This paper examines the processes of formulation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) – ‘Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns’ – and its targets and indicators. We argue that business interests have steered its narrative of sustainable growth. The outcome of the SDG 12 negotiations reflects a production? and design?centered perspective that emerged in the 1990s and has a business?friendly regulatory approach and faith in solutions through new technologies. We show how the targets and indicators emerged in debates between national governments, UN agencies, civil society and private sector organizations – and how they reflect both the political process and technical and practical considerations in translation of a broad concept into the SDG format. While the emergence of SDG 12 as a standalone goal stems from a push by developing countries to build pressure on developed countries, and its presence may open space for attention to this area in the future, many of its targets were watered down and left vague. The indicators to measure progress on the targets further narrow the scope and ambition of Goal 12, whose current content does not adequately reflect earlier more transformative conceptualizations of Sustainable Consumption and Production.

This Special Issue usefully analyses the links between statistics, knowledge, policy making and politics, and uncovers intended and unintended consequences of using indicators to frame policy. Many civil society organizations (CSOs) were actively involved in the Open Working Group, and some have continued their advocacy into the ongoing process of developing the SDG indicator framework. Some indicators are being reconsidered; but despite repeated efforts there is still no indicator to measure inequality between countries. There is a recognized need for innovative ways to supplement already existing data. The use of proxy measurements is already underway, and initiatives such as a collaboration between some UN agencies and Gallup. The active public engagement in the process that determined the SDGs may help to resist the reductionism often evident in translating from the goals to the targets to the indicators. The 2019 meeting of the High?Level Political Forum (HLPF) will be an essential occasion to address some of these issues and to chart a correction course.

Billions of people around the world live at the margins – pushed or kept out, often in silence, without adequate protection of the law. Denied healthcare, citizenship or fair pay, those unprotected by the law have problems that are both real and relentless, impacting their ability to reap the benefits of sustainable development. Despite this crushing reality, access to justice is a bedrock principle undergirding human rights. Despite its centrality, justice was not explicitly included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This omission was corrected when the SDGs were adopted with a stand?alone goal on justice. While Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 was the result of years of political, strategic and scholarly work by human rights advocates, development practitioners and academics, its promise lies beyond the technocratic realms of development programming, by insisting that people's own experience of justice – and injustice – must remain at the center of efforts to assess progress toward a world where no one is ‘left behind’.

What is objectivity in SDG measurement? This commentary explores the complexity of objectivity in measurement when the problems are ‘global’ yet manifest themselves with local specificities. This special issue helps elicit gaps in knowledge, tools and contexts in SDG measurement. But in doing so through the lens of political economy, ‘sets the cat among the pigeons’. The key question they raise is the sanitization of measurement and its sanctification to the status of objectivity without realizing that the process is fraught with contexts that make self? interest and conflict of interest an endemic risk.

This commentary characterizes the SDG indicator framework as a ‘political thriller’ in which the power struggles are hidden behind the veil of technocratic expertise. Like a Trojan horse, each indicator conceals the theories of change and development that lie within, exerting their interpretive influence. Where the politics will ultimately lead to by 2030 – in shaping policy priorities, power structures, and knowledge about development – is for now unknown and unpredictable.

El Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD) forja alianzas con gobiernos, organizaciones de la sociedad civil y el sector privado para alcanzar un nivel de progreso “multidimensional” que se extienda más allá de los beneficios económicos. Para ello, es necesaria la transformación de los modelos de desarrollo tradicionales y el aumento de la calidad de vida de toda la población, al mismo tiempo que se preserva y restaura la biodiversidad y se protegen los ecosistemas. Esto último es crucial en el caso de la región de América Latina y el Caribe, que es considerada como una “superpotencia en biodiversidad”, pues posee uno de los mayores legados naturales del mundo según un informe del PNUD. Este nuevo brochure destaca parte del trabajo del PNUD en América Latina y el Caribe, en colaboración con los gobiernos, las organizaciones de la sociedad civil, el sector privado y una amplia gama de socios. Muestra ejemplos a nivel local, nacional y regional de cómo estamos conectando los puntos, reuniendo a los socios para implementar la Agenda 2030 y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), con la innovación en el marco del Plan Estratégico 2018-2021 del PNUD

This report explores two complementary trends: (1) businesses are increasingly engaged in impact measurement and sustainability reporting to capture their sustainability impact and (2) there is growing public sector interest in capturing the business contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on consultations with a range of companies and governments, the report offers recommendations to enable both sectors – business and governments - to work together to support the world’s sustainable development agenda.

Thanks to successful strategizing by women's rights organizations, attention to gender equality and women's rights is remarkably wide?ranging in the 2030 Agenda. But the ambition to have gender equality as a crosscutting issue tends to evaporate at the level of targets and indicators. This speaks to the difficulties of using quantitative indicators to capture the largely context?specific and qualitative dimensions of gender equality. Ultimately, some of the concerns about the huge significance attached to the measurement imperative stems from the inordinate weight that the global indicators framework is carrying, effectively substituting for substantive contestation on key policy issues and meaningful accountability mechanisms.

