The SDGs represent the first ever democratically forged agreement on universal development. They will guide the global development agenda until 2030. Contrary to the MDGs, which were written by the UN Secretariat in 2000 to shape development up to 2015, the SDGs came about not through the distillation of policy agreements from previous UN conferences but through governments negotiating.
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Although the 2030 Agenda’s goals were agreed by all UN Member States, the process of selecting the performance indicators was effectively delegated to the global statistical community, which means that statisticians are defining the meaning of the 2030 Agenda targets and will thus be the ones to determine whether the Agenda is ultimately pronounced a success, a failure or something in-between.
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This paper offers insights into the unprecedented statistical challenge presented by this measurement framework and possible unintended consequences for countries, their statistical systems and the broader information ecosystem.