It’s a full day’s walk to reach the peaceful village of Ambalatenina, located in a remote area of eastern Madagascar. Surrounded by mountains covered with lush bamboo and palm trees, Ambalatenina is connected to the nearest town by little more than a dusty path. The village’s 450 or so inhabitants subsist on rice farming or labouring in the nearby gold mines. They live in huts made of palm leaves and bamboo.

Between 2010 and 2020, many Pacific Islands and Territories have updated their traditional data collection processes, embracing new technologies. The island nations Kiribati and Vanuatu, among others, successfully switched to computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), a new data management system and a survey monitoring dashboard. The innovations implemented with support from the Pacific Community helped to weather the impact of the pandemic on census activities and to become fit for the purpose of tracking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).