Quantitative information on the occurrence of certain events relevant for monitoring perspective (power cuts and their duration, accidents, conflicts with majority or other ethnic groups, NGOs activities etc.). Data collected within the system of community monitoring will provide information with respect to the status of the minority communities, their internal dynamics and the life in ethnic neighborhoods, particularly in closed ghettoes. In this regard, such data that will be complementary to other sources. For complementarity purposes, the structure of data (and the design of the instruments used) should be as close as possible to other instruments for similar data collection. A necessary precondition is the training of the local data collectors on basic data collection techniques and standards and establishing a system of incentives for responsible and reliable work as well as a control system. 6. Census improvement The census remains the most effective instrument to collect comprehensive data on the population of a country. The major difficulty lies in capturing the multiple identities of minorities. As outlined above, using the ethnicity question, even if it is not prohibited, will not necessarily produce accurate statistics on the situation of minorities, given the issues of fear and self-identification. Therefore, the census needs to be improved in various ways to accommodate the multiple identities minorities might have, increase their willingness and trust to state their ethnicity and believe in the value and benefit of data.51 Regarding the ethnicity question, there are various suggestions on how to circumvent this issue. One is to introduce a multiple choice question on ethnicity. Another suggestion is to differentiate clearly between ethnicity and citizenship or nationality to prevent the respondent from the need of choosing one option only, though s/he feels to have various identities. Another option is to add questions on language, religion, partner’s ethnicity or country of birth or origin as objective identification criteria.52 Minority involvement Collection of data on ethnic and cultural background can be successful only if the national statistical system creates trust with regard to the confidentiality of individual data, and more generally a positive environment for population sub-groups. Therefore, one of the major prerequisites for relevant data collection is the participation and involvement of the communities surveyed in the process of data collection at all stages. Fieldwork has an important role to play within the data collection process. Simple factors become relevant, such as the sex or ethnicity of the interviewer, the way a question will be asked, or how the interviewer would be accepted by the respondent. Minority representatives, including women, could be trained as interviewers and in the basics of sociological data collection, interviewing techniques, the contents and context of individual questions. Fieldwork could then be carried out by the trained interviewers, or regular interviewers could be accompanied by an “assistant interviewer” from the surveyed minority. The role envisaged for the “assistant interviewers” is much broader than community penetration. Such interviewers could constitute the core of future data collectors who could actively cooperate with the national statistical institutes and The 2006 UNECE/EUROSTAT Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing explicitly state: “It is recommended that representatives of ethnic, language and religious groups be consulted in the drafting of census questions, the definition of classification procedures and the conduct of censuses among minority populations to assure transparency, the correct understanding of the questions and the full participation of the population”. 51 The 2006 UNECE/EUROSTAT Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing explicitly state: “Ethnicity has necessarily a subjective dimension and some ethnic groups are very small. Information on ethnicity should therefore always be based on the free self-declaration of a person, questionnaires should include an open question and interviewers should refrain from suggesting answers to the respondents. Respondents should be free to indicate more than one ethnic affiliation or a combination of ethnic affiliations if they wish so”. 52 134 M A R G I N A L I S E D M I N O R I T I E S I N D E V E LO P M E N T P R O G R A M M I N g