4 years later, is it any easier to track the SDGs?

UNITED NATIONS — Sub-Saharan Africa is urbanizing at the fastest rate in the world — too fast, in fact, to be accurately captured in the latest official update on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “It is a really specific thing, but is affecting the way people live, the economic opportunities they have and the demands on governments to provide infrastructure,” said Claire Melamed, executive director at the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. “For about two-thirds of the population of Africa, we are relying on data which is four, five, six years out of date and that is really not acceptable and not necessary anymore.” Partial and outdated available government data has long been a concern surrounding the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Governments first adopted the goals in 2015, pledging to work toward eliminating hunger, poverty, and other far-reaching targets by 2030. “Most countries do not regularly collect data for more than half of the global indicators.” --— Yongyi Min, statistics division chief, SDG Monitoring Center Four years later, it has overall become easier to measure the SDGs through their supportive framework of 230 technical indicators. But existing gaps in knowledge have now also taken on more significance as the 2030 Agenda continues to lag, and in some cases, backtrack. A new way forward is needed to both formally review the SDGs and to measure their results, development experts say. “None of us know what is really happening, so it is quite hard to say how far off we are from what we think is happening. We just do not have good data to capture the rapid changes in where and how people live,” Melamed continued. Challenge of ‘accurate and timely data’ An official U.N. framework to monitor the SDGs came in 2017, more than one year after the goals themselves were established. Initially, there was no established methodology or standards for 84 of the 230 indicators. Data is now available for 166 indicators, marking an increase from 144 indicators in 2018, 132 indicators in 2017, and 115 indicators in 2016. Thirty-four indicators, such as the “total value of inward and outward illicit financial flows,” can still not be tracked, according to the U.N. Statistics Division. “Despite this improvement, lack of accurate and timely data is still a big challenge for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Most countries do not regularly collect data for more than half of the global indicators,” said Yongyi Min, chief of the U.N.’s SDG Monitoring Center at the Statistics Division. Disaggregated data to address vulnerable groups, such as indigenous peoples and refugees, is also needed, Min said. “Few of the current SDG indicators are able to shed light on the particular situations of migrants, refugees, older persons, persons with disabilities, minorities and indigenous peoples,” Min explained. Some goals, such as SDG 10, focused on reducing inequality, have proved particularly challenging. Data is still not available for most of this goal’s indicators, including the proportion of people living below 50% of median income, disaggregated by sex, age, and persons with disabilities. “To fight inequality it's essential that we radically and rapidly improve data on inequality and inequality related issues, and track progress on them. Goal 10, however, currently does not have strong indicators or a monitoring framework to do this. It’s so important that governments, international institutions and others work together to get us there,” Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima wrote in an email to Devex. Updating the system Timely data — available fast enough to align with policy decisions on the SDGs — will be a central theme during the opening of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session in September. The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data will launch a new initiative, Data4Now, on September 25, along with the U.N. Secretary-General’s office, the U.N. Statistics Division, the World Bank, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The initiative will focus on the scale-up of satellite and citizen-generated data. Announcements of new private-sector partnerships on this work are expected as a “vehicle for scaling up the use of all data to make sure we are getting that clear picture of the SDGs and we are not forced to look back over our shoulder,” according to Melamed. The expectant reform of the HLPF could also help make it easier to assess progress on the SDGs. “Civil society has been working on measuring these issues for decades. It is not that you cannot, it is that there are many ways to measure it. It is a matter of how do we make sense of it? The data is only as useful as the narrative you are crafting of it,” according to John Romano, coordinator of civil society Transparency, Accountability & Participation Network. UNGA is also likely to adopt a resolution by the end of the year that would revamp the format of the annual U.N. High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, Romano said. The format of the HLPF, during which governments offer voluntary, brief summaries of their SDG progress, predates the SDGs. The sessions tend to proceed at a clipped pace, with more than 50 government reviews crammed into four days. Each member state presents their findings, which are not verified by independent groups, in about 15 minutes. “There is some countries and institutions that do not want to have the SDGs as an overarching narrative for their policies.” --— Adolf Kloke-Lesch, executive director, Sustainable Development Solutions Network in Germany There is little space for civil society contributions — including civil society SDG shadow reports, which offer additional or alternative information on government findings. Direct engagement between countries is also limited, according to observers like Romano. “There is no opportunity to have a dialogue between member states, let alone bringing the voices of stakeholders into the process. Voluntary national reviews are an opportunity for member states to showcase the good things they are doing, but they are less frank about some of the challenges and shortcomings in their own progress,” Romano said. Governments had already agreed upon an outcome document for the HLPF before the U.N. forum began on July 9, Oxfam’s Byanyima told Devex in an email. This agreement, which also covers the upcoming SDG Summit on September 25, reaffirms previous commitments to implement the SDGs but does not offer any new ones. “Unfortunately, the outcome document was finalized before the meetings, including the SDG Summit, were complete, which meant that civil society’s engagement in the process, and ability to challenge and hold leaders accountable was not possible,” Byanyima explained. “Civil society participation is a non-negotiable in this process, especially as civil society space is shrinking in so many spaces that will determine the success or failure of these goals.” The agreement’s general language signifies some high-income countries’ hesitation or refusal to embrace the SDGs as part of their own domestic agenda, said Adolf Kloke-Lesch, executive director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network in Germany. Even the European Union, which championed the SDGs as a universal agenda, has yet to develop an SDG strategy for itself, he said. The U.S. has also not developed a national SDG policy and has not volunteered any national reviews during the high-level political forum. “There is some countries and institutions that do not want to have the SDGs as an overarching narrative for their policies. They seem to see it as sort of infectious, as something coming from the crazy environmentalists and development workers,” Kloke-Lesch said. Still, there is hope around advancing work on satellite data, useful for immediately tracking trends on deforestation and coastal erosion, for example, and citizen-generated data, according to Melamed. The Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration are among the latest organizations to launch satellite platforms to monitor land use. Another new satellite imagery platform tracking Africa’s land and seas, called Digital Earth Africa, will also launch next month. Governments alone should not be expected to succeed in tracking the SDGs, Melamed said. Available data should extend beyond government statistics — and, increasingly, the tools to acquire it from other sources are available, if not underutilized. “I do think, in good faith, governments are doing their best with what they have,” Melamed said. “The challenge is that we often do not have it because sometimes the data itself is difficult to collect.”