Santo Domingo.- The Ministry of the Presidency (Minpre) and the National Statistics Office (ONE) have entered into an inter-institutional cooperation agreement to support the Food Sovereignty and Security Information System of the Dominican Republic by providing essential statistical indicators.

The agreement, signed by Joel Santos Echavarría and Miosotis Rivas Peña, heads of Minpre and ONE, respectively, was formalized in the presence of Vice Minister of Social Development, Betty Soto, and Rolando “Blanco” Peralta, Executive Director of the Technical Secretariat for Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security (Setessan).

As per the terms of the agreement, ONE will furnish Setessan, upon request, with databases from household surveys, population census, and other pertinent statistical operations crucial for the decision-making processes of public policies related to the country’s food sovereignty, security, and nutrition.

Minister Joel Santos Echavarría emphasized the significance of collaborative efforts between state institutions to make statistics available for public policies, underscoring the positive impact on the development and growth of the country’s food security.

Director of ONE, Miosotis Rivas Peña, outlined that the agreement specifically focuses on aspects related to the production and updating of statistics, utilizing data from the National Population and Housing Census.

The agreement outlines Setessan’s commitment to maintain the confidentiality of information from ONE’s databases in adherence to legal regulations, policies safeguarding statistical secrecy, and good practices established by the National Statistics Office for data access and dissemination.

Furthermore, Setessan and ONE will collaboratively utilize georeferenced data from the 10th Housing Population Census to construct a Geographic Information System at the census segment level. This system will provide information on households by socioeconomic condition to support decisions regarding the country’s Security, Food, and Nutritional Sovereignty policy.

Both entities will jointly facilitate the identification of international technical assistance necessary for designing this crucial tool, supporting the design, execution, and monitoring processes of various social policies.