17 May 2019: The Pacific Community (SPC) Statistics for Development Division (SDD) launched a beta version of a website that integrates the Pacific Hub SDG Dashboard, the Pacific Data Hub Microdata Library, the SPC Digital Library and the Pacific Data Hub .stat indicator platform. Users can click on individual SDGs for information on each country’s related issues.
Data are organized by country and by the following topics: economy, environment, health, industry and services, population and social. Users can also view data and tools, including mapping tools and indicators, and additional resources, such as articles, documents and reports. The website also provides links to key regional documents, like the ‘Ten-Year Pacific Statistics Strategy.’ A news page shares regional news and updates, and a census and survey calendar presents completed and planned census information for Pacific Island Countries.
The environment topic provides information on the state of a country’s environment and interactions among environment, people and economy. Key reports related to the environment include country food security assessments, country agriculture and fisheries reports, and national agriculture census results. Users can click on SDGs related to the environment for additional information. On SDG 14 (life below water), for instance, the website redirects users to the Pacific Data Hub’s webpage on SDG 14, which describes SDG 14 and lists each target and indicator along with notes about the availability of the indicator. When the indicator data is available, the webpage includes a link to download the metadata.
The first quadrennial Pacific Sustainable Development Report will be submitted to the HLPF in 2019.
The website presents SDD’s involvement in the SDGs and describes how SDD assists countries to collect indicator values for SDG indicators. These indicators are then maintained by SDD on behalf of member countries to centralize availability of SDG and other development indicators and improve data availability for Pacific Island Countries. SDD also works with Pacific countries preparing voluntary national reviews (VNRs) to develop data and analysis on the SDGs. It contributed to the ‘First Quadrennial Pacific Sustainable Development Report in 2018,’ which will be submitted to the 2019 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
SDD Acting Director David Abbott launched the website at the SPC headquarters in Noumea, New Caledonia. He said the website “will benefit statistics users across the whole of the Pacific region and beyond.” Abbott informed that SDD will continue to update the website and will “work with the national statistics offices in our member countries to improve data dissemination at all levels for all users.”
Statistics New Zealand, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided support for this work. [SPC Press Release] [SDD Website]