4th Meeting of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the
Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs)

The fourth meeting of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) convened from 15-18 November 2016, at the headquarters of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, in Geneva, Switzerland. The first two days of the meeting were a Members Meeting, open only to IAEG governments. The second two days were a Plenary Session, with participation from representatives of 46 countries, 34 international organizations, and 41 NGOs.

The Plenary Session, which took place from 17-18 November, served to engage a wider set of actors in the issues discussed during the Members Meeting on 15-16 November. For each agenda item during the Plenary Session, the UN Statistical Division, which is the IAEG Secretariat, provided a briefing on the Members’ discussions earlier in the week. Interactive discussions followed, with participation from UN agencies and other UN system representatives, NGOs and other civil society members, and government representatives from IAEG members and non-members.

Key issues discussed included: advancing the indicators that still require conceptual clarification; selecting custodial agencies to manage data collection on each indicator; the respective roles of national governments and UN agencies in processing data for the yearly global SDG report, and the communication between them; and how the indicators can be refined with minor changes, as well as a proposed process for more comprehensive reviews of the indicator framework. Following IAEG-SDGs 4, the Group will submit a report to the UN Statistical Commission in early December 2016, ahead of the 48th UNSC session, which is scheduled to take place in March 2017.