Abstract

Food security is a key priority for the Dominican Republic, however, despite the various institutional and political efforts of the last decades, structural challenges persist that limit adequate nutrition and equitable access to safe and sufficient food. A significant weakness is the lack of robust and up-to-date official statistics adapted to the national context, which impedes the formulation of effective and evidence-based public policies. To address this gap, the National Bureau of Statistics (NSO) is spearheading the development of a national Food Balance Sheet (FBS), an important statistical tool that has not been produced in the country since 1971. This initiative follows the 2015 revised methodology of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), adapted to local conditions. This article aims to describe the stages and procedures involved in implementing the FBS, the main challenges and opportunities encountered including methodological, technological, and institutional, as well as the importance of FBS data and derived statistics for national food security planning. Results of this paper will inform other countries of good practices, and the way forward to generating their national FBS for the first time or applying the updated FAO methodology.