SDMX for SDGs What it means for you Abdulla Gozalov United Nations Statistics Division

SDG Indicators General Assembly resolution 70/1 (25 Sep 2015) Sustainable Development Goals adopted: 17 Goals, 169 Targets General Assembly resolution 71/313 (6 Jul 2017) global SDG indicator framework adopted: 232 unique indicators

SDMX for Development Indicators Dates back to 2007 when the Interagency and Expert Group for MDG Indicators established an SDMX Task Team Data and metadata exchange on development indicators between UNSD and 11 countries As part of the UNSD-DFID Project on MDGs (2010-2015); a further 4 countries joined exchange later Facilitated comparison and analysis of national and international MDG indicators http://data.un.org/countryData

SDMX-SDGs Working Group Working Group on SDMX for SDG Indicators established by IAEG-SDGs in April 2016 First meeting in October 2016 Monthly virtual meetings Draft DSD(s): end 2017 Pilot data exchange: 2018Q1 Production data exchange: 2018Q4

MDGs vs SDGs Overlap between the MDG and SDG indicator sets is less than 20% However, there are significant similarities; both sets are diverse in focus, from multiple statistical domains. Largest structural change called for is disaggregation “… by income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migration status, disability and geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts” (A/RES/70/1).

Challenges Highly disaggregated dataset mandated by the General Assembly Methodology under development for many of the breakdowns Guidance on specific indicator disaggregation currently under development SDMX solution must be customizable for dissemination by countries

Opportunities Uniform data model Read and correctly interpret SDGs data from any source: national, regional, global Uniform data access and dissemination SDMX-based API: JSON, XML, soon to come CSV Greatly reduced reporting burden Common tools, visualizations, platforms…

SDGs Data and Visualization Platform At the moment, built from data submitted by international agencies To be implemented: exchange with international agencies as well national and regional agencies and publication of their data at the platform With support provided by the UK Department for International Development

National and International Data National and international data and metadata will be compared and analyzed Greatly simplified by SDMX Reasons for differences: see metadata! Once ready, all countries will be invited to submit their data to the platform Data exchange with 20 countries funded through a new UNSD-DFID SDGs Project

SDG datasets Global dataset compiled and published by UNSD Annual reporting Internationally comparable country-level data Regional and global aggregates Regional datasets compiled by regional agencies Customized regional indicator sets Indicators may be comparable at regional or global level National datasets compiled by the countries Voluntary reporting of indicator set customized based on the country’s priorities Indicators do not necessarily follow global methodology Expected emphasis on subnational data

Customization It is expected that in many countries, global structures will need to be adapted for their needs Guidance will be provided

SDG Concepts Although a complex, highly disaggregated dataset, SDG concepts are intuitively easy to understand Sex, Age, Education Level, … This makes it easier to map your database to the DSD Mapping to a global DSD is usually the most involved exercise of an implementation

Mapping Eurostat’s SDMX Reference Infrastructure is a very efficient way to map any database to a DSD Expertise in SDMX is a prerequisite As part of the UNSD-DFID project on SDG Monitoring, SDG mapping modules will be developed for common dissemination platforms Customized mapping module: easy to use, lower barrier to entry Similar to MDG DSD mapping module developed for DevInfo as part of the previous UNSD-DFID project

Do you need an SDG database? Databases are typically used in SDMX data exchange Highly desirable to have statistical data in a database However, it is possible to map an Excel spreadsheet to a DSD and extract data from the spreadsheet into an SDMX file This option will be provided

THANK YOU Abdulla Gozalov Email: gozalov un.org