Introduction

Purpose of the project

A World that Counts: Mobilizing the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development provided a roadmap for how the data revolution might accelerate the development agenda. Prepared at the request of the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, its launch predated the General Assembly’s adoption of the 2030 Agenda—a universal, goal-oriented plan to advance global development equitably and sustainably—by ten months. This gave data practitioners a jump on acting on its recommendation to align innovations in data to the development framework underpinning the 2030 Agenda. 

Ten years have passed since the release of A World that Counts and the formal adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This seems an appropriate time for national governments and the global data community to reflect on where progress has been made so far. 

This report supports this objective in three ways: it evaluates the assumptions that underpin A World that Counts’ core hypothesis that the data revolution would lead to better outcomes across the 17 SDGs, it summarizes where and how we have made progress, and it identifies knowledge gaps related to each assumption. These knowledge gaps will serve as the foundation for the next phase of the SDSN TReNDS research program, guiding our exploration of emerging data-driven paradigms and their implications for the SDGs. By analyzing these assumptions, we can consider how SDSN TReNDs and other development actors might adapt their activities to a new set of circumstances in the final six years of the SDG commitments.

Given that the 2030 Agenda established a 15-year timeframe for SDG attainment, it is to be expected that some of A World that Counts’ key assumptions would fall short or require recalibration along the way. Unforeseen events such as the COVID-19 pandemic would inevitably shift global attention and priorities away from the targets set out in the SDG framework, at least temporarily. 

We revisit these assumptions by synthesizing published research and interpreting select country and technology cases. Our interpretation builds on the experience of TReNDS members (many of whom were key authors of A World that Counts) and data practitioners within the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) network, which was itself established in response to one of the report’s key recommendations. Our audience includes these key communities as well as others working to advance a data-driven agenda that will reinforce the SDGs.

Our report is structured as follows. The present introduction provides a quick summary of A World that Counts and distills six key assumptions that underpin its recommendations. Following this, six sections reflect on the continued relevance and validity of these assumptions based on subsequent experience over the eight years since the report’s release. The final section brings together the major themes that have emerged and suggests some concrete actions to help leverage the data revolution for the final six years of the 2030 Agenda.

How to Use this report

To assess and test the assumptions, each section in this report draws on a synthesis of available evidence along with expert input from the authors of A World that Counts and the community of practice established in response to their report. We find clear evidence that some assumptions still hold true and will likely stay so for the remaining years of the SDG framework. However, our synthesis of evidence is insufficient to validate others. In these cases, we suggest further areas of research or ways to fill evidence gaps, although we do not seek to fill these gaps in the context of this report. 

The analysis in this report is a starting point, not an endpoint. These sections are designed to serve as prompts for further discussion and thought, rather than presenting explicit, immediate recommendations. Our hope is to support colleagues and peers across the global data and statistics community, providing encouragement to continue the discussion and collective ideation for concrete recommendations.

For consistency, the report sections follow a common format as they review each of the six assumptions. Each section begins with a brief summary and recap of the assumption it addresses. This is followed by a review of subsequent experience since the publication of A World that Counts at the end of 2014, through which we synthesize the evidence available in order to assess the assumption’s validity. A discussion of the evidence and concluding reflections round out each section. 

Readers should anticipate some overlap across the assessment sections. It is inevitable that some contextual changes in the external environment will impact the continued validity of more than one assumption. As a result, the report provides a concluding section that consolidates the main findings.

 For more information on this workstream, please email castelline.tilus@unsdsn.org.