Bottom-up Accountability for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Are subnational indicator systems aligned?

In this briefing note, we use provincial indicator sets as a test case for evaluating alignment with the new Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators.

Based on a series of governmental, expert and stakeholder discussions, 231 SDG indicators have been identified—151 of which are considered well-established indicators already reported on by many statistical agencies. Though many of the indicators will only be reported at a national level, many will be based on data collected at the subnational level, and it is intended that, where relevant, all indicators be disaggregated by geographic location. Ultimately, there remain many questions about how monitoring will be done at the subnational level, how data will be aggregated, and how to manage the collection and reporting of such a large number of indicators.

To see if subnational indicator sets are reporting on similar types of indicators and themes, and to examine the extent to which subnational indicators may align with the SDG indicators, we use provincial indicator sets as a test case for evaluating alignment with the new SDG indicators.