Strengthening the collaboration in the field of geospatial information for the purpose of enhancing the official statistics

The National Bureau of Statistics, the Agency for Land Relations and Cadastre (ALRC), and the Department of Registration of the Public Services Agency (PSA) will collaborate in accessing the geospatial data necessary for the development of the Geographic Information System (GIS) of the NBS. This implies the identification, classification and geocoding of all buildings and dwellings situated on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, using as reference the spatial data held by the partner institutions. The collaboration is being established in the context of the preparation for the 2020 Census of Population and Housing, the NBS being supported in this task by the experts of the project"Technical Assistance to Support the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova" funded by the European Union (EU).

According to a pilot study conducted by the NBS in November 2020, in about one thousand information collection areas in 84 localities across the country, about 33% of the buildings used or intended for use for residential purposes are not registered as residential buildings in the Cadastre.  At the same time, a significant number of dwellings (about 26%) are missing from the cadastral databases.

A working group with specialist from NBS, ALRC, PSA and European experts will be established to settle these discrepancies. NBS will organize field activities to collect up-to-date geocoded data on buildings and dwellings on the tablets, based on ortho-photos and referece data provided by the ALRC and PSA. The tablets, which were donated to the NBS  by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Swiss Agency for development and Cooperation (SDC) as part of the project "Improving the institutional capacity of the National Bureau of Statistics”, will be equipped with software applications developed with the support of EU technical assistance, synchronized in real time with cloud servers.

In this context, while strengthening its technical capacities and institutional cooperation with the relevant national institutions, the NBS will update the statistical data on dwellings and buildings in order to prepare for the up-coming 2023 Population and Housing Census.