2 March 2017
UNU-INWEH Rolls Out Monitoring System on Water-related SDGs
UN Photo/JC McIlwaine
story highlights

The UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) has launched a ‘policy support system’ (PSS) for tracking progress and action towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on clean water and sanitation.

The University is inviting policy makers, international organizations and water management professionals to assist in trialling and reviewing the monitoring system.

The SDG-PSS is currently being tested in Costa Rica, Ghana, the Republic of Korea, Pakistan and Tunisia.

3 February 2017: The UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) has launched a “policy support system” (PSS) for tracking progress and action towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on clean water and sanitation. UNU is inviting policy makers, international organizations and water management professionals to assist in trialing and reviewing the monitoring system.

The Sustainable Development Goal Policy Support System (SDG-PSS) brings together tools from various international agencies to map progress against the SDG 6 targets and indicators in the areas of: finance; capacity; policy and institutional strength; gender mainstreaming; disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience mainstreaming; and transparency. The PSS not only enables the mapping of progress, but also helps governments report on their SDG implementation efforts. It also seeks to support cross-sector, evidence-based policy and planning, and to accelerate progress on all water-related SDGs. The platform links data from more than 20 water-related tools developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Data used in the SDG-PSS comes from sources including the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS), and the OECD’s Toolkit for Integrity.

Vladimir Smakhtin, UNU-INWEH, noted that the current version of the SDG-PSS focuses on SDG 6, but could eventually be adjusted to support mapping of achievements towards other SDGs.

The SDG-PSS is currently being tested in Costa Rica, Ghana, the Republic of Korea, Pakistan and Tunisia. Partners in this effort include the Korean Environment Corporation (Keco), the Ministry for Environment, the Republic of Korea, and the UN Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD). UNU-INWEH has posted a series of video tutorials online to help interested stakeholders start using the SDG-PSS. The test version is available as an Excel file in English, Korean, French and Spanish.

In a communication to international organization partners, Vladimir Smakhtin, UNU-INWEH, noted that the current version of the SDG-PSS focuses on SDG 6, but could eventually be adjusted to support mapping of achievements towards other SDGs. [UNU-INWEH Information Brief on SDG-PSS] [SDG-PSS Web Page] [IISD Sources] [SDG-PSS Full Version as Excel File]

related posts