IAEG-SDGs

Background

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development represents a universal call to action for sustainable development by 2030. It aims to tackle the most pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges of our times.

Implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets requires a robust monitoring framework to measure and track progress and provide evidence for effective planning and coordination. The global SDG indicator framework translates these complex goals and targets into a standardized set of measurable indicators. Its development has been a collaborative effort of the global statistical community, led by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs). The process of developing the indicator framework has been open, transparent, and inclusive, involving statistical experts from countries, regional and international agencies, civil society organizations and academia.

Effectively monitoring progress towards achieving the SDGs represents a massive challenge for national statistical systems and the global statistical community. However, it has also served as a catalyst, accelerating the development of international statistical standards in key development areas, increasing the statistical coverage in areas that were previously unmeasured, driving data innovation, and fostering new data partnerships.

The current global indicator framework contains 234 unique indicators, many of which are further subdivided into multiple data series, disaggregation dimensions, and categories. The global SDG Global Database, maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), has shown remarkable growth, with the number of indicators with data expanding from 115 in 2016 to 229 in 2024 and data records growing from 330,000 in 2016 to more than 2.9 million by Dec. 2024, demonstrating the strengthening of global statistical capacity and reporting systems.

Significant improvements have also been made in methodological development. In 2016, about 39 per cent of the SDG indicators lacked internationally established methodology or standards. However, following the 2020 Comprehensive Review of the indicator framework, all indicators now have a well-established and internationally agreed methodology in place. However, persistent data gaps still challenge the SDG data landscape. Geographic coverage, timeliness and disaggregation remain areas of concern.

The IAEG-SDGs recognizes the importance of capturing and documenting lessons learned from both the challenges and successes in developing and implementing the global SDG indicator framework and monitoring efforts. These insights are crucial for informing and improving future monitoring frameworks for sustainable development and other development agendas, including ongoing discussions on a framework on measures of progress on sustainable development to complement and go beyond GDP as outlined in the Pact for the Future. To this end, the Group agreed to create a Task Team on Lessons Learned from Monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals.

Objectives and Activities

The objective of the task team is to systematically identify, analyze, and document lessons learned from the developing and implementing the SDGs monitoring framework to inform and enhance monitoring and reporting processes for future development agendas. Building on existing work developed by partners, the task team will generate actionable insights to enhance data systems, national ownership, and global coordination beyond 2030.

To achieve this objective, the task team’s work is divided into two phases with distinct focuses and timelines:

• Phase I
• Phase II
• Terms of reference