Background
The Central Statistics Department under the Ministry of Finance & Economics Affairs draws its mandate from the Statistics Act 1972. The Act makes provision for the collection, compilation, analysis, abstraction, and publication of statistical information and related matters. But due to numerous factors the official statistics system headed by the department fails to meet its obligation of effectively providing statistical services to statistic users including government. There was therefore the need to establish a statistical system in The Gambia that meets the need of the country and other users and is recognized as being efficient and effective. This leads to the establishment of The Gambia Bureau of Statistics under the Statistics Act of 2005. The Act also establishes for the bureau the National Statistics Council to carryout the functions and manages the affairs of the bureau.
