High quality monitoring and reporting on the environmental dimension of development, including the SDGs, at the international level; (2) Analytical research and tools for better understanding the environmental dimension of sustainable development, including vulnerability and interlinkages; (3) Tools and training for capacity building of developing countries to measure, monitor and report on the environmental dimension of the SDGs. This project leverages expertise across and beyond the UN System, including the Secretariat entities, UNEP, UNSD, the Regional Commissions, and other UN Agencies but also working in collaboration with other partners such as GRID and UNEP Collaborating Centres to improve synergies and maximize the impact. As a core activity for the PoW, all aspects of this project aim at assisting UNEP-wide strategic planning, implementation and reporting to ensure coherent and integrated support to implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Main Outputs

715.1 Output A: High quality monitoring and reporting on the environmental dimension of development, including the SDGs, at the international level

Activities:

A.1.

Consolidate and quality-assure UNEP’s submission on data and analysis on environmental indicators to the IEAG-SDG for inclusion in the Secretary General ‘s Report on progress towards the goals and targets of the 2030 agenda at the global level (EF).

A.2.

Maintain a global database of indicators needed for monitoring the environmental dimension of the SDGs, MEAs and other relevant environmental indicators. (EF).

A.3.

Develop mechanisms for the collection of metadata and data on SDG indicators from countries, including for the development of databases for MEA reporting to ensure compatibility (SDG12 Hub, sdg661.app, SDG12.6.1 platform) (EF + Norway).

1. A platform to track and analyse national voluntary commitments towards the post 2020 biodiversity framework (WCMC-O5, budget not secured, 200,000).

A.4.

Support the implementation of the SDG global indicator monitoring framework, the review of methodological developments, exploring new data sources and techniques (EF + Norway).

A.5.

Serve as the focal point for UNEP to the UN Statistical Commission, the IAEG-SDGs, Expert Group on Environment Statistics, UN Committee on Environmental Economic Accounting and support the coordination of statistical related activities across UNEP and the MEAs (EF).

A.6.

Contribute to monitoring frameworks of implementation towards targets and voluntary commitments for the post 2020 biodiversity framework and post 2020 Chemicals strategies through synergies with SDG monitoring (EF).

1. Engagement by the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP) with other globally relevant biodiversity processes which are supported by indicator-based monitoring (WCMC-Output 2, TBC, 100,000).
2. Target Tracker showing the baseline and trends of existing indicators for the subjects of the draft and adopted targets (WCMC-O3, TBC, 300,000).

A.7.

Support enhanced knowledge management for open access of data (SDG Interface Ontology for discoverability of data, metadata and publications, linked Open Data and Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) (EF + Norway).