The Ethiopian Statistics Service Moves to Embed AI, Big Data in New Statistics Law

Jul 4 , 2026

The Ethiopian Statistics Service (ESS) is pushing a legislative reform to establish a modern National Statistics System that legally integrates Big Data analytics and Artificial Intelligence. The draft law replaces the outdated proclamation based on traditional methods with a unified framework that also incorporates geospatial and other technology-driven data. The reform clarifies institutional roles, separating regulators and implementers to ensure independence and transparency, and defines responsibilities between the Ministry of Planning and Development and the Statistics Service to eliminate overlaps and improve efficiency. The law also expands statistical inputs to include digital infrastructure, enabling AI-driven analysis and more frequent data production for near real-time economic tracking.