COMMENT
DATA, WORLD HEALTH DAY AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Welcome to issue number two of the OFID Quarterly, 2019. The special feature this issue – as our striking cover illustration suggests – focuses on data and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which comprise not just 17 Global Goals, but 242 different indicators to track progress on 169 targets.
The OFID Quarterly attended the recent 50th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission – the highest body of the global statistical system – to watch the SDG-related action unfold and speak with some of the world’s leading statisticians (see pages 6-18). Among our questions were: how strong (and interoperable) are the world’s statistical systems? Can progress on the SDGs really be measured with any degree of certainty? If not, why not? And what can we do to improve development-related data? The bad news is that there are enormous SDG-related data gaps to overcome. Did you know, for example, that 44 percent of countries do not have comprehensive birth and death registration data or that 77 developing countries do not have poverty data? And our interview with UN Women’s Chief Statistician Papa Seck (see pages 17-19) highlights that although we have 54 gender- related SDG indicators, we only have regular data for 12 of them.
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Better news is that: the public and private sectors are pulling together to put data partnerships into practice; resources to help strengthen statistical systems do exist; and there are many optimistic individuals and organizations doing wonderful things with data to support progress. Papa Seck, for example, tells us that he’s been working on gender statistics for 12 years and has never known such focus on improving the data. In other news, to help mark World Health Day on April 7 – which every year celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) – we consider some of OFID’s more innovative health-related development operations, including: a partnership with global disability and development organization Light for the World that is working toward eliminating trachoma in Ethiopia (pages 20-23); a cutting-edge 558-bed teaching and research hospital in Turkey’s western Aegean Region (pages 24-25); and a major renovation of the main referral and teaching hospital in Suriname, in addition to the construction of six primary healthcare centers (pages 26-27). There is more development-related news besides, about
Armenia, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Georgia and other countries and regions, including a short feature on the launch of a new policy report by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (pages 28-31) that aims to improve the resilience of refugees and host communities, while stimulating development at the same time. The report is based on qualitative research and consultations with stakeholders in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. A truly international edition of the magazine again then!
Wherever you’re reading this issue of the OFID Quarterly, we hope it inspires thought and stimulates development-related debate.
PHOTO: UN Photo/Harandane Dicko
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