Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure to attend the 3rd International Forum on Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals. I thank the organizer for inviting me to address the opening and my colleagues in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs to participate in the Forum.
We have reached a critical point on our journey towards achieving the SDGs. At the half-way point to delivery, the global assessment of progress has found us lacking. But there are means to turn things around if we are willing to take urgent and collective action and put existing tools to more effective work. Big Data is one such tool.
In less than two weeks, world leaders will come together at the SDG Summit in the UN Headquarters to chart the path needed over the next seven years to deliver the promise of shared prosperity on a healthy planet.
But we cannot chart an effective way forward without knowing what has worked in the past and what is working now. For that, we need timely, comparable data that can help unpack and understand the drivers of policy success, the sources of policy failures and the true impact of policy efforts across various sectors and groups in society.
To borrow a line from the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023, “As we embark
on delivering a rescue plan for people and planet at the SDG Summit, accelerated action for data is imperative.”
The theme of this 3rd International Forum on Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals is therefore very welcome as it aims to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs using Big Data and new technologies.
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Countries around the world have already begun to innovate in complementing official statistics with other sources. The UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics continues to explore ways to effectively add Big Data to the mix. Some concrete examples have already been identified on targets related to clean water and sanitation and industry and innovation, and the work remains ongoing.
Beyond informing SDG monitoring and review, the Big Data community is also hard at work putting their data and research to innovative use. The United Nations Deputy Secretary-General and the President of the United Nations General Assembly recently visited China’s International Research Center of Big Data for the SDGs and were very impressed by the achievements made so far.
At the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, we are also actively collaborating with a number of partners to build country capacity to leverage Big Data. This includes collaboration with the Government of China in the work of the United Nations Global Geospatial Knowledge and Innovation Centre in Deqing and the Regional Hub for Big Data and Data Science in Hangzhou.
We will continue to make best use of these facilities and services to provide informed support to Member States in implementing the 2030 Agenda.
I look forward to the outcomes of this forum, and to the difference your discussions here can make for the meaningful acceleration of evidence-based action across all SDGs.
I thank you for your attention.