The State of Development Data Funding

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) comprise 17 goals, 169 complex targets and
230 indicators. In their scope and scale they present new challenges and opportunities for monitoring development progress, requiring a vastly expanded data collection effort. The SDGs also make a global pledge to “leave no one behind,” a commitment that requires granular disaggregation of data and data that cover populations previously undercounted. At the same time, the data landscape is changing rapidly, challenging the global community to find ways to utilize new technologies and to forge new partnerships.

Building on the work of Data for Development, A Needs Assessment for SDG Monitoring and Statistical Capacity Development, published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN 2015a), this study provides updated estimates of the cost of producing the final set of SDG indicators agreed by the Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs). It goes beyond the 77 IDA countries in the earlier study to include estimates for all low- and middle-income countries. The study focuses exclusively on the Tier I and Tier II SDG indicators for which there are existing data or known collection methodologies; it does not estimate the resources needed to develop methodologies and collect data for indicators classified by the IAEG-SDGs as Tier III.