The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a global plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. With its 17 SDGsSustainable Development Goal, it seeks inclusive and universal progress along the three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. This demands a new level of cooperation among all actors in the national and international spheres.
SDGSustainable Development Goal Pulse approaches the Goals from the point of view of data and statistics. To fully implement and monitor progress on the SDGs, decision makers need accurate, timely, relevant and accessible statistics. Although data availability and quality are constantly improving, there is still a need to strengthen statistical capacity, enhance data literacy at all levels of decision-making, and find innovative approaches to monitor sustainable development (United Nations, 2017).
With more than fifty years of trade and development expertise and experience, UNCTAD implements programmes to help countries advance towards a number of SDGs. We also develop and implement methodologies to measure several SDG indicators, including those for which UNCTAD is the custodian. There is a lot of ground already covered (UNCTAD, 2016). In this report, the goals and indicators selected reflect UNCTAD’s broad mandate on the interrelated issues of trade, investment, finance, technology and sustainable development.
References
- UNCTAD (2016). Development and globalization: Facts and figures 2016. Available at https://stats.unctad.org/Dgff2016/ (accessed 19 April 2019).
- United Nations (2017). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2017. United Nations publication. Sales No. E.17.I.7. New York.