Last week, stattos and data wonks descended on Cape Town for the first World Data Forum. They were there to formally inaugurate the “data revolution” that everyone acknowledges will be needed to track the world’s progress toward our Sustainable Development Goals.
Setting these indicators was a long and laborious task. (I was involved only tangentially, as manager of a team of advocates at Save the Children). At one point some hoped that, by some miracle, there might be fewer indicators than targets!
But it was not to be. We now have 230 indicators to track the 169 targets of the 17 goals.
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About the author
Jonathan Glennie@jonathanglennie
Jonathan Glennie is a senior fellow at the Joep Lange Institute and was recently a visiting fellow at the International Development Institute at King’s College London. He has held senior positions in several international organizations (including Save the Children, ODI, Christian Aid) and was director of the Sustainable Development Research Centre at Ipsos Mori. He has written regularly for The Guardian‘s Global Development website and is the author of "The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa" and "Aid, Growth and Poverty."
