Sustainable development goals ‘hard to measure’
While the world's 17 sustainable development goals (SDG) are clear in their targets, accurately measuring progress to reach them is proving to be more of a challenge, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Monday.
An FAO survey in the Asia-Pacific region found considerable gaps in progress toward implementing internationally accepted norms in data gathering and statistical analysis. A questionnaire circulated to officials in more than 20 countries across the region found only two-thirds had mapped out availability of SDG related information while some had not made much progress in preparing to collect the required data.
"On average, the countries in the Asia-Pacific region have only been able to account for 25 to 50 percent of the data required to meet the internationally agreed monitoring framework from their conventional sources," said Mukesh Srivastava, FAO senior statistician at the organisation's regional office for Asia and the Pacific.
"FAO is committed to work with our member nations so that together we can achieve the SDG targets. Sound and timely statistics produced by countries are crucial for guiding policy decisions and making this happen" said Pietro Gennari, FAO chief statistician. "But there is little time to lose if the Asia-Pacific region is to meet the 2030 deadline."
