Enhancing capacity for measuring progress towards the Environmental Dimension of the SDGs
Enhancing capacity for measuring progress towards the Environmental Dimension of the SDGs
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has elevated the profile of the environmental dimension of development and how we monitor this dimension. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) began to implement the project on Enhancing Capacity for Measuring Progress towards the Environmental Dimension of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), funded by the European Commission. The project aims to strengthen national capacity for designing coherent and integrated policies for sustainable development, monitoring, and reporting on the environmental dimension of the SDGs, through:
- Enhancing capacity on environment statistics through training programmes
- Ensuring dissemination and uptake of the global methodologies through targeted capacity development for key SDG indicators at the national level
- Deepening UNEP’s analysis of trends at the global and regional levels, including interlinkages between the various goals, targets and indicators
- Special focus on SCP (SDG 12) and policy coherence (SDG 17) indicators
Main Outputs
Output 1:
Development of tools and training for capacity building to measure, monitor and report on the environmental dimension of the SDGs delivered in the target countries
Technical Resources
This e-learning course is a self-paced course with individual 10 modules developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (UNSIAP), and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). This course provides an overview of the importance of monitoring the environmental dimension of development, the linkage with existing statistical frameworks (FDES and SEEA), and how to use environment statistics in decision making. The modules will also provide a brief overview on all 25 SDG indicators under UNEP custodianship.
The Global Chemicals and Waste Indicator Review Document aims to strengthen the knowledge base of chemicals and hazardous waste and enhance the capacity of selected countries to track progress towards related SDG indicators across sectors. With the purpose of enhancing evidence base as well as the science policy interface, this review document responds to the need for better information to empower decision makers and stakeholders to act and support policy making for sound management of waste to minimize risks to public health and the environment associated with chemicals and hazardous waste.
MFA data sets and indicators are part of the work programme of a growing number of national statistical offices globally and the global application of EW-MFA accounts in national statistics, beyond Europe, has required the creation of a global guidance manual. This global EW-MFA manual builds on the experience and excellence of the Eurostat accounting guidelines but extends them in several important ways. The global EW-MFA manual presents a modular approach to EW-MFA accounting to allow national statistical offices with different levels of capability in accounting to establish the accounts. It addresses specific issues of resource-extractive economies and subsistence economic activities which are more prevalent in developing countries. The manual favors practicality before detail and focuses on such methods that allow statisticians to capture the important aspects of material throughput in their economy. Additionally, it also aims to establish a connection between the EW-MFA accounts established, and the environmental and economic policy questions that can be informed by using EW-MFA based data sets and indicators.
Capacity Building
Regional Workshops
- Sub-Regional Workshop on Strengthening Coordination for Measuring Progress on Responsible Consumption and Production and Policy Coherence, West Africa
When: 23-25 November 2021
Venue: Kudo, VIRTUAL
Countries: Cap Verde, Guinea Bissau, The Gambia
Workshop Report - Sub-Regional Workshop on Strengthening Coordination for Measuring Progress on Responsible Consumption and Production and Policy Coherence, South Asia
When: 30 November-2 December 2021
Venue: MS Teams, VIRTUAL
Countries: Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Sri Lanka
Workshop Report - Regional Workshop on Strengthening Coordination for Measuring Progress on Responsible Consumption and Production and Policy Coherence
When: 7 - 9 December 2021
Venue: Kudo, VIRTUAL
Countries: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
Workshop Report - Sub-Regional Workshop on Strengthening Coordination for Measuring Progress on Responsible Consumption and Production and Policy Coherence, East Africa
When: 11-13 January 2022
Venue: MS Teams, VIRTUAL
Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Sudan
Workshop Report
Technical Presentation
- Project Overview
- Waste SDG Indicators:
a) Methodologies and Data availability
b) Policy importance - Sustainable Consumption and Production SDG indicators:
a) Methodologies and Data availability
b) Policy importance - Policy Coherence in the context of the SDGs
- SCP Hotspot Analysis Tool
- SDG 12 Hub
Output 2:
Carrying out and publishing a multidisciplinary integrated analysis of progress towards the 2030 Agenda
UNEP has launched the second version of Measuring Progress entitled Measuring Progress: Environment and the SDGs. It was launched on the international day for biodiversity in May 2021 and the purpose of the publication was to explore the potential and limitations of a statistical correlation analysis between SDG indicator pairs to improve the understanding of interlinkages among the indicators. The publication also informed on progress made for the 92 environment-related SDG indicators as well as identifying gaps and opportunities for data availability among those indicators.