This paper analyses the role of feminist mobilizing in formulating the gender equality agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): the goal (5) to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ and gender?related targets across other SDGs. It explores how three key drivers shaped its contours and the effectiveness: (1) context of socioeconomic and political environment; (2) institutions; and (3) the processes of movement building. While feminist mobilizing led to significant advances in the SDGs relative to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), important unresolved barriers of financing and political opposition to women's human rights and gender equality remain and will require continued feminist mobilizing. This paper argues for the need to locate feminist mobilizing for the SDGs in the context of the history and persistence of gender inequality and violations of girls’ and women's human rights, and the struggle against these violations. This history is located within economic, social and political environments that are sometimes more open to progressive social change but often, as in the current global conjuncture, may not be.

The SDGs are important because they set consensus norms. At face value, Goal 10 sets a strong norm on reducing inequality within and between countries. Yet this is undermined and distorted by the targets and indicators which are weak and set an agenda for inclusion rather than for reducing inequalities. This paper explains this paradox as a result of an intense contestation over the framing of the inequality agenda as inclusion, focusing on the poor and excluded, rather than on extreme inequality. The paper provides a detailed account of the negotiations and argues that the insertion of the shared prosperity measure in setting the target on vertical economic inequality (rather than distribution measures such as Gini or Palma ratio) was strategic. It concludes that the political choice over the meaning of a norm is made on what is said to be a technical basis. The technical and political considerations cannot be disentangled and greater transparency on the policy strengths and weaknesses of measurement choices is needed.

El Boletín del mes de julio se enfocar en la localización de los ODS y la Agenda 2030. En este boletín, les compartimos información sobre el trabajo del PNUD y sus contrapartes que a nivel regional y nacional han sido reconocidos por lograr importantes avances que apoyaron la igualdad de género y por ende el desarrollo sostenible.

Este informe propone que el Buró de América Latina y el Caribe (RBLAC) adopte un enfoque estratégico sobre los hotspots para la aceleración de los avances de los ODS en América Latina y el Caribe. Como subraya la agenda de reforma de los ODS, la aceleración de estos implica, en última instancia, ayudar a los Estados miembros a mover la aguja hacia objetivos y metas “que conviertan el logro de los ODS a nivel nacional en la prueba definitiva del éxito”. En consonancia con el Plan Estratégico 2018-2021 del PNUD, la aceleración significa además integración en los objetivos de los diferentes Estados miembros: i) no permitir que nadie se quede atrás y combatir las exclusiones más graves basadas en el género, la raza, la etnia o el origen geográfico; b) generar resiliencia a los desastres naturales, las recesiones económicas y los conflictos políticos y sociales; y iii) promover transformaciones estructurales que garanticen el desarrollo sostenible3. Definimos los hotspots “puntos problemáticos” como lugares físicos en los que intersectan múltiples brechas de los ODS. Este enfoque no pretende desplazar la asistencia que proporciona el PNUD en ámbitos como la planificación nacional sistémica y la prestación de servicios públicos, sino dirigir la atención hacia grupos y lugares que presentan unas deficientes capacidades de ejecución, escasez de datos y débiles fuentes de financiación.

El UNSDG de América Latina y el Caribe, conformado por 20 entidades de la Organización de Naciones Unidas (ONU), tiene la misión de fortalecer las prácticas y procesos para lograr mayor sinergia y coherencia de todas las agencias y entidades que conforman la organización. De igual forma, el grupo ayuda a los Equipos de País de Naciones Unidas a prestar apoyo efectivo a los estados miembros proporcionando orientación estratégica, análisis y asistencia técnica, y dando voz a valores y normas comunes. El presente documento se formuló teniendo en cuenta los insumos proporcionados por las diferentes agencias, fondos y programas que conforman este grupo interagencial y tiene la intención de identificar los principales desafíos para el logro del desarrollo sostenible, mostrando propuestas concretas de la ONU que se dirigen a acelerar la consecución de los ODS, así como destacar intervenciones ejemplificadoras emprendidas en la región.

Facing the reality of new sources of data and statistics and their impact on measuring SDG progress, the working paper explores how to integrate them into official statistics at different levels in a uniform way. Without tackling the political dimension, does this proposal close one accountability gap while neglecting the important one between data and statistics and development progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda?

