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Knowledge Hub on SDGs

Introduction

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.

Through the CES Steering Group on Statistics for Sustainable Development Goals and its Task Teams we guide and assist countries on the statistical follow-up to the 2030 agenda. UNECE publishes SDG data on its member countries and reports on regional progress towards the SDGs.

Teams of experts

Guidelines and tools

Country resources

Communication

Data

Progress in the region

In focus

Despite significant progress, SDG indicator availability remains a concern. International discussion on indicator availability focuses largely on the data available in the global SDG Indicators Database maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division. However, SDG indicator availability on the global database can quite substantively differ from what is available nationally. While the SDGs are a global policy agenda, they are implemented nationally. It is, therefore, important that national policy makers are enabled to make informed decisions related to the SDGs - we should therefore put a stronger focus on what statistical information is available to track the SDG goals and targets nationally.

To that end, the Steering Group on Statistics for SDGs has developed a suite of products dedicated to better understand national availability in all of its nuances, to describe the reasons for differences in global and national availability, and guide statisticians how to effectively communicate and discuss indicator availability.

The 2024 Self-Assessment tool for indicator availability tracks the availability of SDG indicators and can double as a project management tool for SDG statistics teams for their role as coordinators of the national statistical system. If used in this way, undertaking a highly detailed assessment of SDG indicator availability thus becomes a side effect of using the tool for project management with comparatively small extra effort as summary tables and statistics on SDG indicator availability are generated automatically. At the same time, it is also possible to use the tool for more basic assessments.

The Steering Group on Statistics for SDGs has, in October 2024, endorsed the Guidance on Assessing and Conceptualizing SDG Indicator Availability for publication as an addendum to the CES Road Map on Statistics for SDGs.

Highlights

To keep the collection of country resources on SDG statistics up to date, the CES Steering Group undertook an exercise to update the country case studies for the Road Map on Statistics for SDGs. Find more than 40 new or updated examples of countries and international organizations, conveniently ordered by chapter in the Road Map here.
Representatives of 35 countries and 20 organisations met from 15-17 October in Tirana, Albania for a Workshop and this year's UNECE Expert Meeting on Statistics for SDGs. Find all 31 presentations and eight working papers on the meeting website.