Implementing the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap
The Working Group on Geospatial Information
“ We must rise higher to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals – and stay true to our promise of a world of peace, dignity and prosperity on a healthy planet…
... However, significant data gaps still exist in terms of geographic coverage, timeliness and level of disaggregation, making it difficult to fully comprehend the pace of progress towards the realization of the 2030 Agenda, differences across regions and who is being left behind… ”
António Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations
Everything happens somewhere. Geospatial information reflects the physical world in which all human, economic and environmental activity takes place, and provides the digital version of our world. It is an essential national information resource, critical component of the national infrastructure and knowledge economy; a blueprint of what happens where, and the means to integrate a wide variety of government services.
Geospatial information provides the evidence for sustainable development and national prosperity, to measure, monitor and report on progress… with geography and location… relating people, activities and events to a place… informing policy- and decision-making, and determining actionable outcomes. Now we are almost seven years away from 2030, we still have immense data gaps, people are being left behind and with COVID-19 and climate change, the challenge in front of us is greater than ever.
To meet the ambitions and demands of the 2030 Agenda, it is necessary for the global indicator framework to embrace and systematically use geospatial information, and its enabling technologies and methodologies, to produce, measure, monitor, and disseminate geospatially enabled SDG indicators.
The transformational vision and new data requirements called for to realise the 2030 Agenda have only been partially realised. The extent of this challenge has been underestimated and is further amplified by geospatial data, leadership, knowledge, and innovation primarily limited to some countries, the majority being the developed countries – the geospatial digital divide.
While technologies are evolving at a rapid pace, the commensurate capabilities, skills, and opportunities in developing countries are not, and countries are being left behind. This is a gap that must be bridged; accordingly, the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap provides simple and actionable guidance to the IAEG-SDGs, Member States and Custodian Agencies to bridge this gap.
Map: Animation of Landuse change from 2020 - 2021 of Bangkok, Thailand, based on Sentinel 2A data, from Esri's Living Atlas
The SDGs Geospatial Roadmap is a living resource that helps communicate, guide and enhance the awareness of geospatial information, Earth Observations, and related data sources, tools and methods, to inform and support the implementation, measurement and monitoring of the SDGs, according to national circumstances. It achieves this through three phases that detail how and why geospatial information is needed and how it can be applied to support countries in their national implementations of the SDGs.
Storymap: The SDGs Geospatial Roadmap
The SDGs Geospatial Roadmap's vision is “To see geospatial and location-based information being recognised and accepted as official data for the SDGs and their global indicators”
The Roadmap is a living resource that helps communicate, guide and enhance the awareness of geospatial information, Earth Observations, and related data sources, tools and methods, to inform and support the implementation, measurement and monitoring of the SDGs, according to national circumstances.
The Roadmap outlines how to ‘build the bridge’ between the statistical and geospatial actors working within the global indicator framework, through three phases for both Users (ie. Countries) and Providers (ie. Regional Commissions, SDG Custodian Agencies and other Experts) of the SDGs and their global indicators.
Map: Maxar Imagery of Bangkok, Thailand
The SDGs Geospatial Roadmap is composed of three Phases:
- Phase 1: Prepare and Plan
- Phase 2: Design, Development and Testing
- Phase 3: Producing, measuring, monitoring and reporting geospatially enabled SDG Indictors
Each of the phases helps advance the use of geospatial information for the domains of People, Technology and Governance. Each of the Phases interlinks across these domains.
Today, the Roadmap is available in English, French and Spanish. The WGGI welcomes offers of translation by Member States and other organisations so the Roadmap can be used and understood by as many nations as possible.
The Roadmap is further contextualised by national examples of good practice, methodology of production, measurement, monitoring, dissemination, and disaggregation by geographic location
Storymap: Ireland's Governance Story
The WGGI is now planning to work with all its members to develop and advance stories for each of its Member States.
Storymap: Colombia's Governance Story
As well as including national good practices, the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap enables SDG Custodian Agencies to showcase and contextualise novel geospatial methods.
Storymap: FAO's Methodology of Measuring SDG 15.4.2 Mountain Green Growth Index (MGCI).
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Adopting the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap
Following extensive development by the WGGI the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap was adopted by the IAEG-SDGs and the Statistical Commission, by its decision 53/101:
The Statistical Commission: "Adopted the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap for statistical and geospatial actors working within the global indicator framework"
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Developing Capacity, Promoting the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap
The UNSD - United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth Development Office project on SDG monitoring has been supporting countries in this regard, particularly through conducting data gap assessments, assisting countries in the development of their national SDG indicator frameworks, building capacity around metadata and user engagement, and supporting the establishment of national data platforms for SDG indicator dissemination. In the process, countries have identified indicators where data is not available or easily produced in the near term using traditional sources and methods.