La aceleración de los ODS depende de que se obtengan importantes logros sociales, económicos y ambientales en las metas que no siguen el ritmo previsto, de modo que se beneficie a los grupos y las regiones más excluidos del planeta. Es improbable que la formulación de políticas por inercia consiga corregir el rumbo de las metas y las metas secundarias en las que los avances no se ajustan a lo planificado. Algunos de los retos más complicados de superar desde el punto de vista del desarrollo se encuentran en estados frágiles, territorios en situación post-conflicto o bolsas históricas de marginación en Estados nación o grandes ciudades. Se puede definir un subconjunto de brechas en los ODS por geografía, lugar o territorio. Existe la posibilidad de elaborar mapas a partir de datos geográficos y superponerlos en capas para ilustrar la naturaleza multidimensional de algunos de los desafíos más acuciantes. Esta nota describe un conjunto de aportaciones para adoptar un enfoque centrado en los hotspots para los ODS, con el fin de acelerar los progresos hacia su consecución.

Recognizing the critical importance of Goal 16, this toolkit provides civil society and other nongovernment stakeholders with guidance on how to engage with their governments and other local, regional or international stakeholders to support the planning, implementation, follow-up and accountability of Goal 16. Work is already underway to localize Goal 16 and its targets and indicators, and it is essential that nongovernment stakeholders actively engage with these processes. A key feature of the approach to SDG implementation will be to ensure that national development plans, actions and indicators of progress are specifically tailored to each national context. To ensure that the SDGs are truly ‘people-centred’, SDG implementation should not be top-down, but instead must be driven by partnerships and collaborations across all sectors and segments of society—including all levels of governments, civil society, the private sector, philanthropic institutions, the United Nations (UN) system and a wide range of other relevant stakeholders. To this end, this toolkit is intended to serve as a resource to support civil society actors at local and national levels to influence decision-making processes on specific plans and action related to Goal 16. Providing initial ideas and entry points for civil society action, the toolkit has a particular focus on supporting national civil society stakeholders in their efforts to influence local and national governments to work towards the achievement of Goal 16.

Target 16.3 appears to provide a good example of ‘slippage in the level of ambition’ in moving from visionary goals to watered?down targets and indicators, due to the influence of powerful interests – in this case the UNODC. However, the SDG Agenda offers an important corrective measure, by encouraging Member States to ‘domesticate’ individual goals and targets – adapting them to local circumstances. Tunisia provides a vivid illustration of how a national SDG16 monitoring system can drive national accountability and contribute to positive change on the ground – provided indicators have broad?based buy?in and resonate with local grievances and priorities. First, the conceptual scope of the Tunisian Governance Goal was greatly expanded to include a strong focus on participation and human rights. Second the Tunisian SDG16 indicator set is dominated by survey?based indicators thus placing people's voice at the centre of the monitoring system. Third, the regular publication of national SDG16 data in Tunisia has incentivized tangible responses from public officials.

The rise of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has augured profound changes in the landscape of global health metrics. Primarily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the IHME has offered donors a platform for assessing many health?related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators and a toolkit to measure the progress of different countries. The IHME's increasing influence reveals the relative sidelining of international agencies and especially the World Health Organization which has long been central to global health metrics production. This shift reflects a growing conflict between the expertise and norms of national and intergovernmental statistical production on the one hand, and the distinct epistemologies and logics of new non?state data actors. These transitions – from an international world of statistics to a more plural, global realm of data – have acute implications for the politics and accountability of knowledge production related to the SDGs and development writ large. Even as the SDGs embrace the rubric of ‘no one left behind’, the emerging data politics might be eroding the ability of poorer states to know and act upon their development problems on their own terms.

The selection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) , targets and indicators for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) can only be understood in the light of struggles to advance these rights amid a context of the growing reliance on indicators to measure progress. If the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) de?politicized inherently polemical issues in SRHR, the (re)production of knowledge of rights in the SDGs poses a subtler, but just as serious, threat. Although rights, and SRHR in particular, are apparently taken into account, the apparent neutrality of these metrics obscures politics and ideology. There is a danger that over?reliance on quantitative indicators obscures the structural challenges facing the advancement of SRHR, and therefore indicators should be coupled with qualitative information derived in context.

The papers in this special issue provide accounts of the politics and knowledge that shaped the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The open and transparent processes in the Open Working Group (OWG) and Post?2015 agenda consultations challenged the MDG paradigm and set more transformative and ambitious goals. But across many goals, there was slippage in ambition when targets and indicators were selected. In some cases, this is due to genuine difficulty in defining a suitable indicator. In other cases, there is clearly a contestation about the agenda, and indicators are used to reorient or pervert the meaning of the goal. The accounts of the negotiations– concerning inequality, sustainable agriculture, access to justice, education, environment – show how the selection of an indicator is purportedly a technical matter but is highly political, though obscured behind the veil of an objective and technical choice. The papers also highlight how the increasing role of big data and other non?traditional sources of data is altering data production, dissemination and use, and fundamentally altering the epistemology of information and knowledge. This raises questions about ‘data for whom and for what’ – fundamental issues concerning the power of data to shape knowledge, the democratic governance of SDG indicators and of knowledge for development overall.