activity is measured over time. 4
It should be noted that this idea of an explicitly recognized provisional recommendation is a first for both the SNA and BPM. 4 This explicit declaration is not found in earlier versions of these international statistical standards. It signals the community's acknowledgement that updates to statistical standards (or specific elements thereof) must occur on a more frequent and agile basis.1,2
Conceptual agreement but measurement gaps
A second category of research issues comprises topics where the statistical community has achieved broad conceptual agreement but lacks reliable and scalable measurement frameworks.2,3,4 In these cases, the 2025 SNA/BPM updates endorse the direction of change while postponing full integration into the core standards pending further development.3,4
The valuation of imports and exports is a clear case in point.4,5 While the current standard continues to recommend FOB valuation for both exports and imports, there is strong agreement that an invoice valuation model would offer more accurate economic measurement, especially for supply-use tables and balance-of-payments reconciliation. 4 However, implementing this change would require significant enhancements in underlying data systems, modeling approaches, and global coordination; therefore, while the direction of change is agreed upon, more time is needed before countries can implement this recommendation.3,–5
Another prominent example of an item in this category is marketing assets. 4 The updated SNA 2025 acknowledges that marketing assets, such as brand recognition, are produced assets under a broadened view of knowledge capital. However, countries currently lack robust and standardized estimation techniques for valuing such assets. The SNA / BPM therefore stops short of recommending recording marketing assets as produced assets and instead encourages experimental estimates and pilot studies that will help inform the development of robust methodologies. 4
Similarly, there is wide agreement on the significance of household production of services for own use—such as caregiving, home-schooling, and domestic work as valuable economic activity. 4 However, difficulties in valuation, lack of time-use data, and cross-country comparability prevent its inclusion in the core framework, with thematic & extended accounts being recommended instead. 4
Further conceptual development required
The third category of items reflects areas where the statistical community has not yet reached sufficient conceptual clarity to codify a standard.2,3 Unlike issues where the direction of travel is broadly accepted but operationalization is lacking, these topics involve deeper definitional debates about the nature of the underlying economic phenomenon.
For instance, questions around the definition of income—particularly the role of holding gains and losses—strike at the very heart of national accounts. 4 Competing views persist about whether such gains should be treated as components of distributive income or remain confined to revaluation accounts, reflecting broader disagreements on what income should represent in both distributional and macroeconomic contexts.3,4 Similarly, the treatment of accruing interest—whether from the perspective of the debtor or the creditor—illustrates how divergent conceptual frameworks can yield materially different economic narratives, making consensus both essential and challenging.2,–5
A second group of unresolved conceptual issues concerns the delineation of production boundaries and asset classifications. 4 Long-standing debates about whether to broaden the fixed-asset boundary to include human capital or additional forms of intellectual property underscore the difficulty of aligning evolving economic realities with coherent accounting rules and robust statistical methods.3,4 Relatedly, questions about whether certain corporate expenditures should be treated as final consumption, or whether the atmosphere should be recognized as an asset subject to depletion, highlight how core definitions of production, consumption, and asset ownership are being stretched by new analytical priorities.2,3,4
These discussions are not simply technical—they carry normative implications about what society chooses to measure as part of its wealth and sustainability. 4 The lack of consensus reflects both methodological complexity and the diverse policy (and sometimes philisophical) perspectives brought by different stakeholders.2,3
Finally, some agenda items expose tensions in how statistical units and institutional arrangements are represented.3,4 The debate over whether establishments remain an adequate unit of analysis in the face of increasingly global and fragmented production networks illustrates the challenges of adapting traditional frameworks to new organizational forms.2,3,4 Similarly, the treatment of unallocated gold accounts, or the question of whether valuables used in production should be considered fixed assets, point to inconsistencies between existing classifications and emerging realities. 4 These are areas where more conceptual development is needed to reconcile divergent practices and provide a coherent, internationally comparable framework.2,3,4 Until these foundational questions are resolved, operational guidance would risk entrenching inconsistencies rather than fostering harmonization.3,4
Watch areas requiring new concepts and tools
Emerging issues
A fourth category includes emerging issues. These items have not yet made their way onto the formal research agenda but represent topics that may not be fully definable within existing frameworks and nonetheless demand research attention.2,3 These “watch areas” are often driven by technological, demographic, or institutional disruption and may ultimately require new concepts, classifications, and valuation methods.1,2 These issues are generally brought to the attention of statisticians by users of official statistics who must develop policies and strategies to address emerging economic activities. They look at the existing statistical tables produced by national statistical organizations and find them lacking.
