Capacity Development

Introduction

In January 2018, the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) hosted a Conference on National Reporting and Dissemination Platforms that resulted in a set of comprehensive principles and guidelines for the development of platforms for the reporting of SDG indicators. These principles and guidelines underline, among other things, the importance of integrating open data principles and data interoperability standards in the establishment of national platforms for the SDGs.

The value of national SDG data and metadata platforms is greatly increased by the incorporation of open data principles and data interoperability standards. These principles and standards allow users to seamlessly access, integrate, analyze and use SDG data for decision making. Thus, building on the outcome of the Conference, the United Nations Statistics Division has worked closely with various partners in multiple initiatives to promote and enable the implementation of open data and interoperability for SDG data reporting.

As part of these efforts, open data principles and interoperability standards are being incorporated into the capacity-building activities organized in the context the UNSD-DFID project on SDG reporting. In particular, UNSD is working with partners and identifying synergies with related initiatives in order to introduce open data and data interoperability principles, standards and best practices into the training workshops and technical assistance missions held at national level. These topics will also be included in the set of e-learning materials being developed to assist countries in implementing their national SDG data and metadata reporting platforms.