New indicator for monitoring the Montevideo Consensus available in CEPALSTAT

Some specialized surveys currently being carried out in the region, such as UNICEF’s MICS, include it, but their reports publish tabulations that are incompatible with the Consensus definition. But by processing the database, which can be downloaded for free after registration, it would be possible to obtain the Consensus indicator. Even so, these surveys are carried out only in some countries and with uncertain regularity, which is why they can hardly be considered the only option to monitor this indicator.

Due to the above, it was decided to start monitoring this indicator with another source that does meet the criteria of officiality, regularity and timeliness, as well as the criteria of coverage or representativeness of countries (without being exhaustive, of course). These are the official household surveys of the countries that the BADEHOG database standardizes, systematizes and stores and which in several countries includes the question about reasons for not attending an educational establishment. Among these countries are, systematically: Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Panama. Occasionally other countries include the question as well.

Then, with the countries listed above (excluding Guatemala because the last survey available in BADEHOG is from 2014), a first version of the monitoring table for this indicator was generated, which is already available in CEPALSTAT with its due metadata, which in this case are particularly relevant to understand the categories of reasons used in each country, since there is no standard in this regard.

As countries send their household surveys annually (or every time the survey is carried out) to ECLAC, this database will be updated annually. As there are only 7 countries (Guatemala was excluded because its last survey available in ECLAC is from 2014), it is planned to complement it with MICS surveys and other specialized surveys in the missing countries, although in this case the regularity of the update will be case by case.

Go ahead with the visualization and use of this new indicator for CMPD monitoring.