Pilot projects on statistics data collection in indigenous communities of Panama and El Salvador

The main goal is to improve the statistical measurements in indigenous territories by rethinking the questionnaire used in the Households Survey in Panama and in the Population and Housing Census questionnaire in El Salvador. Those improvements were designed to reflect the cultural conceptions, indigenous languages, traditional rules, and social and productive organization to provide the best inputs for the development of social policies, plans and projects in these territories. The projects were also a practical response to the best implementation of the SDGs, emphasizing in SDG 1 and SDG2, to be scaled in other statistical offices to improve the measurements.<br />
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A vital part of this pilot is the link with SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture; and with the goal 2.1: Prevalence of food insecurity according to experience scale through the inclusion of the FIES scale. The inclusion of this module in both pilots was a way to verify the performance of this measurement in the indigenous territories and obtain the greatest amount of information. It was also important for the National Household Survey of Panama, to be developed in March 2019, and the considerations for its optimal survey in indigenous communities in order to obtain timely and good quality measurements. <br />
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The generation of food security data in indigenous areas allows countries to generate statistics, disaggregated data and the relationships between food insecurity, indigenous groups and social variables that could represent an important advance for the statistical system in Panama and El Salvador.<br />
One of the great challenges was to generate trust in the authorities and the indigenous population in the collection of information in their territories; how this improvement implied the support of the community; and how a better information have positive impacts on the relations within territories and with the governmental authorities. Technicians faced that challenges by applying the Free, Prior and Informed Consent managed with each of the indigenous authorities in Panama and El Salvador, including a detailed explanation to the community about the advantages of being able to statistically visualize them, languages, environment and ways of life of indigenous peoples.<br />
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In Panama, location of some communities was a challenge to take into account, faced with optimal technical preparation between the National Statistics Body of Panama (INEC) and FAO.<br />
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In El Salvador, the main challenges were to reach consensus between actors’ involved in the process, recruitment and training staff in the field, and logistic issues. Hiring and training personnel from the same community to apply the census pilot survey solved most of challenges. That solution allowed FAO and DIGESTYC to update the cartography, apply the questionnaire in the same language of the dwellers and build confidence in the community. What it was a limitation at the beginning become an affirmative action that allowed a better approach to people, improving the quality of the answers.