A central promise of the Sustainable Development Goals is to leave no one behind. Going beyond aggregates and averages is the first step to understanding that every human life is worth being counted.

But how can we ensure that everyone, including the poorest, women, children, the elderly, indigenous people, migrants and people with disabilities are included into the big picture? A project in the Philippines tells the story of how more and better subnational gender statistics can help protect vulnerable groups from falling through the cracks.

Between 2010 and 2020, many Pacific Islands and Territories have updated their traditional data collection processes, embracing new technologies. The island nations Kiribati and Vanuatu, among others, successfully switched to computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), a new data management system and a survey monitoring dashboard. The innovations implemented with support from the Pacific Community helped to weather the impact of the pandemic on census activities and to become fit for the purpose of tracking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Palestine paves its way towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Smart political choices for transformative action need reliable information to properly evaluate the current state of play and to determine how best to move forward. Reliable data are also essential for monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at national, regional, and global levels. They allow policymakers to understand if they are on the right track and enable people to hold governments accountable to achieving the agreed goals.

How can we make people aware of the 2030 Agenda and the important role of data and statistics for sustainable development? The Swiss team behind the Road to Bern, a project initiated by the Swiss confederation in the run-up to the United Nations World Data Forum, set out on a tour through Switzerland to find answers.

The Voices for Peace, a non-governmental organisation established in Ghana, conducted a research campaign ahead of the presidential, democratic elections in December of 2020. The campaign was created to measure the community’s perspective of peace before the elections as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic and to share the findings with local stakeholders.