Background

In a concerted attempt to effectively implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the international community has acknowledged the need for accessible, quality, disaggregated data to monitor progress within the post-2015 development agenda. In September 2015, a new global sustainable development programme was launched. This programme, which continues the work of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), identifies and defines the key indicators of importance for monitoring progress up until 2030. In that context, the availability of reliable, timely, high-quality and publicly-accessible data, is seen as key for the successful implementation of the new development agenda and effective progress monitoring, as consistent with calls for a “data revolution.” It is now acknowledged that better quality data is needed to guarantee the design of evidence-based development policies, and to strengthen transparency and accountability.

In the aim of filling current data deficits in terms of access and use of quality, disaggregated data for the rolling-out of the SDGs, a group of independent experts was established in August 2014 by the United Nations Secretary-General. It is in this context that the initiative, the ‘Post-2015 Data Test’, was launched by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in Bangladesh and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) of Carleton University in Canada, in cooperation with the Southern Voice on Post-MDG International Development Goals network. In Senegal, the post-MDGs and data revolution study was conducted by the Initiative for Agricultural and Rural Prospective Analysis (IPAR), through a consultative approach that involved civil society stakeholders, public institutions, research organisations, financial and technical partners (FTPs) and the media.

Aims and objectives This second study addresses the need to identify challenges and opportunities in the test phase and proposes solutions through a national plan of actions that aims at the effective implementation of the SDGs. The results of this monitoring study will serve to inform inputs at the global level on the creation of concrete support mechanisms for the global South countries. Effective response to many of the present sustainable development challenges will require a substantial mobilisation of means of implementation, including finances, human resources and reliability of data, and involvement of all country stakeholders, especially policymakers, civil society, universities and think tanks, FTPs, the private sector, the media and the international community.