Contact person: Mr. Jonathan Gessendorfer
Objectives
The Steering Group guides and coordinates the CES work on Statistics for SDGs. Its mission is to be a key resource providing guidance to countries on statistical follow-up to the 2030 Agenda through numerous vehicles, including meetings, workshops, guidelines, tools, websites and international collaboration. The Steering Group aims to play a pioneering role by identifying emerging issues and strategic topics for the future.
Friends Network
The Steering Group is complemented by a Friends Network where all interested countries and organizations can join. The network will provide an opportunity for its members to stay informed and contribute to the work by joining Task Forces and Task Teams.
Principal outputs and key resources
The Road Map on Statistics for Sustainable Development Goals provides a strategy on how to implement a system for producing data on SDGs and guides the members of the Conference of European Statisticians in this work. The second edition of the road map was adopted by the Conference in 2021 and published in February 2022.
The Knowledge Hub for Statistics on SDGs provides a convenient way to navigate the UNECE data, meetings, tools, guidance and other resources for Statistics for SDGs.
Groups of Experts established by the Steering Group
To support its work, the Steering Group can establish Task Teams and submit proposals to the CES Bureau to establish Task Forces to undertake concrete tasks and activities. Many of these groups have already fulfilled their mandate.
- Task Team on Communication
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In September 2023, the CES Steering Group on Statistics for SDGs re-established a Task Team on Communication. The objective of this team is to improve effective communication of the role and provision of statistics for SDGs to various stakeholders and thereby support implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
The Task Team is organizing Communication Fortnights - informal teleconferences on various topics around Communication of SDG Statistics.
Members
Countries: Poland (co-chair), Portugal (co-chair), Albania, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.
Agencies: UNIDO
- Task Team on Capacity Development (fulfilled mandate)
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The task team aimed to facilitate SDG data transmission through exchanging knowledge and experiences on the application of transmission standards (such as SDMX) and transmission methods and similar tools (such as APIs) that make the automatization of data transmission possible.
Principal Product
The Task Team on Data Transmission planned to undertake a pilot study to help countries post national data and metadata on the SDGs Data Lab in SDMX format, which will allow identification of discrepancies between national and global data.
Members
Countries: France (co-chair), United Kingdom (co-chair), Poland, United States of America
Agencies: Eurostat, WHO, WHO Europe
- Task Team on Data Flows (fulfilled mandate)
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At the April 2017 UNECE Expert Meeting, countries, custodian agencies and UNSD agreed on the need to test in practice the data flows for providing data on global SDG indicators for a better understanding of challenges and opportunities of the main actors. Following this meeting, to meet this demand, the Steering Group set up a task team to implement a pilot study involving the main actors–countries, custodian agencies, UNSD–testing different types of indicators to be reported. A second data flow pilot was initiated in Summer 2018 at the request of the CES Plenary to inform the deliberations of the IAEG-SDG and CCSA in preparing implementation guidelines for SDG data flows for the 2019 UN Statistical Commission.
Terms of Reference
Principal Products
2018 Pilot Study on Data Flows: Final report
2017 Pilot Study on Data Flows: results
Members
Countries: France, Turkey, Belarus, Denmark, Germany, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States
Agencies: FAO, IMF, OECD, UNEP, UNODC, WHO
- Task Team on Promoting the Road Map 2.0 (fulfilled mandate)
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In 2020, the CES Steering Group on Statistics for SDGs decided to establish a workstream on promoting the second edition of the Road Map on Statistics for SDGs. Later, an ad-hoc Task Team was established to produce a Communication Toolkit for that purpose.
Principal Product
Members
Countries: Albania, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom
- Task Force on National Reporting Platforms (fulfilled mandate)
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In October 2016, the CES Bureau set up a Task Force on Reporting SDG indicators using National Reporting Platforms. This Task force will document key features across several existing National Reporting Platforms and provide countries with guidelines on when to develop them.
Principal Products
National Reporting Platforms: A Practical Guide
National Mechanisms for Providing Data on Global SDG Indicators
Members
Countries: Sweden (chair), Belarus, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States
Agencies: UN Statistical Division, UNDP Istanbul regional Hub
- Task Team on Communication for SDG Statistics (fulfilled mandate)
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In December 2017, the CES Steering Group on Statistics for SDGs established a Task Team on Communication for SDG Statistics. The objective of this team was to lead work on improving regional communication of statistics for SDGs, with a particular focus on conveying the value of official national statistics for SDGs and beyond.
Principal Products
Results from the 2018 SDG Communications Questionnaire
Members
Countries: Russian Federation (co-chair), United Kingdom (co-chair), Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Canada, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, New Zealand, Poland, Turkey.
Agencies: UNDP