UN Global report_2019

Box 1-3
The Global Monitoring Framework
The 2030 Agenda defined 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets. Tracking progress towards
these targets at the global level is made possible by indicators that are consistently defined and measured
across countries. The Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators has
developed a global indicator framework that was agreed by the United Nations Statistical Commission at its
forty-eighth session in March 2017, and adopted by the General Assembly in July 2017.
There are currently 232 indicators in the global framework, classified into three tiers depending on their level
of methodological development and the availability of data. Tier I indicators are well defined, with sufficient
data regularly collected at the country level for reliable and timely global reporting; Tier II indicators are
well defined, but data are not regularly collected at country level; Tier III indicators are those for which
definitions, methodologies or standards are under development.
More indicators have been moving into Tier I over time, and progress is being made in strengthening the
conceptual and methodological foundations of the remaining Tier III indicators. As of May 2019, out of the
232 indicators, 104 were Tier I, 88 were Tier II, 34 are Tier III and 6 are categorized under multiple tiers
(different components of the indicator are classified into different tiers). 35 The share of indicators within
each tier varies across goals (see below):
9
Tier I
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Goal 1
Goal 2
Goal 3
Goal 4
Goal 5
Goal 6
Goal 7
Goal 8
Goal 9
Goal 10
Goal 11
Goal 12
Goal 13
Goal 14
Goal 15
Goal 16
Goal 17
Tier II Tier III Multiple tiers
The process of establishing Tier III indicators, while technical, may also be contingent on consensus being
developed in other forums. For example, more than 50 per cent of the indicators for Goal 13 (climate action)
are in Tier III. Currently available climate indicators are being used as proxies for monitoring the targets
under Goal 13, while the UNFCCC process continues to develop modalities for measuring the targets.
In accordance with General Assembly resolution 71/313, the global indicator framework will be reviewed
comprehensively by the Statistical Commission at its fifty-first session, to be held in March 2020. The 2020
comprehensive review will provide an opportunity to improve the indicator framework to advance the
global monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The transformative power of sustainable development