Page 170 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS479 Nebil D. et al.
In this regard, the exercise to identify the SDG prioritisation of OIC countries
may be repeated at a later stage after 2020 as the procedures to realign the
national development mechanisms and entities with the SDGs take longer
than expected.
It is also obvious from the analysis that the prioritised eight SDGs focus mainly
on the fundamental areas of development; namely, poverty, health, hunger,
education, labour and economic growth, and infrastructure. Gender equality
and climate action, on the other hand, are deemed also as important as the
fundamental areas.
Expected SDG achievement levels by 2030 unfortunately has not indicated
a full success by the majority of the respondent OIC countries. This fact is
highly connected with the most salient limiting factor in front of achieving the
SDGs – shortage of financial resources – to implement the related SDG
projects.
Against these, it has not been a surprise to see low levels of commitments
to the implementation of all 17 SDGs. Rather, respondents were selective in
current SDG commitments focusing on education, hunger, health, gender,
water, poverty, labour, and climate change.
While SDG coordinating, monitoring, and reporting agencies are existent
in most respondent countries, SDG data availability is also a major obstacle for
the coordinating agencies. For the eight prioritised SDGs, out of 116 global
indicators, only 47 of them are fit for a trend analysis. The situation is serious
in indicators under SDG 5 and 13 where there is only 1 indicator for each for
trend analysis.
To build the needed capacities to remedy the data gaps and produce the
pertinent statistics instrumental in planning and implementing the SDG
related activities and projects, cooperation with regional and international
organisations plays a critical role. In this context, SESRIC carries out a flagship
statistical skills development initiative titled “OIC Statistical Capacity Building
Programme (StatCaB)” to strengthen the National Statistical Systems (NSSs) in
the OIC countries with a view to producing better national statistics and thus
helping policy-makers introducing better national policies and strategies. In
order to identify the statistical needs and capacities of the official statistics
producing institutions of the OIC countries, SESRIC circulates biennial
questionnaires and matches these needs and capacities through organising
statistical activities. In line with resolution #121 of the 34th Session of the
COMCEC, SESRIC has recently included the SDG indicators into its 2020-2021
StatCaB Biennial Questionnaire; and for the year 2019, the matching was done
by considering the prioritised SDGs indicated by the OIC countries based on
the “Tendency Survey on SDG Priorities of OIC Member Countries” conducted
by SESRIC. Since its inception in 2007, SESRIC has organised over 370 statistical
activities with the participation of thousands of experts and high-level officials

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