Monitoring and reporting on sustainable development objectives, goals and targets; enhancing institutional capability in selected developing countries

Progress of the Sustainable Development Agenda (i.e. post-2015) is conditioned in large measureby the ability of Member States to monitor, report on -- and learn lessons from -- theimplementation of their National Sustainable Development Strategies (NSDS) and assess theireffectiveness against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is thus critical for policymakers and other stakeholders to have access to effective statistics and data, monitoring andreporting tools, frameworks and systems in order to make timely, evidence-based policydecisions. Experience from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and a recent surveyfrom the United Nations Statistical Commission illustrate the enormous challenges for, andcapacity gaps remaining within, Member States, particularly developing countries, to establishand operationalize such national monitoring and reporting systems. As Member States movecloser to adopting the post-2015 sustainable development agenda -- which aims to besignificantly more ambitious in the number of SDGs, targets and indicators, compared to theMDGs -- many developing country Member States will need both capacity development andfinancial support to transform and enhance the capability of existing monitoring and reportingsystems and government institutions (e.g. national statistical offices). This project seeks toaddress these capacity deficits by supporting and assisting national governments andstakeholders to design and adopt integrated frameworks for monitoring and reporting onsustainable development progress, including the achievement of the SDGs. It aims to do so bydeveloping monitoring and reporting tools, guidelines, methodologies and case studies. Theproject will be informed by an analysis of capacity needs and gaps in the six pilot countries,followed with training workshops and advisory missions to assist governments to operationalizethe SDGs. At the end of the project, an interregional workshop for upscaling and sharing ofearly findings will be held.