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Statistics for SDGs - Guidelines and Tools

CES Road Map on Statistics for Sustainable Development Goals - Second Edition

Road Map on Statistics for Sustainable Development Goals

The second edition of the Road Map on Statistics for SDGs aims to provide guidance to members of national statistical systems and other stakeholders on how to best navigate the complex task of measuring the achievement of the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda. The Road Map covers different aspects related to the work, such as national coordination, reporting on global SDG indicators, tracking progress at various levels, quality assurance, leave no one behind, communication, Voluntary National Reviews and capacity development. Frequently Asked Questions and a glossary aim to explain in an easily understandable way the issues and terms used.

Guidance on Assessing and Conceptualizing SDG Indicator Availability (draft). Addendum to the Road Map on Statistics for Sustainable Development Goals - Second Edition

Guidance on Indicator Availability cover

This addendum to the Road Map provides conceptual guidance on issues related to SDG indicator availability and practical guidance on how to assess indicator availability. There are two major questions that this addendum tries to answer: When is an SDG indicator considered available and what context is needed to make information on indicator availability fit for purpose? What are realistic and cost-effective ways to assess availability for different purposes?

Self-Assessment Tool for Indicator Availability

Row description in the tool

The tool enables SDG statistics teams to track the availability of global, regional and national indicators. It doubles as a project management tool for the coordination role of NSOs in Statistics for SDGs, making the assessment of indicator availability a low effort through the creation of summary tables and statistics on availability. The tool was published in 2024. Conceptual discussions on indicator availability, that are highly relevant for this tool, are published in the Guidance on Assessing and Conceptualizing SDG Indicator Availability.

Matrix on Capacity Development 

Capacity Development Matrix

The Capacity Development Matrix is a tool that covers all statistical activities within the NSI and the NSS. The matrix is a tool to identify the main needs and priorities for capacity building. The matrix can then be shared with countries and organizations who can help to build this capacity (donors) in the beneficiary country. Guidelines for the use of the matrix are provided here. The Capacity Development Matrix is the principal output of the Task Team on Capacity Development under the CES Steering Group on Statistics for SDGs.

 

Additional UNECE guidelines and tools for Statistics for SDGs can be found in the outputs of the Groups of Experts under the CES Steering Group on Statistics for SDGs. Communication resources can be found here.

 

Guidance and tools of our Partners

Below is a non-exhaustive list of guidance and tools of our partners targeted towards SDG statisticians in countries. 

Open SDG 

Open SDG is an open source, free-to-reuse platform for managing and publishing data and statistics related to the SDGs. It is the result of collaboration between the UK Office for National Statistics, the US government, the nonprofit Center for Open Data Enterprise and members of the Open SDG community.

E-Handbook on Sustainable Development Goals Indicators

This handbook is targeted towards national statisticians to enable them to monitor progress made in implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals based on data produced by national statistical systems. It was prepared by United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) in collaboration with the custodian agencies for SDG indicators.

Toolkit on Using Small Area Estimation for SDGs

The Toolkit is a space to provide information on methods to produce disaggregated data through small area estimation. It aims to complement and use the existing methodological work and case studies to encourage and enable national statistical offices to employ SAE for the monitoring of the SDGs. The Toolkit is produced by United Nations Statistics Division, under the guidance of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) and the Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Household Surveys.

SDG Lab

The SDG Lab is an online platform established by the United Nations Statistics Division to facilitate the automated data exchange of SDG indicators. It can be used by countries to detect and analyse differences between global and national datasets. 

National SDG Tracker

The National SDG Tracker is a tool for countries to track progress on the SDGs. It allows countries to add their data, enter national target values, and visualize progress in a few simple steps. It was developed by UN ESCAP.

Taxonomy for SDG indicators

The Taxonomy can be used to identify the central properties and characteristics of an indicator or an indicator set. It was developed by Statistics Norway in close collaboration with KS - the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities.

Open-Source tools for geospatial data 

The Central Statistical Office of Ireland (CSO) produced tools to create maps with ESRI Shapefiles in R and to extract and join statistical data from the CSO online database with geographic data in Python.