7. How is progress towards the SDGs measured and reported on?
Commitment to the SDGs is intensifying the need for strengthened national and subnational systems for integrated monitoring, including of health programmes and performance. Maintaining momentum towards the SDGs is only possible if countries have the political will and the capacity to prioritize regular, timely and reliable data collection to guide policy decisions and public health interventions.
The 2030 Agenda acknowledges the potential for reporting overburden and recommends that follow-up and review of SDG implementation build on existing reporting mechanisms.
However, as the SDGs make clear, no one must be left behind – and national averages alone do not make it easy or even possible to ensure that every segment of society is reached. Therefore, progress towards the SDGs needs to be measured in a more disaggregated way to capture variations among different population groups.
SDG indicators might therefore be disaggregated by parameters such as income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability or geographic location. To facilitate this, the United Nations Statistical Commission is developing an indicator framework through the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators.
Follow-up and review processes at all levels are voluntary and country-led, taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development. National reviews will be the basis for regional and global reviews. At the global level, the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development plays a central role in overseeing follow-up and review processes under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
WHO will actively support Member States in reporting on the SDG health targets (see also Question 11 for specific reference to the WHO European Region). The report “World health statistics 2018: monitoring health for the SDGs” focuses on the health and health-related SDGs and associated targets by bringing together data on a wide range of health-related SDG indicators.
The effective monitoring of SDG indicators requires comprehensive national health information strategies based on the use of data from sources such as civil registration and vital statistics systems, household and other population-based surveys, routine health-facility reporting systems and health-facility surveys, administrative data systems, and surveillance systems. Some indicators also rely on non-health-sector data sources.
This is an enormous task, but it is critical to maintaining momentum and guiding action to achieve the SDGs.
