24 February 2017: During a meeting of the Permanent Council and the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI) of the Organization of American States (OAS) on the theme, ‘Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in member States: The role for the Organization of American States,’ the US presented its online platform for monitoring the SDGs.

The meeting, which took place on 24 February 2017, at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, US, included presentations by OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and Thomas Gass, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Several OAS Member States discussed efforts to operationalize the SDGs in their countries.

The office of the US chief statistician discussed US reporting challenges and progress made to date, as well as collaborations with other statistical offices. She introduced the online platform, titled ‘U.S. National Statistics for the UN Sustainable Development Goals,’ which is organized according to each SDG, with links to relevant data for the associated indicators. She noted that the US platform is open source and available for other countries to use for their own reporting purposes. The site presents global metadata as well as national data, and notes where further work will need to be done to assess certain indicators.

A single-page dashboard feature is being integrated into the platform to provide an overview of progress toward the SDGs. Further enhancements will seek to improve the platform’s utility for policy makers, accessibility for lay public, and improved functionality for data providers. [OAS Meeting Webpage] [Webcast of Meeting] [US National Statistics for the SDGs]