29 March 2017: The Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership has launched the SDG Data Portal, showing the current status and progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the 58 member states of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

The Partnership is made up of ESCAP, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), building on collaboration among the three organizations since 2001 on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Partnership aims to produce knowledge products that meet the needs of various users, and reflect the importance of broad stakeholder engagement, inclusiveness, participation, and follow-up and review. The themes of the partnership’s annual reports will follow the cycle of themes of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

The portal uses supplementary indicators and data series for indicators for which the custodian agency has not yet provided data.

The Portal, built on a subset of the ESCAP Statistical Database, includes all of the indicators from the global SDG indicator framework for which data sources could be identified. It also uses supplementary indicators and data series, for indicators for which the custodian agency has not yet provided data, or when indicators have alternative ways to present data.

The portal’s ‘SDG Profiles’ provide overviews of a country’s or region’s performance across the 17 SDGs by comparing the latest available data with the year 2000. The ‘Compare Data’ feature allows users to compare two countries or groups of countries for each SDG indicator, either as charts or tables, and to see the relative performance of a country with the Asia-Pacific or world averages.

The data portal was one of three items launched by the Partnership during the 2017 Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD), held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 29-31 March 2017. It also released: the ‘Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Goals Outlook Report,’ describing the outlook for each SDG in the region, as well as “bright spots,” “hot spots” and insights about each Goal and related emerging issues; and ‘Eradicating Poverty and Promoting Prosperity in a Changing Asia-Pacific,’ the Partnership’s thematic report for 2017. [SDG Data Portal] [Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership] [ESCAP Press Release] [ADB Press Release][SDG Knowledge Hub story about APFSD]