SPECIAL FEATURE
“WITHOUT DATA, WE DRIVE BLIND” The UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 helps assess delivery of the 2030 Agenda By Howard Hudson, OPEC Fund
T he following articles were guided by the UN’s SDG Report 2022. This authoritative progress report contains over 2.3 million data points on around 200 countries and territories, and was compiled by more than 50 international and regional agencies. Yet despite the exhaustive work of all concerned, questions remain. Why are some goals specific and quantifiable (e.g. “double the global rate”, “ensure universal access”) while others are vague and aspirational (e.g. enhance, expand, upgrade)? Did advocacy influence the goal setting? Did politics muddy the waters? Or is some data more difficult to gather in certain parts of the world? The latter is a case in point. According to the African Governance Report 2019: “On average fewer than 40 percent of the indicators for the SDGs have sufficient data to track progress accurately on the continent… [and] over half of the data source types on SDG indicators on Africa are estimation, modelling or global monitoring.” The Sudanese sponsor of that report, Mo Ibrahim, head of the eponymous foundation, concludes: “Without data, we drive blind.”
Our articles attempt to switch the headlights back on to the 2030 roadmap. We shine a light on progress to-date at the midway mark. We interrogate the data – and official narratives – by interviewing experts from the worlds of research, media and international development. We then set our contributions in context, before looking ahead to milestones on the path to 2030 – including the UN Climate Change Conference COP28, to be held later this year in our member country United Arab Emirates.
On average fewer than 40 percent of the indicators for the SDGs have sufficient data to track progress accurately in Africa.
The African Governance Report 2019
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