IMPROVING LIVES THROUGH DATA ECOSYSTEMS
Tracking South Africa’s Sustainable Development Goals
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) launched a new online data portal to enable tracking of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) on 2 December 2019 at ISIbalo House in Pretoria. As the country’s supplier of official statistics, Stats SA is continuously working towards finding new and inventive ways of making data accessible to stakeholders, government and the general public.
In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by South Africa and 192 other countries at the Sustainable Development Summit. The new agenda, entitled “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, was agreed upon by the 193 member states of the United Nations, and includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets.
South Africa produced a SDG Baseline report in 2017 and a Country Report in 2019, which contain all available indicators, using official and other statistics. The Goal Tracker platform presents the data in these reports in a visual format.
The Goal Tracker platform will give citizens, government and policymakers a means to track progress made towards achieving the SDGs, identify gaps and ultimately detect areas where greater action is needed. With Goal Tracker, SDG data will be accessible and publicly available in an interactive format for those who want or need to use it.
Goal Tracker will enable stakeholders to learn more about policies related to achieving the SDGs by 2030; give easier access to data ensuring increased transparency; and provide improved tools for decision-making, resource allocation and enhanced collaboration between all stakeholders, national, regional and international, and the broader SDG community.
The portal uses easy-to-understand visualisations, where large datasets are transformed into actionable information useful for evidence-based decision-making, and ensures greater openness and accountability around the implementation of the Global Goals and targets.
The new Goal Tracker will be kept up to date with the most recent data and SDG developments through to the end of the 2030 Agenda.
The portal will be useful to a broad user base, from the general public who are interested in learning key facts about the SDGs in South Africa, to technical experts who are interested in producing complex analytical outputs that could shape national policies towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Although the Global SDG framework has a total of 232 indicators, countries could generally only report on 199 of these, since these had agreed standards and methodologies. South Africa was able to report on 128 (64%) of the 199 reportable indicators. In addition, the country reported on an additional 26 indicators that were not part of the original set of SDG indicators.