The Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (Global Strategy) was developed ten years ago as a blueprint for a coordinated and long-term initiative to address the decline in the agricultural statistical systems of many developing countries. It was designed to provide a “framework for national and international statistical systems that will enable [developing countries] to produce, and to apply, the basic data and information needed in the twenty-first century”. From its very inception, the Global Strategy was designed as a long-term process to be implemented in phases. Phase 1, corresponding to the first Action Plan to implement the Global Strategy, spanned from end 2012 to 2018.