The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development brought increased attention to the need to strengthen the statistical capacity of developing countries to measure, monitor and report on the Sustainable Development Goals, including the associated targets and indicators. The 2030 Agenda explicitly requests that Member States enhance, by 2020, their capacity development support to developing countries with the purpose of increasing significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts.

The global indicator framework for the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets presents a tremendous challenge to producers of official statistics. Countries must fulfill the new data demands arising from the 2030 Agenda, including defining national targets and indicators, in order to implement it. Countries need to develop and adapt their national statistical systems to respond to those demands and put in place streamlined processes to ensure the timely production of official statistics.

The Cape Town Global Action Plan (CTGAP) for Sustainable Development Data, launched during the first United Nations World Data Forum in January 2017, identified the gaps in national statistics programmes and statistical coordination in response to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Action Plan thus serves as a road map for the capacity development efforts of the Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat and other international, regional and national agencies involved in the production of official statistics.

To meet these demands, the Statistics Division organizes capacity-building events through its Regular Programme of Technical Cooperation (RPTC) and manages a number of larger-scale capacity-building projects.

The map below shows the countries that have been supported by UNSD's capacity building activities in recent years.