30 November 2018: A group of young data professionals discussed data sources for the SDG indicators, as well as a new platform that will provide visualizations of the indicator data at global scale.

The 30 November 2018 gathering of the Taiwanese Data Professionals interest group was welcomed by Lily Hsu, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) ambassador, to TECO’s office in New York, US. Hsu recalled that Amina J. Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General, told the second UN Data Forum that the world needs “more and better data, with accurate, representative, inclusive and disaggregated data” to allow us to better understand the challenges and solutions for implementing the SDGs. With this need and the role of data in driving SDG implementation in mind, Hsu noted that TECO is collaborating with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) to build a platform that will facilitate comparisons of the data for all nations, including Taiwan, in order to identify best practices and opportunities for action.

Lynn Wagner, IISD, discussed three data sources that can be used to track SDG implementation. She highlighted that national statistical offices (NSO) maintain official data collections in each country, and that many NSOs are reporting that they can supply anywhere from 30-100 of the 232 indicators included in the SDG framework. She said a number of countries are building online platforms to share their individual country’s SDG indicator data.

Wagner noted that many international organizations have been named as the “custodians” for specific global indicators that are within their mandate. She said these organizations are working with countries to identify baselines and data needs, and to build capacity for data collection, and these organizations have collected and assessed the metadata sets that have been placed in the UN Statistics Division’s Open SDG Data Hub.

Wagner also highlighted “big data” as another source, noting that while it can contribute to public policy – such as by helping to identify where targeted health campaigns can address the largest numbers of cigarette purchasers – data privacy and data ownership concerns must be addressed. She noted that these data sources can complement, but do not replace, official data sources.

Given the coverage of the indicator set maintained by the UN Statistics Division, Wagner highlighted possibilities for using the UN Statistics Division’s indicator data set to identify best practices and to visualize the status of SDG implementation. She noted that IISD is developing an online portal that will allow users to explore the SDG indicator data on maps and graphs, and is also writing a report that uses the data to help tell the stories about challenges and opportunities for SDG implementation. [SDG Knowledge Hub sources]