On Thursday, June 11, at the “UN House in Argentina, the Province of Buenos Aires and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires officially launched REMEBA, the geo-statistical portal of the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires. The initiative was jointly developed by the Provincial Directorate of Statistics of Buenos Aires and the Statistics and Census Institute of the City of Buenos Aires (IDECBA), with support and technical assistance from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), through its Statistics Division and its office in Argentina.

The launch was attended by the Minister of Economy of the Province, Pablo López; the Director General of the Statistics and Census Institute of the City of Buenos Aires, María Eugenia Lago; the Director of the ECLAC Office in Argentina, Romain Zivy; and the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Argentina, Claudia Mojica. Subsequently, the Head of the Innovation and Statistical Dissemination Unit of ECLAC’s Statistics Division, Daniel Taccari, together with officials from IDECBA, the Provincial Directorate of Statistics, and the ECLAC Office in Argentina, presented the objectives, scope, and functionalities of REMEBA. The event concluded with remarks by María Eugenia Lago and the Director of Provincial Statistics of Buenos Aires, Diego Rusansky, who outlined the next steps in its development.

REMEBA is the result of more than two years of collaborative work, integrating statistical and geographic information to capture the territorial dynamics of one of the most relevant metropolitan areas in Latin America. Through a web-based application, the geoportal combines statistical and geospatial information, offering users filtering tools and visualizations of statistical and geospatial attributes with the level of detail needed for decision-making.

With this initiative, the two statistical jurisdictions, supported by ECLAC, provide a public and open access platform of statistical and geospatial data on the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. It enables interactive geographic data visualization, identification of territorial patterns, and analysis of spatial distribution of gaps. It also includes a graphical dashboard that complements the geoportal with statistical representations in tables, charts, and time series, facilitating access to and download of available data for users with different profiles and analytical needs. Both the geoportal and the dashboard are accessible through the joint website https://remeba.gob.ar/. It can also be reached via the institutional websites of each statistical office.

This platform results from ECLAC’s Statistics Division’s strategy to adapt, develop and deploy  geoportal technology in several countries in the region—Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic, among others—and in this case applying it at the scale of an inter-jurisdictional metropolitan region. REMEBA represents a pioneering experience in Latin America and the Caribbean, as the first integrated statistical information system for a metropolitan region coordinated between two jurisdictions with different statistical systems and regulatory frameworks.

This work is part of ECLAC’s technical cooperation efforts to strengthen national and territorial capacities in the development and use of information systems, data, and statistics for decision-making and access to information.