Generative AI and labor augmentation
Perhaps the most prominent recent example is the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), especially generative AI systems.1,2 Current statistical standards do not distinguish between traditional AI applications and generative AI, nor do they incorporate the notion of AI as a co-pilot to labor, a concept that could fundamentally challenge current production and labor and productivity metrics.2,4
Research is needed to address several key questions: How generative AI augments or substitutes labor. How to adjust prices for quality improvements due to AI. The impact of AI-driven productivity in non-market sectors such as education, healthcare, and public administration, where output is typically measured as the sum of costs.
Without better methods for estimating output in these sectors, there is a risk of understating productivity gains and mischaracterizing economic growth in areas where AI will have the most transformative effects.1,2,4
Demographic change and multi-generational balance sheets
Another critical watch area involves the macroeconomic implications of demographic change, particularly as the baby boomer generation transitions from accumulation to disbursement of wealth.3,4 Much of the focus in recent updates has been on better measurement of pensions and retirement savings. 4 However, a new phenomenon has emerged: the transfer of significant wealth, either to heirs or to institutions such as non-profit organizations serving households. These shifts are likely to alter savings and consumption behavior in profound ways.2,3,4
Current statistical frameworks treat household balance sheets as unitary and static, but the emergence of intergenerational savings and inheritance expectations may require more detailed statistical breakdowns.3,4 Conceptually, parental wealth may be viewed not simply as household savings but as part of a multi-generational financial strategy, particularly when inheritances affect housing markets, labor force participation, or educational investment decisions.2,3,4 Developing new methods to capture these transfers and their economic impacts will be essential.3,4
Wellbeing, sustainability, and inclusive growth
Beyond the production boundary, there is increasing demand for statistics that support wellbeing, environmental sustainability, and distributional analysis. The SNA 2025 responds to this by promoting the use of thematic and extended accounts—rather than traditional satellite accounts—to explore these domains. However, these accounts remain only loosely integrated with the core SNA aggregates. Key technical challenges include alignment of valuation principles, reconciliation with GDP and saving aggregates, treatment of non-monetary indicators, and consistency of sectoral boundaries. Current research efforts therefore focus not only on developing these accounts, but also on establishing explicit linking mechanisms that allow them to inform and complement core macroeconomic indicators, paving the way for gradual mainstreaming of selected extensions into the central framework.
Advances in health care and “aging well”
A final and increasingly important watch area concerns the transformational potential of health care advances.3,4 Over the next several years, breakthroughs in medicine, from weight-loss treatments and regenerative therapies to potential cures for chronic conditions, may dramatically improve longevity and health outcomes.2,4 These advances could reshape labor force participation, retirement age expectations, savings and consumption patterns, housing demand, and even family dynamics.3,4
At the same time, recent experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how global health crises can necessitate radical shifts in economic behavior and lead to extended periods of economic disruption. 3 Current macroeconomic frameworks, while capable of capturing structural components of the economy, are often stovepiped and static, with limited ability to represent how changes in one domain (e.g., public health) cascade through others (e.g., labor supply, government spending, environmental impact).2,3,4
This highlights a critical need for a more detailed and integrated set of economic statistics—ones that can go beyond input-output linkages or financial matrices to capture causal relationships and systemic feedback loops.2,3 While it may seem tongue-in-cheek to suggest that hair-loss drugs might disrupt the personal-grooming industry, such innovations underscore a broader truth: health is economically consequential, and statistical standards must evolve to reflect a more interlinked and adaptive reality.2,3,4
Toward a coordinated and Agile ISS update framework
While the statistical community can be proud of the recent update of the SNA and BPM7, it is clear from the SNA/BPM research agenda that the community must push ahead and resolve these outstanding and emerging issues with some sense of urgency.2,3,4,6 If not, gaps will start to emerge in the statistical standards and those standards will lose some of their relevance. More critically, policymakers will be forced to develop policy with less than complete data.2,5
The lessons of the SNA 2025 and BPM7 update cycle point to a crucial insight: while periodic comprehensive updates are essential, they are not sufficient on their own to keep pace with the accelerating dynamics of the global economy.4,5 The volume and complexity of emerging issues now require a more agile and integrated approach to ensure that the international macroeconomic statistical standards (ISS) remain relevant.1,–3
A revised approach, outlined in a forthcoming discussion note on the proposed future update process for statistical standards, proposes a shift toward a coordinated research program where issues are prioritized, addressed as they arise, decided upon and incorporated into the statistical standards at a time that balances the need for agility with the need for stability and considers available resources. 1 This approach is designed to ensure faster responsiveness to new developments, smoother implementation pathways for countries, and improved alignment across statistical domains.1,2
