High Quality Data is key to achieving the SDGs

“By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly towards it.”
– J.F. Kennedy

Last year, we published a Vlog on ‘Why Data is important to achieve the SDGs in India’ . It outlined four key benefits of data in measuring and monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

  • Data is a real-time management tool.
  • Data helps assess the SDGs as a facilitator of standards, a tool for accountability, and an evidence base for impact assessment.
  • Data plays a critical role in improving governance, transparency, accountability, and civic participation.
  • Data can facilitate strong partnerships and collaborations.

4th Wheel will be holding a workshop on ‘Identifying contextualized indicators to measure the Sustainable Development Goals in India’. It is supported by the Swedish Institute. The expected results of the workshop are an improved understanding among participants on measuring SDGs and indicator development, and an exchange of knowledge and best practices on assessing the impact of social programmes.

The United Nations notes, “There is a need to take urgent steps to improve the quality, coverage, and availability of disaggregated data to ensure that no one is left behind.” The 4th Wheel team believes that high-quality data (i.e., reliable, timely, consistent, and comparable data) is key to make sure that we move forward on the right track. If the data is trusted and shared among all actors, the implementation of the SDGs can be corrected where necessary and advance faster in the right direction. A strong data ecosystem is required to measure and incentivise progress across the goals.

Access to good quality data makes it easier and quicker for the development sector to identify problem areas and tailor solutions to meet these challenges. Without good indicators, there is no way to monitor the positive or negative trends towards achieving the SDGs, to understand where progress is being made, where innovations are needed, and which areas are falling behind.

The workshop is designed for participants to discuss data collaboratives to share, exchange and develop data since we believe every organisation plays a pivotal role in the areas of data collection, coordination, reporting, and validation of statistics for the SDGs. It shall help to create a good list of contextualised indicators as proposed by development practitioners and sectoral experts, and will promote the idea of effective monitoring and evaluation systems.

The proceedings of the day will entail topics related to data collection methods, data analysis and visualisation, big data innovations, capacity development for better data, and using administrative data for statistics among other topics.

We have more opportunities than ever before to produce high-quality data in ways that are accessible to everyone. This workshop will focus on solution-driven discussions and invites professionals to be part of this journey of strengthening data systems in our country.

Get more details of the workshop here and register to attend here.

Works cited:

Svenska Institutet, 17 June 2021, www.si.se/

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