On 25 September 2015, Heads of
States at the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) adopted resolution
A/RES/70/1 on ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development’. Heads of States recognised
that “…eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme
poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for
sustainable development”, and resolved to “…free the human race from the
tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet”. The Millennium
Development Goals had put emphasis on the social pillar of poverty. However, the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognised that ending poverty and
other deprivations are linked with strategies that improve health and
education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling
climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests. The
scale and ambition of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are reflected
by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, all of which
are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable
development: the economic, social and environmental.
In its Resolution 71/313, the United
Nations General Assembly highlighted that official statistics and data from
national statistical systems constitute the basis needed for the SDG global
indicator framework, and stressed the role of National Statistical Offices as
the coordinator of their respective National Statistical Systems. The NSO is not
featured in the Sustainable Development Act as the entity responsible to
coordinate requests related to the Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs).
However, as the competent authority in Malta responsible for the production and
coordination of official statistics, the NSO recognises the need to address the
gaps in the production of statistics for the SDIs, by inter alia
strengthening coordination between the NSO and other national authorities that
produce statistics.
For the past year the NSO has been
working to identify existing data sources and statistical products (national
and international) that are compliant with the methodologies of the UN SDIs
framework. Moreover, to reduce the data-gaps the NSO has also identified other
data and statistical products, which although not in conformity with the
methodology of the SDIs are still relevant for the monitoring of progress
towards achieving the SDG targets. The NSO has also identified other national
statistics that can supplement the UN indicators and proxies with additional
information relevant for a Maltese context.
The results of these processes
are reflected in the “Sustainable Development in Malta: Statistical Information
on the 2030 Agenda in Malta – 2021”. This publication collates all existing
data related to Malta, and presents them as statistics related to the
monitoring of the Sustainable Development targets.
The salient points of the publication are:
- 45% of Malta-related statistics are produced in line, or similar, to the methodologies prepared by the UN Statistics Division, international organisations and custodian agencies in charge of the monitoring of the SDGs.
- 18% of SDIs
are covered with other statistical information that can be used as proxies to
the official SDI framework.
- 37% of the
SDIs framework are not addressed, directly or indirectly, with existing data.
- 76% of the
data available which is used to monitor the SDGs is presented in the
publication by means of 236 charts and tables.
- The most
complete SDG, in terms of data availability, is SDG 3—Ensure healthy lives
and promoting well-being for all at all ages—with data covering 84.6% of the
targets concerning SDG 3.
- The SDG with
its targets least covered with data in this publication is SDG 17 – Strengthen the means of implementation and
revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development, with
only 21.1%.
- 50.4% of the
indicators presented in the publication show improvement in relation to the
respective targets when compared to 2010 and taking also into consideration
fluctuations in the trend between 2010 and 2019.
- 21.3% of the
indicators presented in the publication show worsening in relation to the
respective targets when compared to 2010 and taking also into consideration
fluctuations in the trend between 2010 and 2019.
- 14.3% of the
indicators presented in the publication show no substantial change when
compared with 2010 data.
- In view of
limited longitudinal data, 14% of the data presented cannot be used to assess
the extent of progress towards the respective SDG targets.