Geospatial information data sets for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals indicated that the data were compromised for several reasons: they were incomplete, of poor quality and out of date owing to a time lag, often of three or more years. The 2030 agenda focuses on the need for new approaches in the acquisition and integration of data. The overarching aim is to improve the availability, quality, timeliness and dis-aggregation of such data in order to support the implementation of the new development agenda at all levels. The sustainable development goal indicators require the use of modern, innovative technologies, including geospatial technologies, for comprehensive, dis-aggregated and frequent data collection, across all three dimensions of sustainable development, economic, social and environmental. The use of geospatial information is critical to implementing the 2030 agenda, including the fight against extreme poverty and ending poverty. The report by the sustainable development solutions network, data for development, provides an estimate for the cost of a selection of core statistical products essential for monitoring the social, economic and environmental dimensions of achieving the 2030 agenda. Those products include surveys, censuses, civil registration and vital statistics systems, education management information systems, and select economic and environmental statistics, including geospatial data. the importance of geospatial data is also highlighted, which contends that geospatial data will be crucial for many of the environmental indicators of the sustainable development goals, as well as for the dis-aggregated analysis of socioeconomic indicators of the sustainable development goals.