Building a Local SDG Data Monitoring System for Baltimore: Insights from the US National Reporting Platform and New York City

Overview

With the growth of open data portals at the local level, the question for Baltimore and other cities working to localize the SDGS is how feasible (in terms of cost and time) would it be to create a reporting platform that provides real-time, interactive data for stakeholders to locally monitor progress towards achieving the SDGs. In cities with advanced open data portals, like New York City, publishing to the open data portal is also largely dependent on the capacity of each city agency to upload and maintain the data.

The National Reporting Platform for the SDGs, which is an open-source website with code available on GitHub for developers to potentially use for local reporting, is a welcomed advance for local jurisdictions to interactively track progress on the Global Goals.

This issue brief details the kinds of staffing needs required by a local jurisdiction to both keep the open data portal maintained with relevant data to track SDGs and for the development of a local reporting platform. Ultimately, strong leadership and multi-sector collaboration is required to sustain this level of staffing and project coordination and, more importantly, to convene stakeholders to use the platform to work towards progress and monitoring of the SDGs. 

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Written by
Seema D. Iyer, PhD, Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance—Jacob France Institute, University of Baltimore