Eurostat on IFF for Immunization

One of the outstanding technical issues on the pilot IFF for Immunisation (IFFIm) has been Eurostat's classification decision on the treatment in National Accounts of EU donor countries' commitments to the IFFIm. The issue is whether donors to the IFFIm should record their commitments on an annual basis, as they make the yearly payments involved in an IFFIm commitment; or whether the entirety of their 20-year commitment to the IFFIm is accounted for upfront as public debt. Today, Eurostat stated that the IFFIm was independent of governments and that donor government pledges to the IFFIm should be recorded as expenditure when the payments are actually made. The British Office of National Statistics has a press release explaining this decision.Owen