ICTs are becoming an indispensable tool for the delivery of services and for development, and their spread is supported by falling prices and advances in technologies. The role of ICTs will be particularly critical within the context of a long-term development agenda (until 2030), when ICTs will constitute an essential platform for the delivery of sustainable development. Failure to acknowledge the transformative power of ICTs will not only lead to the widening of the digital divide, but, indeed, aggravate inequalities in all development domains.
The important role that ICTs will play in achieving the future development agenda has been stressed by the ICT community, including:
THE Partnership’s proposal: ICT indicators to help track the SDGs
This proposal was presented as a background document to the
Expert Group Meeting on the indicator framework for the post-2015 development agenda, which took place in February, 2015, in New York. Most of the indicators proposed are from the Partnership’s core list of ICT indicators and they are based on established methodologies and definitions. The large majority have been endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission, which also recognized the important role of ICTs for the post 2015 development framework. A number of indicators are proposed for the tracking of several targets, reflecting the cross-cutting nature of ICTs.
Partnership Task Group on ICT Indicators for the SDGs
In order to develop and implement the global indicator framework for the Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda, the United Nations Statistical Commission created the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), composed of Member States and including regional and international agencies as observers. In March 2017, the global indicator framework, as developed by the IAEG-SDG, was agreed upon at the 48th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission held in March 2017.
Out of the 232 indicators in the global list, only seven are ICT indicators covering six Targets of four of the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet ICTs are recognized as a key development enabler. The important role that ICTs will play in achieving the SDGs has also been stressed by the ICT community, including the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) and the UN Group on the Information Society (UNGIS). It is therefore important that all areas where ICTs will play a role are measured and monitored.
With this in mind, the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development established a Task Group on ICT for the SDGs with as main objective to propose a thematic list of ICT indicators that could be used to measure ICT availability and use in sectors relevant to the SDGs that are not covered in the global SDG indicators framework. The Task Group further aimed at improving availability of disaggregated data, for the indicators that will be defined in the thematic list, in addition to the ICT indicators included in the SDG measurement framework.
The draft list of indicators was presented during the
WSIS Forum 2019. After incorporating feedback, the final thematic list of ICT indicators for the SDGs can be found
here.
