Sustainable development goals ideaa

1. Sustainable Development Goals
James Evans
James.Evans@ons.gov.uk
SustainableDevelopment@ons.gov.uk

2. What are the Sustainable Development
Goals?
The sustainable development goals are a ‘to do list
for the planet that will transform the world’.
– Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the
United Nations

3. The Goals

4. The role of ONS
To
• Inform global reporting
• Indentify UK-focused indicators
• Explore and develop new data sources
231
Indicators
169
Targets
17
Goals
Sex
Ethnicity
Income
Geography
Disability
Migratory status
Age

5. Engagement Activities
In order to help ONS meet the
challenge of measuring and
reporting UK progress toward
the SDGs, we have actively
engaged with policy making
departments, businesses, civil
society and international NSIs
and organisations.

6. Nationally
Relevant
Indicators
*would only apply to the development of
temporary/proxy measures
Desk Research
- Analysis of SDPs
-Other developed countries
practices
National and International Engagement
Expert Advice
- OGDs (Consultation phase 1 and 2)
- Internal
- Non Gov Groups (UKSSD
Information Gathering Exercise)
ONS (one-to-ones)
- International (UN SDSN)
Peer Networking
- OGDs (Consultation phase 1 and 2)
- OGD one-to-ones
- Conferences and seminars
- Other developed countries’ practices
Methodological Constraints*
- Data availability
- Metadata
Draft set of nationally
relevant indicators
developed for
Autumn Consultation
2016

7. Preparations for Autumn consultation
Independently assess all
suggested UK indicators.
Partner with RSS to launch
consultation and hold series
of events.
Liaise across ONS to
inform Social, Economic
and Environmental
indicators.
Put forward indicator
recommendations for
consultation.

8. How will ONS fulfil its role?
We intend to measure UK progress on
SDGs by utilising existing corporate
programmes and projects, namely:
• Data collection and transformation
• Big and admin data
• Data Science

9. How will we harness these developing
capabilities?
Data collection, validation and
dissemination mechanism
• Data visual & analytical development
• Web scraping
• PDF reading
• Format
• Cloud storage and security
Data implementation
• Web downloads
• Excel
• CSV Files
• SAS Outputs
Filling data gaps
• Company reports
• Internet sites
• Admin data sources

10. Feasibility Study
The SDG Branch will work with a team of Data
Scientists addressing three main challenges:
• How to utilise existing but varied data sources.
• How to fill data gaps where no known data
sources exist.
• How to collect, validate and disseminate data.

11. Existing data sources
• ONS survey data
• Administrative data
• Other government department data
• Civil society data
• Trade organisation data
• Many more

12. Filling data gaps
• Google maps
• Data scraping
• Semantic analysis
• Machine learning classification
• Pattern recognition
• Social media

13. Example 1 - Goal 3 / Target 1: By 2030, reduce the global maternal
mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births
Death Register
(Admin Data)
Coroner Reports
(Admin Data)
(Semantic Analysis)
(Machine Learning)
Medical Accessibility
(Admin Data)
Transportation Network
(Admin Data)
Data visualisations
onto Google Maps

14. Possible policy impacts
• Regional specific medical accessibility
• Regional specific transport infrastructure

15. Data collection, validation and dissemination

16. Putting the pieces together
Managing and
securing data
Managing
permissions and
access
Consistent
approach to
cataloguing and
publishing data
across GSS
Developing
methodology for non
survey data
Methodology framework
for processing non
survey data
Quality assuring data
Digital Economy
Bill infrastructure

17. We are striving for the capability to:
Import external data
in different formats
Update data in real
time
Link and
compare SDG data
sets
Create data
visualisations
Quality interrogation
techniques
Be accessible to
statistical modelling
Access a safe
sandpit environment

18. Next Steps
• Consultation will go live in autumn 2016.
• The Data Science feasibility study will be completed by
December 2016.
• Agreed indicators will be in place by spring 2017.
• Favourable findings will inform a specification and build
beginning January 2017.
• We are aiming for a platform at alpha stage by summer
2017.
• Our aspiration is to collaborate internationally, use open
source code and incorporate UN guidance.

19. Questions?

20. France…
…have an inter-
ministerial
Representative for
Sustainable
Development and a
General
Commissioner for
Sustainable
Development.
…are developing a national action plan and have established a participatory
internet platform, agenda2030.gov.fr.
…highlighted their high
quality of life, but
noted that there is
work to be done,
particularly around
inequalities, healthy
ecosystems and
natural resources.

21. Germany…
…have a State
Secretaries Committee
for Sustainable
Development, chaired by
the head of the Federal
Chancellery.
Their work is monitored
by the Parliamentary
Advisory Council on
Sustainable Development
and an independent
Council for Sustainable
Development.
…are revising their National Sustainable Development Strategy in light of
Agenda 2030's ambition and goal structure, to be completed in autumn 2016.
The strategy contains national goals and indicators that allow them to
'measure progress and identify any wrong turns in policy'.

22. Finland…
…are drafting a
national action plan,
which will identify
strengths as well as
gaps and challenges.
Their national
Sustainable
Development
Indicators will be
revised to
complement the
global
indicators.
…are setting up an Indicator Network, comprising representatives
from statistics, research, policy and stakeholder groups.

23. Norway…
The government
has identified
issues across the
3 pillars -
economy,
society,
environment -
that need
addressing
nationally.
The Prime
Minister is co-
chair of the UN
Secretary
General's SDG
Advocacy
Group.