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Kyrgyzstan
The mission successfully promoted the implementation of the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap, as a Roadmap that communicates the mutually beneficial impact of strengthening coordination and coherence between the National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic (NSC), the State Land Management Institute (Kyrgyzgiprozem) and the Department of Cadastre.
Picture: Meeting between NSC and UNSD
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Participants at the workshop examined the methodology and approach to using geospatial information to produce, measure and monitor SDG indicators 9.1.1: Proportion of the rural population who live within 2 km of an all-season road and 11.3.1: Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate. Enabling the production of these indicators at the national level. These indicators were identified as priority indicators based on national development priorities. Through this lens, senior members of NSC and Kyrgyzgiprozem agreed to form a technical working group on using geospatial information for the production, measurement and monitoring of the SDGs, guided by the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap. Alongside work with NSC and Kyrgyzgiprozem, mission staff also updated UN RCO and UN Country Team (UNCT) Team Task Force on Data and Statistics on continuing project activities and discussed opportunities for coordinated support. Representatives of WFP and IOM subsequently attended the workshop, informed by the UNCT data network focal point. In sum, the mission helped improve the availability and accessibility of SDG indicators, using novel and innovative approaches to data.
Sentinel 2A Land Cover/Land Use Map of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
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The workshop brought together GIS experts from NSC, Kyrgyzgiprozem and Cadastre, and statisticians from NSC previously not familiar with geospatial analysis, showing them the basic processes of using geospatial analysis to produce SDG indicators at the practical level. Participants were engaged and motivated to progress independently and perform the calculations on additional provinces. In addition to the technical capacity building, the workshop was a valuable opportunity for the three agencies to investigate what aspects of their collaboration could be improved upon.
Picture: Calculating Indicator 11.3.1: Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate
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Rwanda
The workshop brought together staff members of the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) and the Rwanda Land Management and Use Authority to discuss and apply geospatial calculation methods to selected prioritized SDG indicators: SDG 2.4.1: Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture; and, SDG 15.4.2: Mountain Green Cover Index (MGCI).
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Burundi
In the workshop, participants from the Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of Burundi (ISTEEBU), the Geographical Institute of Burundi (IGEBU), the Geomatics Centralization Office (BCG) and the Burundian Office for the Protection of the Environment (OBPE) identified mechanisms to use geospatial methods to produce geospatially enabled SDG indicators for SDG 15.1.1: Forest area as a proportion of total land area; SDG 15.3.1: Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area; and, SDG 15.4.2: Mountain Green Cover Index (MGCI).
Implementing the SDGs Geospatial Roadmap will enable countries to better harness geospatial information for the production, measurement, monitoring and reporting of geospatially related indicators. Further, this will help countries disaggregate indicators by geographic location and combine with data disaggregated by income, sex, age and other statistical dimensions to help countries with making decisions informed by data. While it is already recognised that integration of these forms of data is a critical driver that enables the implementation of the SDGs, this cannot be achieved through statistics alone in part due to the interconnected and interrelated nature of the SDGs.
Unfortunately, the call of Goal 17 to “enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing States, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts” by 2020 was not met. However, we collectively have the tools and mechanisms that will enable the production and dissemination of high-quality, timely and reliable data within our grasp.
At the foundation of this is geospatial information; from adding value to all other disaggregation to providing the key mechanism which will enable the full realisation of the overarching principle of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, namely to leave no-one behind and to reach those furthest behind first. Geographic information is the key component that can highlight groups which are currently lagging behind, whether through disaggregation of income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability or other characteristics relevant in national contexts. In sum, geospatial information provides the basis to integrate and analyse data, inform decision-making, and enable the ‘where’ needed for action. This Roadmap is the starting point to enable the IAEG-SDGs, custodian agencies and states to fully harness geospatial information for the SDGs, and in turn, this Roadmap calls for geospatial and location-based information to now be recognised and accepted as official data for the SDGs alongside official statistics.
The WGGI is now working on guidance to better enable the disaggregation of SDG indicators by geographic location. The WGGI welcomes the support of the IAEG-SDGs and Member States to implement and raise awareness of its work, so that the ambition of the 2030 Agenda can be fully realised through crossing the geospatial digital divide.
