The global objective was to provide technical assistance to Government of South Africa, and in particular the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, to analyze the existing data sources and methods of data collection on incidents of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in the public and private sector.
Related intolerance includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender and disability.
Data refers to any piece of information in numerical or any other form.
The requested technical assistance assisted the government of South Africa with statistical information in the design of country responses to meet its obligations in terms of the DOPA, the ICERD and other international Human Rights treaties referring to discriminations.
The specific objectives of the assignment were:

• Identify and catalogue the methods of data collection, dissemination of data and the publishing of data by existing institutions and structures in the private and public sector with regard to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
• Determine the owners of data, how data is generated and the products/outcomes of these processes.
• Categorise the format of data collected by governmental and non­governmental institutions including academia, think tanks and other civil society organizations
• Provide recommendations on the utilisation of the combined existing databases as a national tool to record incidents of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
• Engage organs of state, non­governmental sector and the private sector in establishing the sources of data and methods used to collect, analyse, disseminate and publish reliable statistical data.
• Literature review on the methods of data collection, dissemination and publishing of data at both national and local levels.
• Conduct an international comparative desktop study on similar data collection methods and processes/ mechanisms.
• Analyse all the regulatory frameworks in South Africa and identify the responsible parties and methods for the collection of data.
• Provide recommendations with regard to the link between the methods of data collection and dissemination and the implementation of the NAP and assist with reliable statistics for the compilation of upcoming country reports.
• Benchmarking and reflecting best practises in data collection, analysis, dissemination and publishing