Page 316 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 4

STS637 Ronald W. J.
1. Introduction
1
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by all United
Nations Member States in 2015. It provides a shared blueprint for peace and
prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are
the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for
action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership.
They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-
hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and
spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to
preserve our oceans and forests
In the 2030 Agenda, the global community of official statistics (through
2
the United Nations Statistical Commission) was explicitly made responsible
for assuring a sufficient amount of relevant data to monitor progress on
achieving the SDGs and its targets. The statisticians agreed on a global
indicator framework which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 6
3
July 2017. This framework contains more than 230 indicators which would
inform the national and international policies to achieve the SDGs. Policy
makers emphasized the need for quality, accessible, timely and reliable
disaggregated data to help with the measurement of progress and to ensure
that no one is left behind. This new task for the community of official statistics
implied also the need for the strengthening and modernizing of national
statistical systems to produce statistics faster, more frequent and in more
detail.
Traditional data collection tools such as surveys or censuses are expensive
and take time to process. Some new technologies, such as the use of hand-
held devices or the collection via on-line surveys, have shortened the delivery
time. However, the traditional ways are not suitable to deliver on the promise
of abundant and fast data for the 2030 Agenda. Therefore, the statistical
community started looking into the use of new data sources to complement
the traditional ones. Firstly, there is a wealth of administrative data sources,
which the national statistical institutes can tap into. Then, there are the
continuous streams of digital data generated by satellites, mobile networks or
social media platforms. Nowadays we can access data from satellites, drones,
mobile phones, social media applications and internet searches. Soon the 5G
network becomes more broadly available, which makes it easier to use sensor
data from cars, appliances or systems in your house or office. Whereas such
digital footprints may raise legitimate concerns about privacy on one hand,
they do provide valuable opportunities for statisticians, who need to inform
policy makers and the public at large. The expectations on availability and

1 See https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
2 See paragraph 75 of https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
3 See https://undocs.org/A/RES/71/313
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