PUBLIC DATA
Brazil's statistics agency is in crisis. And the country is paying for it
Census takers in a rural area in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Tânia Rêgo/EBC
When (or if) Brazil's census microdata finally arrives, some researchers will have been waiting for the better part of a decade. In the meantime, they're making do with numbers that predate TikTok, the Covid pandemic and three entire presidencies.
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) is one of Latin America's most respected statistical agencies, an institution nearly 90 years old that has built a comprehensive historical record of a continent-sized country. It measures everything from inflation rates to sea temperatures, from quilombo communities to the growth of evangelical churches. For researchers, urban planners, public health officials and market analysts, IBGE data is not a resource. It is the resource.
Today, the institute is in crisis — one that threatens not the integrity of its numbers, but something potentially more fragile: the public's willingness to believe them…
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