Statistical system of Bosnia and Herzegovina

This system reflects strong decentralization in the region, and several independent reports have stated that this impedes an efficiently functioning government body.

It defines the legislative framework under which the statistical system should function—how information is to be disseminated, organized, and produced.

The national law does not say much about professional independence, though it does mention that the BHAS staff should not seek help from the government and should maintain "technical autonomy."

It oversees the two other offices, one for Republika Srpska and the other for Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina[9] and then disseminates the data to international bodies.

The FIS primarily collects data on business, economy, and demography, with those three being its only separate departments devoted to a specific statistic.

[4] It generally publishes ~300 paper publications annually, the most all-encompassing of which is the Statistical Yearbook, which contains all of the data the RSIS has aggregated throughout the year.

Since 2008, it has also produced a publication titled "This is Republika Srpska", intended to be a more easily digestible, more accessible format for annual national statistics.

The census process was drawn out and political, as the Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats sought to increase their share of the population.

[11] Much of the work Bosnia and Herzegovina has put into its statistics system is aimed at bringing it in line with European standards.

Some of these proposed amendments are adopted de jure, but in practice none of the suggestions are implemented to their full potential.

The EU has also been conducting various projects and programmes aimed at evaluating potential areas of growth for BiH's statistical system.