Quality information is the basis for the implementation of public policies that have an impact in the field of human rights, affirm the ministers who participated this Wednesday (29) in the 3rd World Forum against Racism and Discrimination . The heads of departments responsible for anti-discrimination actions in Brazil, Canada and the United States stressed the importance of having data allowing a reliable diagnosis for the preparation of projects.

The Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle Franco (center, in the photo), speaking about the projects developed by the department this year, stressed that the first step was to collect information from statistics and listen to the population , so that, design the actions that would be developed. “Looking at the reality of the black population as a whole, we first had to collect data. We cannot be frivolous and think about public policies sitting in a henhouse, without being in the street, listening to the population,” he declared while participating in the event organized by the United Nations. United for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO). .

This is how, according to the minister, the policy of serving the remaining Quilombo populations was designed. “We had the list of everything that was planned for the quilombolas, the titles, the certificates. These are a people who unfortunately live in conflict, without access to a dignified life. What have we done with it? We thought about the national titration plan. This had never been done before,” he reported. “Serious public policy is conducted in the face of data, with listening, with community,” he added.

Building on Anielle’s speech, the representative for racial equality at the US Department of State, Desirée Cormier Smith, also highlighted the importance of quality information to support public policies. “You can’t solve a problem you don’t know exists,” he said while participating in the event’s first panel.

“We cannot help a community that has not been counted. The lack of data makes many human beings invisible. Without this data, we would not know that Black people in the United States are overrepresented in our prison system,” he illustrated, adding that mortality in this population is also higher in several respects. “These are issues that are considered critical simply because of the data available, and we can now devote additional resources, attention, policies and programs to try to solve this problem,” he said.

Canadian Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities Kamal Khera highlighted the importance of data for implementing and evaluating policy outcomes. “Unless we implement the policies with the data we have and have a diagnostic of the results to see where we’re going, we’ll have all these conversations about what we want, but we won’t be able to see tangible results, nor see the impact. on communities,” he stressed.