This document is an adaptation of the document on the Generic Law on Official Statistics for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, published by the Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 2016.

The purpose of this Generic Law is to provide a regional model for Latin American countries that are interested in formulating or reformulating the legal basis for the functioning of their National Statistical Systems (NSS) and the production of official statistics.

The goal of having a version of the document produced by UNECE (2016) that was adapted to the Latin American reality was put forward by the members of the Working Group on Institution-building of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), at the regional workshop on legal frameworks for the production of official statistics held in Bogotá on 3–5 July 2018. This task was undertaken jointly by experts from National Statistical Offices, the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) and ECLAC, which also acted as technical secretariat for the process.