Resource Partners Briefing “Funding Data for the SDGs: progress made, remaining gaps and new funding opportunities”

On Thursday 9 December, the Office of Chief Statistician organized a Partner Briefing on Data for the SDGs within the framework of the Measuring the SDGs umbrella programme. 

The general objective of the briefing was to call on the international community to step up its investment in SDG data, especially on a few indicators under FAO custodianship that have a very low country coverage. Partners were briefed on FAO’s progress in providing capacity development for SDG data, and were introduced to a portfolio of new proposals that focus on specific SDG data domains that easily link to partner priorities.

The background documents, including the new Resource Partners Portfolio, the presentation from the Chief Statistician and the recording can be accessed here.

Background

This is a call on the international donor community to step up its investment in SDG data.

Six years into the implementation period of the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development, FAO’s latest SDG Progress Report suggests that the world continues to be off-track to meeting the food- and agriculture-related SDG targets. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is now being felt across several SDG indicators, whose progress has reversed or further deteriorated. The pandemic propelled food insecurity in 2020 and might have pushed an additional 83-132 million people into chronic hunger. Only for a limited number of targets is some progress being registered.

In this context, the importance of data and reliable statistics is greater than ever. Data is now described as the “new oil” – a catchy yet unfitting analogy because, contrary to mineral wealth, data is theoretically inextinguishable as well as non-rival. National “Data Strategies” are mushrooming around the world, FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31 has recognized data as one of four key “accelerators”, and the organization is moving toward an integrated governance structure for data and statistics, modelled on the UN Secretary General’s Data Strategy.

Clearly data and statistics are vital for accelerating transformative actions that will help countries reach the agreed goals. But the stark reality on the ground in most developing countries is one where data and capacity gaps for SDG indicators are still staggering, and - were that not enough - where major statistical operations such as censuses and surveys have virtually ground to a halt due to COVID. Without essential data, governments and organizations struggle to shape effective policies, encourage investments, target relief programmes, and measure progress towards sustainable development.

Investing in data and statistics is therefore in everyone’s interest. A number of innovative solutions were presented in the recent World Data Forum for funding modernization efforts of national statistical offices and therefore supporting the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. The Bern Network’s “Clearinghouse” will help match supply and demand for development data financing, whereas the World Bank’s new “Global Data Facility” will help identify financing needs and gaps and foster financing to under-funded SDGs, countries and statistical activities.

These global, cross-cutting initiatives can and should operate complementarily to global statistical capacity development initiatives in the food and agriculture domain. FAO has defined and compiled a number of proposals for actions that can help accelerate support to countries and increase the country coverage of SDG indicators. In this vein, the Measuring the SDGs umbrella programme, a global initiative, was launched in 2018 to enable partner countries to produce and use more comprehensive data on SDG indicators. While only a fraction of its total funding envelope of USD 21 million has been raised so far, the funds have been instrumental for enabling FAO to support countries in collecting and reporting SDG data, to the extent that the average country reporting rate on the 21 SDG indicators under FAO custodianship rose above 50% for the first time in 2021.

Objectives

More precisely, the objective of the resource partners’ briefing was to bring together traditional and non-traditional resource partners, in order to:

• Provide an overview of progress made in monitoring and reporting of SDG indicators under FAO custodianship in recent years
• Describe the progress made under the Measuring the SDG Umbrella Programme and the remaining funding gaps
• Describe FAO’s priorities and role in terms of addressing these needs and improving the availability and quality of data and statistics for the SDGs;
• Present a new portfolio of funding opportunities in data domains related to food losses, sustainable agriculture, productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, gender, and measuring the private sector’s contribution to the SDGs;
• Provide the space for open and frank dialogue between resource partners and Secretariat to better understand country priorities and showcase how these connect to FAO’s initiatives for accelerating SDG reporting

Speakers: 

• Alexander Jones, Director, Resource Mobilization and Private Sector Partnerships Division, FAO
• Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, FAO
• Pietro Gennari, Chief Statistician, FAO
• Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General, FAO