1. Background and objectives
Disaggregated data and culturally relevant indicators are urgently needed for the production of social statistics relating to indigenous peoples and the lack of information has been repeatedly deplored in
national and international circles. Renewed demands are emerging in a socio-political context marked by the more prominent role being assumed by indigenous groups, by advances in the recognition of their historical claims, and by the existence today of an international standard for the individual and collective human rights of indigenous peoples (ECLAC, 2006). Information is a key instrument for
monitoring and assessing compliance with those standards, on the understanding that the guarantee and exercise of such collective rights transcends the rural/urban divide.