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Richard Nyamanhindi Our Children, Our Future
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have galvanised governments, civil society and development partners around ending extreme poverty in all its forms. Though extreme poverty remains widespread, the MDGs have made a huge contribution, particularly in public health and education, where dramatic

progress has been made.

As stakeholders begin to debate a fresh set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) up to date data and metrics are going to be very critical for the new goals that will be adopted at a summit in New York in September 2015. Currently, the inter-governmental open working group on the SDGs is considering a list of 17 goals and 149 targets.

With 2030 as the target date, the SDGs will focus on ending extreme poverty worldwide.

In addition, the new goals will also need to address the challenges of social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

Since no country has yet achieved all three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental), the SDGs will need to be universal goals.

But the SDGs must also do much better than the MDGs.

The latter failed to become real-time management tools for governments, civil society organisations and development partners. MDG data usually arrived with long delays. For example here in Zimbabwe, before the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2014, Zimbabwe’s most recent data on the social sectors dated back to 2010.

Most countries especially those in the developing world lack metrics for some important MDG priorities.

These shortcomings are no coincidence.

When the MDGs were promulgated at the beginning of the millennium, data and metrics were a mere afterthought. For instance, it took several years to compile a list of MDG indicators.

Too little time and effort were spent on filling indicator gaps and ensuring real-time monitoring.

Now is also the time to mobilise political and financial commitments to support better data for the SDGs.

The MICS Final Report launched in March to provide important data in the social sectors will be critical in accelerating problem-solving for the development of the SDGs.

The report which is being launched in the other provinces of the country this week makes four important argu- ments.

First, the results outlined in the MICS Report map well to the 17 focus areas considered by the open working group on the SDGs, the goals proposed by the high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda and other reports. This means Zimbabwe already has a good starting point on the contours of the SDGs and can develop the indicator framework now without delay.

Of course, these indicators will need to be aligned with the SDGs that will finally be adopted in September 2015.

Second, with a set of up-to-date data the number of SDG indicators need to be limited. Globally, about 900 indicators have been proposed and a lot of development agencies are struggling to bring these down to 100.

Civil society feel this number is too high. Since most targets have more than one indicator, Zimbabwe can take advantage of the data provided in reports such as the MICS and the Disability Survey released early this year and from these propose more manageable and practical targets.

Third, Zimbabwe and the other countries in the region will need to report annually on the vast majority of SDG indicators. Annual reporting will be a huge challenge, but it can be met by being innovative and mobilising modern technologies such as mobile phones, by learning from best practice and by giving the most recent data and metrics especially through agencies such as the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency (Zimstat) the attention they need.

Fourth, it is already clear which indicator gaps need to be filled by the end of 2015. Examples include metrics for multidimensional poverty among others which were not tackled by the MICS.

As a country we hope we will continue to have fresh data such as that provided by the MICS for crafting the SDGs and for continued monitoring of progress after 2016 so that policymakers can take the necessary steps and make the SDGs a success.