Toward a coordinated and Agile ISS update framework
A critical first step in strengthening the future governance of statistical standards is the adoption of a common term and definition.1,3 In practice, the international statistical community has long referred to a family of manuals and frameworks—including the System of National Accounts (SNA), the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM), the Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM), the Monetary and Financial Statistics Manual and Compilation Guide (MFSMCG), and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA)—as “international statistical standards”.3–5 These systems have been developed under the auspices of the UN Statistical Commission and the IMF Statistics Department and are treated by countries as authoritative references. 3
Yet, until recently, the community lacked a clear and consistent definition of what constitutes a statistical standard.1,3 Drawing on existing descriptions, a statistical standard can best be defined as “a set of internationally agreed concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules, recommended statistical methods, and recommended statistical output”. 1 Establishing this terminology ensures clarity about what is recommended, what is guidance, and what falls under applications or supplementary materials. This distinction is vital because governance processes for updating standards are necessarily more rigorous than those for updating guidance or applications, and future reforms to the update process depend on a shared understanding of scope.1,3
Looking back, the history of updating international statistical standards demonstrates both the community's achievements and its limitations.2–5 The first SNA, published in 1953, built on work dating to the 1947 report Measurement of National Income and the Construction of Social Accounts. The BPM dates back even further, with its first edition published in 1948.4,5 Since then, both the SNA and BPM have each been updated six times, generally on cycles of fifteen to twenty years.4,5 Other standards—such as the GFSM, MFSM, and SEEA—followed with their own timelines, usually in isolation.3,4
This long periodicity often meant that by the time an update was adopted, new developments in the global economy were only partially reflected or not reflected at all.3,4,6 A stark example is the 2008 SNA, which mentioned “digital” only twice—both times in reference to digital cameras.4,6 At the time of its adoption, the digital transformation of the global economy was already underway, but the standards were unable to capture its systemic implications for production, consumption, and globalization.2,4,6 Such delays highlight the risk of periodic updates that cannot keep pace with the rapid evolution of economic activity.1,3,4,5
The integrated update of the 2025 SNA and BPM7 represented an important step forward.4,5 For the first time, the two standards operated under a joint research agenda, managed common task teams, and produced harmonized recommendations.2,4,5 This “integrated by design” approach helped ensure greater conceptual consistency across domains and has been widely recognized as a success.3,4 Yet, even in this improved model, the update process took nearly five years from initiation to adoption. By the time of release, many important issues had been deferred to the post-2025 research agenda.2,3,4,5
Although the SNA/BPM update process is widely regarded as open and consultative, participation has remained largely concentrated within the national accounts and balance of payments communities. Future updates must deliberately expand engagement to environmental, digital, financial, health, and social-policy communities to ensure conceptual robustness and policy relevance.
The scale and complexity of unresolved topics ranging from the measurement of marketing assets and human capital—demonstrates that the pace of economic change now outstrips even the best-functioning periodic update cycle.2,4,6 It is increasingly clear that the international statistical community must adopt a more agile and coordinated approach if it is to ensure the relevance of the International Statistical Standards in the decades ahead.
Recognizing that change is needed, the ISWGNA and BOPCOM formed a task team to propose a process for the future update of the statistical standards.2,3 This task team included experts from the SNA, BPM, GFS, MFS, SEEA, and CPI communities. The proposal (still underdevelopment) builds directly on lessons learned from past update cycles and emphasize agility, coordination, and transparency, organized around ten activities that together establish a more agile update process.1,2
The process begins with a coordinated research agenda spanning all domains.2,3 Unlike in the past, when each standard developed its own agenda at the end of an update cycle, this agenda would be integrated, live, continuously updated, and publicly available. 2 Subsequent steps include establishing an ISS integrated research program which represents the items that have been prioritized by the statistical community and for which projects have been launched.
Priority setting would be undertaken jointly by the governing bodies through regular coordination meetings informed by user demand, analytical urgency, implementation feasibility, and potential systemic impact. Disagreements on scope, sequencing, or conceptual direction would be resolved through structured cross-domain task teams and formal consultation rounds, with final arbitration resting with the standard-setting authorities. This preserves consensus-based legitimacy while ensuring that competing priorities are managed transparently and coherently across domains.
