Measuring the Sustainable Development Goal Indicators: An Unprecedented Statistical Challenge

MacFeely Steve ()
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MacFeely Steve: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland.

Journal of Official Statistics, 2020, vol. 36, issue 2, 361-378

Abstract: In March 2017, the United Nations (UN) Statistical Commission adopted a measurement framework for the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, comprising of 232 indicators designed to measure the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their respective 169 targets. The scope of this measurement framework is so ambitious it led Mogens Lykketoft, President of the seventieth session of the UN General Assembly, to describe it as an ‘unprecedented statistical challenge’. Naturally, with a programme of this magnitude, there will be foreseen and unforeseen challenges and consequences. This article outlines some of the key differences between the Millennium Development Goals and the SDGs, before detailing some of the measurement challenges involved in compiling the SDG indicators, and examines some of the unanticipated consequences arising from the mechanisms put in place to measure progress from a broad political economy perspective.

Keywords: 2030 Agenda; unintended consequences; national statistical systems; administrative data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:offsta:v:36:y:2020:i:2:p:361-378:n:8

DOI: 10.2478/jos-2020-0019

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