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FRANÇAIS		   FOCUS: CENSUS POLITICS
 
SPECIAL REPORTS
Census data that omits information on ethnicity can hinder minority groups' access to public services.

Invisible citizens?

Censuses in many Latin American countries omit questions about race, rendering minority groups statistically invisible

If we relied entirely on censuses to understand what the people of Latin America and the Caribbean look like, the picture that would emerge would be a complete fantasy.

While the cities and villages of this part of the world abound with color and vitality thanks to the multitude of ethnic groups that live together on its soil, most of the region’s censuses do not include questions about race or ethnicity. As a result many indigenous communities and, in particular, millions of citizens of African descent, are not officially recognized as such by their governments. In many cases, questions about the respondent’s native language are also absent from census forms.

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IN THIS ISSUE

FOCUS: Census Politics
 Invisible citizens?
Censuses in many Latin American countries omit questions about race, making minority groups statistically invisible.
A revolution fueled by numbers
The year 2000 United States census catapulted Hispanic Americans into the headlines and changed the political map.
A tool for development
The manager of the IDB’s Sustainable Development Department explains the crucial link between census and public policy.
In Bolivia, a pivotal census
The IDB helps to finance a census that will profoundly alter the way Bolivia allocates public resources.

THE BANK IN ACTION
The "iron woman" of Guyana
How one implacable official ensured that development projects in remote areas got done--on time and under budget.

Building better with bricks
A community in Guyana finds the solution to the high cost of cement right under their feet.

EXPRESSIONS
A vanished musical heritage
An expert in musical archeology seeks to reconstruct the sounds and rhythms heard by pre-Columbian peoples.

Paintbrush ambassadors
A recent exhibit of works from the IDB's permanent art collection revealed the vitality of painting in the Bank's member countries.

IDB NEWS
IDB supports local government in Bolivia
Also, links to new project summaries.


Urban Heritage


Indigenous Peoples

VIEWPOINT


The thousand faces of poverty Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, has spent a lifetime overturning myths about why people are poor.

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