# **I. Introduction**

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as articulated through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has raised important questions regarding the readiness of countries and the broader international development community to monitor progress. Tracking the SDG targets and the associated indicators places even more pressure on national statistical systems than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For example, many SDG indicators rely heavily on household survey data.<sup>2</sup> However, the investments for enhancing country capacity to design, implement, analyze and disseminate household surveys have often lagged behind the demands for more and better data. Monitoring progress and development as part of Agenda 2030 will require a concerted effort on the part of both countries and their international development partners to improve the availability, quality, timeliness and relevance of the data needed to track the SDGs.

The influential United Nations Report titled _A World That Counts_ discusses how nothing short of a “data revolution” is one of the preconditions for achieving sustainable development (IEAG, 2014). Several studies have estimated the cost of monitoring the post-2015 development agenda, arriving at divergent figures. Jerven (2014) estimates the _total_ cost of monitoring the 17 SDG goals and the associated 169 targets at US $254 billion. Demombynes and Sandefur (2014), on the other hand, project the _additional_ costs of monitoring the SDGs to be a more modest, at US $300 million per year, given the existing international survey programs. Finally, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) (2016) projects the estimated _total_ cost of an expanded program of surveys and censuses, and improvements in administrative data in 77 IDA-eligible countries over the period of 2016-2030 to amount to USD 17.0 to 17.7 billion.<sup>3</sup> Within this agenda, the report asserts the need for six additional surveys, at the scale of a Demographic and Health Survey or a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, per IDA-eligible country from 2016 to 2030 in support of SDG monitoring. Each survey is priced at USD 1.3 million, and the total budget is estimated at USD 600 million for 77 IDA-eligible countries.<sup>4</sup> While these estimates have led to public debate on the role and cost of data for development, there is widespread recognition that the countries and the international development partners, including international organizations, civil society, and academia, must be committed to an agenda to strengthen country statistical capacity and to produce the required data based on international best practices, including emerging, validated, innovative and cost-effective data collection solutions.

Linked closely to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in 2013, the World Bank Group (WBG) adopted the _Twin Goals_ of ending global extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared

> 2 United Nations Economic and Social Council (2016) provides the final list of SDG indicators in the Annex IV of their report.

> 3 The GPSDD (2016) estimate is an update of the original United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (2015) estimate of USD 14.2 billion.

> 4 It is not clear whether the cost of USD 600 million captures both survey implementation and technical assistance expenditures.

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