Year of research: 2020
SDG 16 has many politically sensitive indicators, which is allowing governments (in this case - Egypt) to not self-report accurately. Including quantifiable targets and indicators for the SDGs helps citizens hold their governments accountable for the implementation of all the promises governments make to its citizens.
The Development of targets and indicators for the SDGs is a first step forward towards more effective global governance. However, SDG 16 is one of the trickiest and most sensitive goals in measuring, monitoring and reporting. We do not expect governments to be forthcoming and willing to share data about poor governance, violations of human rights, lack of transparency, corruption, and curbing of freedoms. A lot of information is lacking and there is a clear interest in not reporting accurately, or at all, on SDG 16 targets and indicators by the Egyptian Government. Hiding information and not reporting, or selective reporting, is an obsolete practice with the open skies and open space for information sharing
There needs to be a review of the indicators needed for reporting on the SDG 16 targets: We need to get the politics out and make sure the indicators agreed to first are appropriately matching the targets, and that they are easily implementable. Having Tier II type indicators and knowingly accepting that it would take at least a few more years to be able to collect the data and apply the indicators is in itself unacceptable.
UNDP has led successful initiative for the localisation monitoring of SDG 16 in Tunisia, where a perception based ‘governance, peace and democracy survey’ is used to collect baseline data, and in the UK where a mapping occurred for all existing data sources for SDG 16
This paper was the outcome of document analysis.
Analysis limited to Egyptian government.
| Concept | Definition |
|---|---|
| SDG 16 | Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels (United Nations SDG Knowledge Platform). |
Laila El Baradei (2020). ‘Politics of Evidence Based Policy Making: Reporting on SDG 16 in Egypt’, International Journal of Public Administration, 43:5, pp.425-440
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