World that Counts
Quantified targets and measurable indicators remain at the heart of this political process and the SDGs present an opportunity to increase national and international-level investment in data collection. landmark report A World that Counts: Mobilising the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development which describes data as the lifeblood of decision-making:
‘Without data, we cannot know how many laos rcs data people are born and at what age they die; how many men, women and children still live in poverty; how many children need educating; how many doctors to train or schools to build; how public money is being spent and to what effect; whether greenhouse gas emissions are increasing or the fish stocks in the ocean are dangerously low.’
The data revolution remains unequally distributed between countries and people. Many people and groups still go uncounted. Issues which rely on localised collection of data, such as the incidence and prevalence of malaria, remain under-counted. The map below highlights the scarcity of reported data for the ‘Proportion of children with fever who are treated with appropriate anti-malarial drugs, one of the key indicators for the Millennium Development Goals.