Others titles
- Classifying the Top Level Functions of the Government
- General Functions of the Government and their Classification
- Comparing Accounts of Different Countries on the Basis of COFOG
Keywords
- Functions of Government
- General Public Services
- Public Order and Safety Data
- Economic Affairs Data
- Environmental Protection Statistics
- Health and Recreation Data
- Culture and Religion Statistics
- Education and Social Protection
- Top Level Functions of Government
Classification of the Functions of Government

This dataset contains the codes, description and explanatory notes to describe the classification of different functions of the Government by the United Nations (UN) Statistics Division. The salient functions involve general public services, defense, public order and safety, economic affairs, environmental protection, housing and community amenities, health, recreation, culture and religion, education and social protection.
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Description
This dataset is sourced from the United Nations (UN) site which is raw access database from the UN and extracted using the scripts found in the scripts directory of the source data package. In addition to the UN site, versions of Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG) can also be found in Eurostat where there are additional languages (e.g. German) for the data. This is directly sourced from Open Knowledge International website (okfn.org) where there is ease of access and where the latest in the series can be found.
Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG) is a classification defined by the United Nations Statistics Division. Its purpose is to “classify the purpose of transactions such as outlays on final consumption expenditure, intermediate consumption, gross capital formation and capital and current transfers, by general government”.
Main top level functions involve general public services, defense, public order and safety, economic affairs, environmental protection, housing and community amenities, health, recreation, culture and religion, education and social protection. All of the above functions also comprise of different sub-functions to specifically narrate their use as the main functions are very general in meaning.
These functions are designed to be general enough to apply to the government of different countries. The accounts of each country in the United Nations are presented under these categories. The value of this is that the accounts of different countries can be compared.
About this Dataset
Data Info
Date Created | 2011-02-09 |
---|---|
Last Modified | 2018-03-14 |
Version | 2018-03-14 |
Update Frequency |
Irregular |
Temporal Coverage |
N/A |
Spatial Coverage |
World |
Source | John Snow Labs; United Nations; |
Source License URL | |
Source License Requirements |
N/A |
Source Citation |
N/A |
Keywords | Functions of Government, General Public Services, Public Order and Safety Data, Economic Affairs Data, Environmental Protection Statistics, Health and Recreation Data, Culture and Religion Statistics, Education and Social Protection, Top Level Functions of Government |
Other Titles | Classifying the Top Level Functions of the Government, General Functions of the Government and their Classification, Comparing Accounts of Different Countries on the Basis of COFOG |
Data Fields
Name | Description | Type | Constraints |
---|---|---|---|
Government_Function_Code | Refers to the code representing the specific or general classification of the function of government. | string | required : 1 |
Function_Description | Describing the specific function of government against their specific codes. | string | required : 1 |
Class_of_Service | Indicates whether the services produced by general government units are "Collective" or "Individual Services". | string | - |
Explanatory_Note | The general notes explaining the different functions of the government against their particular descriptions. | string | - |
Data Preview
Government_Function_Code | Function_Description | Class_of_Service | Explanatory_Note |
2 | Defence | ||
3.4 | Prisons | ||
10.2 | Old age | ||
10.6 | Housing | ||
4.5 | Transport | ||
3.3 | Law courts | ||
10.3 | Survivors | ||
6.3 | Water supply | ||
2.2 | Civil defence | ||
4.6 | Communication |