Proper measurement and reporting in sustainable development helps to strengthen sound policy decision making. ©FAO/Petterik Wiggers

19 June 2019, Addis Ababa. Despite significant efforts at national and regional levels, the timely and reliable measurement of the progress of African countries against the targets of the UN’s 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development requires improvements. To address this challenge, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) jointly held a regional capacity-building workshop on monitoring of SDG Indicators in Eastern Africa from 10-14 June 2019 in Addis Ababa.

In his opening statement, Germame Garuma, Director General of Agricultural Extension Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture of Ethiopia, stressed on the importance of capacity building in monitoring sustainable agricultural development. “This includes increasing sufficient quality capacities to monitor and report various areas of interest such as increasing productivity, conservation of resources, reducing food losses, integrating agricultural productivity increases with social protection initiatives, and eliminating undernourishment,” he said.

Welcoming representatives from nine countries and various partner agencies, Fatouma Seid, FAO Country Representative to Ethiopia, highlighted how a proper measurement and reporting in sustainable development helps to strengthen countries’ ability to make policy decisions based on sound evidence. Seid added, “capacity building interventions such as this workshop, beyond helping build national efficiencies to monitor sustainable development, also aid the synergizing of efforts at national and regional levels to maximize the impact of development efforts.”

On her part, Siboniso Moyo, ILRI Director General’s Representative in Ethiopia, said that the motive for the world coming together to launch the SDGs, in which agriculture features prominently, is in response to rising food demands vis-á-vis climate change and increasing depletion of natural resources. She further added “The 2030 Agenda deals with the means required for the implementation of the goals and targets. These include the mobilization of financial resources as well as capacity-building and the deployment of environmentally sound technologies.”

The workshop focused on identifying effective approaches to collecting data, monitoring targets and measuring progress for sustainable development. It delved into food security and agriculture indicators, in an effort to help countries measure the progress they are making towards achieving objectives and understanding areas to prioritize in resource allocation. Recognizing this, Aberash Tariku, Deputy Director of Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia, said that countries like Ethiopia are keen on learning on the methodology and means of producing timely and reliable statistics to provide evidence-based information for impact on policy for sustainable development.

The participants of the regional capacity-building workshop elaborated recommendations, including the need to work on synergies between monitoring efforts related to the SDGs Agenda and the Malabo Declaration, for an insightful assessment of both aspirations. Another key recommendation made was the critical role of enhanced technical and financial support to countries together with the need to invest in statistical systems and tools for monitoring progress at the country, regional and international levels.