SICA Regional Workshop

On the 7th and 8th of June 2021, UNHCR, in collaboration with the Central American Statistical Commission (CENTROESTAD) of the System of Integration of Central America (SICA), held a webinar on the implementation of the International Recommendations on Refugee and IDP Statistics (IRRS and IRIS). Representatives from national statistical offices, line ministries, SICA, CENTROESTAD, EGRISS, and UNHCR joined the workshop and together analyzed the content of the recommendations (translated into Spanish for the occasion) in order to identify opportunities for their implementation in the national and regional contexts.

CENTROESTAD, located in El Salvador, is the statistics office of the Central American Integration System (SICA). SICA includes 8 countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, and Dominican Republic; all of whom actively engaged in the discussions. The webinar successfully strengthened the collaboration between EGRISS and the SICA region.

In 2022, SICA and EGRISS members (UNHCR, JIPS, and IOM) continued their collaboration thorugh a series of meetings that led up to a regional, in-person workshop with the representatives of the Technical Group on Migration and Displacement of the CENTROESTAD on 16th and 17th of November 2022, to analyse the content of the IRIS and discuss challenges and opportunities for their implementation in the region. The event, hosted by the National Statistical Institute of Honduras (INE), allowed SICA Member States to present their country assessments (prepared for the workshop) and have in-depth discussions about challenges and opportunities to enhance the production of statistics on forcibly displaced populations at national and regional levels. For more information, read more here

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