“O desafio de retratar o país” ('The Challenge of Portraying the Country'), organized by Nelson de Castro Senra, Silvia Maia Fonseca and Teresa Cristina Millions, gathers the statements of ten IBGE presidents in the last 30 years. Additionally, it contains contextual information of the historical scenario of each administration period. The book will be launched today (06/28), in the auditorium of the Center for Information Documentation and Dissemination of the IBGE, in Rio de Janeiro, at 2:30 pm. The publication can be bought in the IBGE's virtual shop, for R$ 50.00. The digital version will be available for free download, in thevirtual library.

Inside the president's office, in downtown Rio, they face challenges, frustrations, uncertainties, lack of resources and help make advances come true in one of the State's oldest institutions. Through their statements, it is possible not only to trace the evolution of the IBGE, but also the historical changes in the country itself, from the end of the military dictatorship up to the end of hyperinflation, going through the advent of social inclusion policies, whose major bases are the economic and social indicators produced by the Institute.

Ten presidents (from 1985 to 2015) give an account of 30 years of IBGE: Edmar Bacha (1985-1986), Edson Nunes (1986-1988), Charles Mueller (1988-1990), Eduardo Guimarães (1990-1992), Eurico Borba (1992-1993), Silvio Minciotti (1993-1994), Simon Schwartzman (1994-1998), Sérgio Besserman Vianna (1999-2003), Eduardo Pereira Nunes (2003-2011) and Wasmália Bivar (2011-2016). The interviews (except for Bacha's and Mueller's) were taken in the Center for Information Documentation and Dissemination (CDDI) of the IBGE, in Rio de Janeiro, during the year of 2015.

The former presidents talk in detail about pressures, strikes, budget cuts and political requests of several kinds. They discuss about planning and surprises, including an untimely dismissal, broadcast on the TV news. They recollect the episode when there was an attempt to eliminate the price increases in the official inflation index. They speak of the time when the Census was postponed due to a crisis and the drawbacks of the Continuous PNAD. They also talk about the dream of an institution with budgetary independence and about the advances achieved in three decades, a time during which the information produced by the IBGE improved a lot in terms of coverage, quality and technology.

In the period registered by the book, we take a departure from a delayed census (1991) to arrive in the first fully digital census in the world, in 2010. The IBGE entered the Internet and its information is now simultaneously disseminated to society, at Brasília Time (GMT-3). The decennial economic censuses are now replaced by annual surveys. The labor market surveys, once restricted to six metropolitan areas, today encompass more than 210 thousand housing units in nearly 3,500 municipalities, in Continuous PNAD.

The testimonials claim, as well, that the project of structuring and disseminating environmental indicators has undergone several administrative periods. Soon enough, the National Water and Energy Accounts, which are already being developed by the IBGE, will help Brazil monitor the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Objectives (SDO) set by the UN in 2015.

In the words of journalist Cássia Almeida, who wrote the preface of the book: “There were turbulent times, with successive economic plans, moratorium, stagnation, currency stabilization and social inclusion. To move on with the mission of portraying Brazil, the story told by the presidents helps us better understand the History of the Country”.