DHAKA, Aug 13, 2026 (BSS) — A stakeholder consultation workshop on the Ethnic Survey 2026 was held today at the conference room of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in the capital’s Agargaon, with a view to collecting opinions and recommendations from relevant stakeholders for conducting the nationwide survey.

The workshop was organized under the project titled “Survey on Socio-Economic Status and Poverty Situation of Ethnic Minorities 2025,”being implemented by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

State Minister for Planning Md. Zonayed Abdur Rahim Saki attended the workshop as the chief guest, while Kazi Golam Tousif, Additional Secretary (Development), Statistics and Informatics Division (SID), and Mohammad Shamimul Haque, Director General (Additional Secretary) of BBS, attended as special guests.

Secretary of SID Md. Firoz Sarkar chaired the workshop.

Representatives of ethnic minority organizations, different ministries, divisions and government agencies, the United Nations and development organizations, BBS and SID officials, universities, research organizations, and print and electronic media were present, said a press release.

Mohammad Sahabuddin Sarkar, Director (Acting), National Accounting Wing of BBS, delivered the welcome address, while Farhana Sultana, Project Director of the Survey on Socio-Economic Status and Poverty Situation of Ethnic Minorities 2025 project, made a presentation on the Ethnic Survey 2026.

The participants stressed the importance of conducting the nationwide Ethnic Survey 2026, saying that reliable and comprehensive data generated by BBS would make a significant contribution to formulating appropriate development plans for ethnic minority communities.

The survey is designed as a special, standalone full-count survey to collect comprehensive information on the socio-economic conditions and various indicators of ethnic minority communities across the country.

The survey is expected to generate a comprehensive database of ethnic minority communities, including socio-economic indicators and Proxy Means Test (PMT) scores.

The survey will also facilitate beneficiary selection through an appropriate beneficiary selection methodology and its application, enabling more effective targeting of social security programmes for ethnic minority communities based on reliable data.

A full-count field survey using a short questionnaire is scheduled to be conducted across the country in August 2026 to prepare the comprehensive database.

Recommendations emerging from today’s workshop, including those from the technical session to be held subsequently, will be incorporated into the final questionnaire and will help improve the field-level data collection process.

The participants noted that collecting data from ethnic minority communities involves several challenges and stressed the need for cooperation from local administrations and other relevant stakeholders.

They said the data generated through the special survey would help policymakers and government and non-government organizations ensure better targeting and smoother delivery of social protection programmes and services to members of ethnic minority communities.

The authorities also sought active cooperation from representatives of ethnic minority communities in conducting the survey successfully.