Last Updated: July 28, 2017

The G-20 Data Gaps Initiative outlined a number of recommendations for addressing data gaps arising from the recent global crisis. These recommendations were presented in the report of the IMF and Financial Stability Board Secretariat titled The Financial Crisis and Information Gaps. Recommendation 15 calls for developing "a strategy to promote the compilation and dissemination of the balance sheet approach, flow of funds, and sectoral data more generally, starting with G-20 economies."

The objective of Recommendation 15 is to expand the dissemination and reporting of internationally comparable and detailed annual and quarterly sectoral accounts by both G-20 economies and non-G-20 advanced economies. This expansion would involve improving the compilation of sectoral accounts in terms of details (sub-sectors and asset details), closing data gaps, and developing financial stocks and flows on a from-whom-to-whom basis. A Working Group on Sectoral Accounts was established under the auspices of the Inter Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics (IAG). The Working Group includes Bank for International Settlements, European Central Bank, Eurostat, IMF (Chair), OECD, and the United Nations.

An important milestone in taking forward the work on implementing Recommendation 15 is the development of templates for a minimum and encouraged set of internationally comparable sectoral accounts and balance sheets arrived at through a global consultative process led by the IMF. The process went through various stages as follows:

• In early 2010, the IMF assessed the overall availability and current practices in the dissemination of sectoral balance sheets and accumulation accounts in G-20 economies and non-G-20 advanced economies.
  
  
• A joint IMF-OECD Conference on Strengthening Sectoral Position and Flow Data in the Macroeconomic Accounts took place at IMF Headquarters during February 28 - March 2, 2011. The Conference provided guidance towards developing a set of minimum and encouraged internationally comparable sectoral accounts (Template).
  
  
• The September 2011 meeting of the Working Group on Sectoral Accounts discussed the way forward, including the need for international collaboration to implement work on sectoral accounts, and agreed on the data reporting Templates.
  
  
• In April 2012, a meeting of Working Group on Sectoral Accounts agreed on the fine-tuning and finalization of the Templates.
  
  
• In addition, the Templates, at various stages of development, were discussed at the Conference of G-20 Senior Officials on the G-20 Data Gaps Initiative at the IMF Headquarters in Washington D.C. during March 30-31, 2011; at the Joint Session of the OECD Working Party on Financial Statistics and the OECD Working Party on National Accounts in Paris during October 24-28, 2011; and at the Meeting of Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts in New York during April 20-23, 2012.
  
  

Through these discussions, the Working Group agreed on the following final set of templates:

To support the compilation of sectoral balance sheets and accumulation accounts, the IMF has initiated a series of seminars for IMF member countries.

• IMF-OECD Conference on Strengthening Sectoral Position & Flow Data in Macroeconomic Accounts
• The Financial Crisis and Information Gaps
• IMF and the Group of Twenty (G-20)
• IMF Seminars, Conferences, Workshops and Economic Forums