Once a project has been launched it is expected that a task team (often comprised of individuals from national statistical authories and from the various domains) would conduct research on priority topics and issue draft discussion notes for global consultation.2,3 Governing bodies—such as the Intersecretariat Working Group on National Accounts (ISWGNA), the Balance of Payments Committee (BOPCOM), the Government Finance Statistics Advisory Committee (GFSAC), the Monetary and Financial Statistics (MFS) community, and the United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNCEEA)—would then deliberate and endorse recommendations before formal approval by the UN Statistical Commission and the IMF Statistics Department or other standard setting bodies.1–5
Following approval, a formal experimentation period would allow countries to prepare their statistical systems to address the endorsed recommendations, often through the development of satellite accounts or work in progress type estimate.2,3 Later steps would involve adoption decisions, coordinated releases of revisions, and national implementation supported by training and peer learning.3,5 Clarifications could be adopted continuously, while major revisions would be bundled every decade or so1,3 at which time the standards would be formally updated.
Several additional features strengthen the proposed model: a taxonomy distinguishing clarifications, interpretations, and revisions; a live online research inventory for transparency; a coordinated consultation process to improve efficiency; and annual coordination meetings among the chairs and secretariats of governing bodies to manage the joint research program.2,3 Importantly, the proposal does not introduce new governance bodies, it simply ensures that existing ones collaborate more effectively under a unified structure.1,3
An additional benefit of integrated joint task teams is that issues are examined consistently across standards and from multiple analytical perspectives. For example, ongoing joint discussions between the national accounts and government finance statistics communities on the recording of depletion have significantly deepened conceptual understanding and improved the prospects for coherent, common recommendations—critical for consistent country implementation.
Transparency under the proposed framework is complemented by structured stakeholder engagement. Draft discussion notes and experimental results would be published through open consultation portals, supported by global webinars, regional workshops, and targeted outreach to national statistical offices, central banks, line ministries, academia, and key data user communities. This multi-channel engagement ensures that proposed changes are stress-tested against real policy and implementation needs, strengthening both analytical quality and country ownership of endorsed recommendations.
The benefits of this approach are significant. By embedding continuous monitoring and experimentation into the ISS lifecycle, the system would be more agile in responding to new economic phenomena, from digitalization to climate change.2–5 Bundling revisions into coordinated updates would reduce burdens on countries while improving coherence across domains.3,4–6 Transparency would be enhanced as users could follow progress from proposal to adoption.1,3 Yet this model also demands commitments: cross-domain cooperation, resources for pilot work, and support for change management to facilitate modular adoption.2,3,6 These trade-offs are real but outweighed by the need to keep statistical standards aligned with the realities of a rapidly evolving global economy.
Conclusion
The global economy is evolving faster than ever, propelled by technological disruption, demographic shifts, new business models, and environmental challenges.2,3,4,6 As these changes unfold, the imperative for the international statistical community is clear: to ensure that statistical standards remain not only methodologically rigorous but also adaptive, coordinated, and policy-relevant.1–3
The 2025 SNA and BPM7 updates mark a critical inflection point in this ongoing journey. 4 They reflect a consensus-driven response to a complex set of issues, many of which are still evolving or remain only partially resolved.2,3 By categorizing these issues into provisional classifications, conceptual agreements with measurement gaps, and forward-looking watch areas, we gain a clearer understanding of the research and development continuum that underpins future updates.2–5
At the same time, this cycle has revealed the limitations of relying solely on large, infrequent updates to maintain statistical relevance.1–3 As the world becomes more interconnected and volatile, the cost of delayed updates grows, not only in methodological obsolescence but in the erosion of user trust, policy misalignment, and missed opportunities for international comparability.3–6
This article has proposed a new approach, one that envisions international statistical standards as a living system rather than a static blueprint.1,2 By embracing a continuous, modular, and coordinated research agenda, supported by structured governance and experimental testing, the international community can respond more quickly to emerging phenomena while reducing implementation burdens on national systems.1–3
Future updates should not merely react to change but anticipate and guide it.1,2 In doing so, the IMSS framework can become not only a reflection of economic reality but a tool for shaping it, ensuring that official statistics continue to serve as a trusted foundation for evidence-based decision-making in an increasingly complex world.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.