4 December 2015: A briefing on ‘Decent work indicators for sustainable development’ provided updates on the work of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) and highlighted the perspective of the International Labour Organization (ILO) on indicators for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The briefing, organized by the ILO and the Permanent Missions of Angola, Belgium and Brazil, took place on 4 December 2015, at UN Headquarters in New York, US.

Rafael Diez de Medina, ILO, said decent work includes not only employment creation but also social protection, rights at work and social dialogue, and these aspects must be recognized in the monitoring framework for the Agenda. He noted that decent work is almost entirely cross-cutting in the Agenda, as it is the subject of SDG 8 as well as reflected in Goals 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 16 and 17. He also called for strengthening national capacities to produce data.

Francesca Perucci, UN Statistical Division, provided an update on the IAEG-SDGs, which she said is “moving very well and fast.” She reported that after the Group’s meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, in October 2015, it finalized the list of indicators on which there was consensus (green indicators), while agreement on other indicators (gray indicators) had not been reached because of “lack of metadata.” She said challenges facing the IAEG-SDGs are: keeping the number of indicators limited while maintaining the ambition of all the SDGs and their targets; covering every aspect of all targets; addressing the issues of inequality; and covering all population groups. Perucci said the IAEG has produced a note on data disaggregation, which states that “SDG indicators should be disaggregated where relevant by income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability and geographic location, or other characteristics, in accordance with the fundamental principles of official statistics.” Finally, she noted that once the indicators are developed, they will have to be analyzed to consider linkages between them.

Brazil, acknowledging the large number of SDGs and targets, said these are the result of negotiations, and there is a need to ensure a transparent, inclusive and participative process.

Belgium noted that a Group of Friends on Decent Work for Sustainable Development was launched in 2014, during negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda, and initially included 23 countries. The Group seeks to highlight the importance of including decent work for all in the UN’s 2030 Agenda, Belgium said. [Meeting Webcast] [IISD RS Update on IAEG-SDGs] [Group of Friends’ Establishment]