1HlG51J

Lastly, expert answers received for this chapter suggestthat the level of awareness of national level science expertson the HLPF and its functions relating to the science-policyinterface is low. This might point to a lack of awareness ofthe mandate and nature of the HLPF, or to a perceived lackof relevance of the HLPF to national policy reality. If theforum is to provide meaningful links between agendasettingfor sustainable development at the internationallevel and national implementation processes includingscience-policy interface mechanisms, solutions should befound to fill this information gap.Box 1-8. Building integrated indicators: an exampleThere are numerous inter-linkages and relationships between the various SDG goals and targets and across theenvironmental, social and economic domains. To arrive at a common understanding of what specific indicators are actuallymeasuring requires a clear analysis of terms, roles, classes and processes as well as a clear description of data flows andstatistics. An ontology attempts systematically to identify, in simple and precise terms, what the component entities insome domain of interest are and how they relate to one another. The design of integrated indicators based on causallinkages captured through the use of ontologies and the semantic web avoids the risk of extensive redundancy in datagathering and ensures that different data and statistics standards can be combined across varying time and spatial scales.Air quality, especially in cities, is important to the achievement of all 17 SDGs; and in particular to four SDGs (see thediagram below).The overarching SDG objective for air quality can best be achieved through up-to-date assessments of urbanemissions, including the estimation of exposures in urban populations and vulnerable groups, and assessments of the shortandlong-term health impacts. Existing direct and indirect indicators, plus a new design for a global indicator based onontology for urban air quality health has been developed. The integrated indicator is based on new global data sourcesderived from satellites and sensor-web enablement to provide air pollution exposure maps for vulnerable groups in cities.Source: UNEP, contribution to the GSDR 2015.39