11 November 2015: Participants in a three-day consultation submitted 4,588 comments to the Inter-agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) on the global indicators on which the Group had reached general agreement (“green” indicators). The UN Statistics Division released a compilation of the inputs, which were submitted by UN and government agencies, NGOs, the private sector and other stakeholders.

The online consultation window was open from 4-7 November 2015, after being announced on 3 November.

The input is compiled in a spreadsheet document organized by Goal, with a sheet for each of the 17 SDGs. Each lists the SDG’s targets and the associated proposed indicator for each target, along with the comments received. Comments range from support for the proposed indicator, to suggestions for improving the indicator, or recommendations to re-categorize the indicator as not having consensus, due to remaining conceptual or methodological issues (“gray” indicators). Responses also highlight indicators for which there is no globally collected data, and raise concern about overlapping indicators.

The SDGs that garnered the most comments are: Goal 3 (health), with 744 inputs on 21 indicators; Goal 4 (education), with 722 comments on ten indicators; and Goal 5 (gender), with 636 comments on 14 indicators. Two proposed indicators on education received 135 and 138 inputs.

In contrast, SDG 13 on climate change received the least comments, with 19 inputs on one indicator, “mobilized amount of USD per year starting in 2020 accountable towards the USD 100 billion commitment.” SDG 14 on oceans and marine resources received 55 inputs on five proposed indicators, while SDG 15 on biodiversity, forests and desertification received 107 inputs on eight proposed indicators.

The Group identified the “green” indicators at its second meeting (IAEG-SDGs 2), held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 26-28 October 2015. The Group is expected to consider the results of the consultation in its final deliberations before reporting to the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) at its 47th session in March 2016. [Consultation Results] [IISD RS Coverage of IAEG-SDGs]