The Financing for Development (FfD) Sevilla Commitment recognizes that high-quality and disaggregated data and statistics are essential for evidence-based policymaking, accountability, transparency, public trust, and international cooperation. It includes concrete commitments to supporting programmes that strengthen national data collection and statistics¹. It further calls for increased investment in data collection and statistical capacity-building, including predictable financing, stronger digital infrastructure, and enhanced digital governance. In addition, it emphasizes the need for open and interoperable data platforms and standards, stronger coordination across institutions, and greater use of innovation and non-traditional data sources².

While the Sevilla Commitment sets out an important political direction, implementation will require stronger understanding across ministries of finance, planning, development, national statistical offices, central banks, and development partners of what these commitments mean in practice. The Sevilla Platform for Action (SPA) on FfD and the Future of Data helps bridge this gap by offering concrete recommendations and implementation options that respond directly to the priorities set out in the Sevilla Commitment. It also reinforces the message that data systems are not only a technical issue, but a core enabler of better fiscal policy, domestic resource mobilization, investment, accountability, and public trust.

Delivering on these commitments will require action from a broad range of stakeholders. Governments have a central role in setting priorities, financing national systems, and promoting the use of data in decision-making, while national statistical offices and other public data producers are key to ensuring quality, standards, and trusted publication. Development partners and international organizations can support country-led priorities through more coordinated and sustained investments, and academia, civil society, and the private sector also have important roles as data users, innovators, and accountability actors.

In this context, the webinar will provide a timely space to:

• Discuss how to move from commitment to action by bringing together key stakeholders to reflect on what the Sevilla Commitment means in practice;
• Share perspectives on roles and responsibilities and explore how the SPA on FfD and the Future of Data can support implementation through practical, country-led approaches.
• Identify priority actions, surface common obstacles, and strengthen a shared understanding of how investment, coordination, governance, and innovation can help translate the Sevilla commitments on data and statistical systems into concrete progress at country and international levels.