The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in cooperation with the Government of the State of Ceará, launched, this Wednesday (11), the Triple International Forum on Global South Governance - New indicators and strategic themes for development and sustainability in the Digital Age, in Fortaleza (CE). With the aim of sharing knowledge and strategies on new indicators and strategic themes for the development and sustainability of BRICS in the Digital Age, the joint opening table of the Triple Forum and BRICS was attended by more than 30 national and international representatives. The plenary sessions will be broadcast live through Digital IBGE and the Institute’s social media channels.

Participants in the opening panel session were the President of IBGE, Marcio Pochmann; the Governor of Ceará, Elmano de Freitas, and the First Lady Lia Freitas; the Planning and Management State Secretary (at SEPLAG), Alexandre Cialdini; the International Relations State Secretary, Roseane Medeiros; the State Secretary of the Environment, Vilma Freire; the State Secretary of Culture, Luisa Cela; the State Secretary of Diversity, Mitchelle Meira; the Secretary of Federative Affairs, Leonardo Araújo, who is attending the event on behalf of the Minister of Institutional Relations, Gleisi Hoffmann; the Director General of IPECE (Ceará Research Institute on Economic Strategy), Alfredo José Oliveira; the coordinator general of Documentation and Dissemination, José Daniel Castro, the IBGE State Superintendent, Fancisco José Lopes; besides representatives of the legislative power and other authorities.

Among the representatives of BRICS and of National Statistical Offices, were: the Deputy Head of the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia (ROSSTAT), Sergei Egorenko; the representative of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of India (MoSPI), Saurabh Garg; Deputy Commissioner, National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS), Mao Shengyong; the Deputy Director General for Statistical operations and Provincial coordination in South Africa (SSA), Ashwell Jenneker; from Egypt, the Vice-president of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), Akram Ahmed Elgouhary; the Managing Director of the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) of the United Arab Emirates; Hanan Ahli; and, from Indonesia, the Chief Statistician of BPS Statistics, Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti.

The meeting is supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Banco do Nordeste do Brasil (BNB), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Ceará Sem Fome, Companhia de Participação e Gestão de Ativos do Ceará S/A - Ceará Par, the Secretariat of Tourism of Ceará, the National Secretariat of Youth - General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, and other partners. Access the program on the event portal.

Lucas Ervedosa and Pedro Madeira, from Ceará, gave the cultural presentation, officially opening the Triple International Forum. Afterwards, the Brazilian National Anthem and the Anthem of the State of Ceará were sung by the two musicians, in the presence of the authorities on stage.

The IBGE President Marcio Pochmann welcomed the Institute's employees and celebrated the partnership with other countries in the global south. “In recent years, there has been a change in dynamism and we have observed growth in the relative importance of the global south, which today accounts for more than two-thirds of the world's GDP and the majority of the population. This illustrates a paradigm shift, since a few years ago the benchmark was Europe. The moment that celebrates the opening of this Triple International Forum has an initiative that aims to build new consensus, opening up a vision for public policies that is not only an observed reality, but also based on predictive statistics with a horizon of previous public policies,” Pochmann explained.

The governor of Ceará, Elmano de Freitas, then stated that the event “brings together several experts, researchers and leaders from different countries to discuss the challenges and opportunities that knowledge about data can bring us to improve the socioeconomic data of our people. The governor of Ceará, Elmano de Freitas, then stated that the event “brings together several experts, researchers and leaders from different countries to discuss the challenges and opportunities that knowledge about data can bring us to improve the socioeconomic data of our people. In this Forum, participants will explore new indicators and strategic themes for the formulation of public policies for crucial issues for humanity, such as health, education, work, sanitation, housing, the environment and poverty, taking full advantage of the experience of several research institutes in Brazil and around the world.”

The chief economist of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Almudena Fernández, mentioned the honor of being at this event and highlighted the results of the Regional Human Development Report, which will be made available in full on Thursday (12). “Today we live not only in the Digital Age, but also in the age of climate change, an era of interconnected crises. That is why in this report we say that the development of Latin America and the Caribbean is low. The figures in this report tell a very eloquent story: what we see in these regions is consecutive progress in recent decades and a slowdown in the last decade.”

The event then opened the official BRICS panel, with representatives from each member country of the bloc, who thanked the invitation to participate in the Forum and discuss the main themes involving Global South Governance.

At the closing of the joint opening session of the Triple Forum and BRICS, Alfredo Pessoa, president of IPECE (Ceará Research Institute on Economic Strategy), emphasized that “there is no public policy without a diagnosis, nor a diagnosis without data. This Forum seeks to discuss current data and think of new data, from a perspective of the global south, in the development of this bloc. This involves governments, researchers and research institutes, which must cooperate.”

About the Triple Forum

To discuss Global South governance, the IBGE will gather, between June 11 and 13, in cooperation with the Government of the State of Ceará and supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) more than 150 national and international authorities and experts in panel sessions, diplomatic rooms, joint and thematic panels, at the Ceará Events Center. Free registration remains available on the IBGE shop on the Internet (https://loja.ibge.gov.br), being subject to seat capacity. 

The Triple Forum is organized by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in cooperation with Ceará State Government, from June 11 to 13, at the Ceará Events Center (Av. Washington Soares, 999, acesso pavilhão oeste, portão C). The schedule is available on the portal of the event. the Forum is supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Banco do Nordeste do Brasil (BNB), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Ceará Without Hunger, Company of Participation and Assets Management of Ceará S.A. (Ceará Par), Secretariat of Tourism of Ceará, National Secretariat of Youth - General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic and other partners. The plenary sessions will be streamed on Digital IBGE, and on the Institute's social media channelsv Digital IBGE Digital, Youtube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

Watch the video on the Triple International Forum on Global South Government here.