As the international development community works to define the post-2015 agenda, many questions arise regarding the feasibility of measuring progress toward the sustainable development goals: How big are the data gaps, and how can we fill them? How can we make sure that marginalized communities are being accounted for? What does the universality of SDGs mean when applied to local contexts? Is there a place for citizen-generated data?
For a group of researchers from the Center for Policy Dialogue, Normal Paterson School of International Affairs and Southern Voice on Post-MDG International Development Goals, the answer to these questions was simple: Let’s road test the SDGs and see what happens.
With funding from the International Development Research Center’s Think Tank Initiative and the Hewlett Foundation, and with support from the U.N. Foundation, researchers partnered with local think tanks to test seven goal areas and about a dozen SDGs in Canada, Bangladesh, Ghana, Peru, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Turkey. The idea was to get a clearer picture of how the SDGs would apply to a variety of countries, and include southern perspectives to the debate.