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IPS175 Pietro Gennari et al.
indicator. In such cases, it may be necessary to consult a body with an even
higher level of country representation, i.e. the UN Statistical Commission.
Custodian agencies have also faced important difficulties in pilot testing
new methods/indicators. Although this criterion implies the necessary
involvement of countries, in practice, the responsibility for testing new
methods/indicators is left entirely to custodian agencies. Pilot testing is a very
complex endeavour that requires huge investments in resources and time to
verify the feasibility of new methods/indicators, especially for less advanced
statistical systems and when new survey tools are needed. In such cases, it has
often been difficult for custodian agencies to identify countries willing to
participate in pilot tests, as this also implies some additional burden on
countries themselves. As a result, custodian agencies have found themselves
struggling to fulfil what is a key requirement for obtaining the reclassification
of a new indicator. A more proactive role of the Secretariat and the IAEG-SDG
Co-Chairs is thus needed in promoting country collaboration in pilot testing
at the moment in which the work plan for a Tier III indicator is approved.
Looking beyond the specific list of criteria for the validation of methods,
this process has brought with it a whole other set of challenges. The approval
of dozens upon dozens of new SDG indicator methodologies has immediately
clashed with the crude reality of the existing data collection capabilities of
most National Statistical Systems (NSSs). In a situation where most NSSs were
already struggling to produce even the most elementary data, there was no
easy answer to the question of how countries would actually be producing
new SDG indicators. One of the often-cited possibilities was to embrace the
“data revolution for sustainable development”, which suggested a radical
enlargement of the portfolio of potential data sources, particularly by
including big data and geospatial information. However, this produced a
serious conundrum for the IAEG-SDG. On the one hand, the UN Statistical
Commission did not tire in reminding that “the compilation of global
indicators should be based to the greatest extent possible on national official
statistics provided by countries” , on the other hand, expecting already
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overburdened national official statistics to produce all the necessary data for
hundreds of new SDG indicators was clearly not feasible.
To try to solve this conundrum, the 2016 UN Statistical Commission report
recommended that “when other sources and methodologies are used, they
will be reviewed and agreed by national statistical authorities and presented
in a transparent manner”. Nevertheless, in practice, a multitude of countries
have refused to authorize the use of data produced outside the NSS, even
when the approved methodology of the relevant indicators explicitly foresaw
this possibility as an interim measure, meanwhile the NSS grapples with how

7 47/101 (l), Statistical Commission, Report on the forty-seventh session, 8-11 March 2016.
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