City administrations are key partners to carry out the Population Census. They are among the major interested in its results. Having advanced the data collection in many municipalities and the increasing expectation in relation to the final population figures, the IBGE´s State Superintendency in Bahia (SES-BA) scheduled a meeting with the Union of Municipalities of the state (UPB). Showing an overview of the progress of the Census, explaining about methodological and operational aspects of the survey and reinforcing the cooperation with municipal administrations were issues to be addressed.

The meeting was held on Wednesday, October 19, 2022, in the headquarters of the UPB, in Salvador. Doubts raised by mayors were clarified, as well as the support strategy that the municipalities can provide to the enumeration, in terms of logistics, dissemination to the population and knowledge about the occupation of the territorial area.

The refusal of some people to receive the enumerators is among the difficulties pointed out by the IBGE. City administrations were requested to hire sound-equipped cars, to use the official channels in the social media and to support the dissemination of audio messages in local radio stations, among other actions to inform the population about the importance to answer the Census, especially for the municipalities.

Another aspect stressed by the IBGE representatives in the meeting was the assurance of the confidentiality of the information provided, which will never be crossed, for instance, with those of the social programs - a very common concern in Bahia.

Meeting with the UPB was important to reinforce the partnership with city administrations in the 2022 Census

Limits and exchange of expertise

Territorial limits and land disputes among cities were discussed as well - a recurrent issue in the conversations between the IBGE and Bahia´s mayors.

The Operational Coordinator of the Census in Bahia, Francisco Brito, reinforced that it is key that all the persons are enumerated correctly and completely.

Therefore, whenever potential disputes or cartographic errors are solved by competent bodies, the Superintendency of Social and Economic Studies of Bahia (SEI) and the Territorial Commission of the Legislative Assembly, the population contingents can be correctly allocated to the municipalities they belong to by law or judicial decision.

Francisco Brito stressed the importance of sharing technical information with the UPB and receiving the support of the municipalities to advance the data collection. “The meeting was very fruitful, especially in terms of the convergence of expertise, i.e., we inform what the IBGE does and we know the demand the UPB has when representing the municipalities and their mayors,” stated him.

He also reinforced that the doubts and questions of the municipal managers can be clarified by the Census area coordinators, in the entire state of Bahia.

According to the superintendent of the UPB, Raquel Santana, “the Census is a key indicator for the development of public policies and for the constitutional transfers to the municipalities. So managers should carefully help the IBGE to portray as accurately as possible the population of each municipality.”

She explained that the entity has been guiding managers since the beginning of the enumeration and said that the awareness campaigns asking the support of mayors will step up even more in the coming days.

The state coordinators of the IBGE´s Territorial Base, Leonardo Dias Afonso, and of the REPACs, Luís Alberto Pacheco, participated in the meeting as well. On the UPB side, the coordinators of Communication, Wilde Barreto, Municipal Information, Jacira Cavalcanti, Events and Capacitation, Gabriela Ribeiro, Institutional Relations, Samara Alves, and Administration-Finance, Geraldo Santana, were also present. The legal sector was represented by advisors Victor Hugo Pinheiro and Moana Barreto.

Convergence of expertise is key to the IBGE and city administrations to work
together in order to carry out the greatest enumeration ever

With information from the Communication Advisory of the Union of Municipalities of Bahia (UPB).