Readiness of National Statistical Systems in Asia and the Pacific for Leveraging Big Data to Monitor the SDGs

In September 2015, the world committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have broad and interconnected social, economic, social, economic, environmental, and governance aspects. The SDGs constitute a universal call to action with countries setting forth 169 specific, time-bound, and quantifiable targets for 2030 to leave no one behind (United Nations 2015). Monitoring the 17 SDGs and the concomitant 169 targets have created new and huge demands on national statistical systems (NSSs). NSSs will have to report on more than 230 indicators in the official SDG indicators framework, with many of these indicators requiring disaggregation by location, sex, age, income, and other relevant dimensions.