23 Mar 2016

Botswana’s comment on the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators at the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) session offered the country an opportunity to research and keep abreast with the framework development processes. 

Briefing the media on the just-ended 47^th UNSC, statistician general, Ms Anna Majelantle said African countries, through the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, held a consultative meeting in January 2016 prior to the UNSC to agree on a common position relating to the proposed SDG indicators that were to be tabled at the UNSC, of which Botswana and Tanzania were assigned to comment on. 

She said Statistics Botswana showcased some of the events that were part of the World Statistics celebrations agenda through display of videos for the launch of the Botswana strategy for the development of statistics and the Statistics Botswana corporate strategy as well as the data portals. 

Ms Majelantle said it was an achievement on their part as participants appreciated their efforts and some indicated their intention to benchmark in Botswana. 

She said the commission addressed issues of appropriate SDGs indicators to respond and monitor performance of different countries, and to come up with responsive strategies to address areas of interest. 

“The benefits of attending these meetings are that the office will participate in framework development processes and be abreast with new initiatives, revisions to methodologies, classifications, standards and new areas that are being explored towards statistical development as well as across the spectrum for which statistics is instrumental,” she said. 

The statistician general said the commission discussed statistical aspects covering demographic, socio-economic and environment statistics which included, the coordination and capacity building in statistics for the 2030 sustainable development agenda; refugees and climate change statistics among others. 

She noted that the commission drew up the resolution for the adoption of the list of global indicators for SDGs and further urged countries, the UNFPA, development partners and regional agencies to step up their support for strengthening data collection and statistical capacity building, particularly in developing countries. Ends