Aruba has emerged as a leader in data-driven policy through a monitoring framework of indicators
Aruba has emerged as a model for sustainable development through the creation of a knowledge management ecosystem. To deal with challenges of centralizing data to a single official source to be utilized across scales and institutions, the Aruban government passed a Ministerial Decree institutionalizing the National SDG Commission and the SDG Aruba Indicator Working Group (AIWG) who released a baseline of 230+ Global Monitoring Indicators in 2021. This was based on monitoring targets through its SDG Framework and Roadmap, which help to localize the SDGs and anchor them in a national framework that can support local Aruba policymakers to deliver on local priorities.
The Aruba Sustainable Development Goals Indicators 2021 give an overview of new baselines, available time series of existing indicators on Aruba, and the analyses of trends relating to the SDGs and SAMOA Pathway. These provide information for monitoring of progress and setting of concrete national targets. The formation of a National Statistical System (NSS) and a National Strategy for Development of Statistics (NSDS) are key for SIDS in advancing their data infrastructure. A robust follow-up and review mechanism for the implementation of the SAMOA Pathway through a solid framework of indicators and statistics is essential to inform policy and ensure accountability of all stakeholders.
Aruba is a leader for SIDS to establish monitoring systems, in answer to the call from the SAMOA Pathway (112-115) as it reaffirms “the role that data and statistics play in development planning of SIDS and the need for the United Nations system to collect statistics from SIDS and calling on the UN and its specialized agencies and relevant intergovernmental organizations … to support a SIDS Sustainable Development Statistics and Information Programme”. The new SIDS Data Platform will help SIDS to advance towards these goals and implement further data-driven initiatives to help advance a global SIDS data ecosystem.
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This is a phenomenal effort, that clearly took a lot of investment of time, human and monetary resources. And other countries have tried taking on the challenges of getting proper SDG Indicator frameworks embedded into national planning, but the challenge remains: how can we make data generation, sharing and reporting a simple part of the BAU scenario? And how can there be a clear methodology of using data to help underpin policy and investment as part of standard operating procedure? This report in its conclusions states the same: the shortage in expertise, unavailable or inaccessible data, and finding ways to make this foundational to shaping policies. They want to update annually, but few countries can afford to do this annually without streamlining and longer term investment into the appropriate digital and reporting infrastructure, capacities and capabilities to make this be a smooth and timely exercise. I think this is where UNDP needs to really up its focus: building in the data capacities, capabilities, resource mobilization to support infrastructure and support the overall digital (and data) readiness to support this way of reporting against development indicators, and helping to embed evidence-driven policy making. Would be good to hear the thoughts of others working in this space!
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