Planning minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, economist Wahiduddin Mahmud, UNDP country director Sudipto Mukerjee, Institute of Business Administration professor Syed Munir Khasru, Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management director general Toufic Ahmad Choudhury, General Economics Division member Shamsul Alam and United International University professor Hamidul Haque are seen along with others at a report launching programme in Dhaka on Thursday. — New Age photo

Bangladesh has either partial data or no data required to monitor 171 indicators or 71 per cent of the total 241 indicators of sustainable development goals, posing a severe challenge to the country’s evaluation of its overall performance on achieving the global goals, according to a government study report.
Data on only 70 indicators or 29 per cent of the total indicators are readily available with the government, showed the report titled ‘Data Gap Analysis for SDGs: Bangladesh Perspective’.
The General Economics Division of the Planning Commission conducted the study which was launched on Thursday.
The GED and the Support to Sustainable and Inclusive Planning Project of the United Nations Development Programme arranged the launching ceremony of the report along with two other reports at the NEC conference room at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka.
Out of the 171 indicators, data on 108 indicators are partially available while data related to 63 indicators are not available at all in the country, the report published in January said.
Partially available data needs modification, addition and analysis in the existing census or surveys to use those for monitoring, it said.
Though the United Nations globally sets 230 indicators to monitor the 169 targets under the 17 SDGs, Bangladesh adopts 11 more indicators, raising the number to 241, to monitor the progress on the SDG goals.
The report identified that the challenge for tracking the SDG 12 (ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns) was high as 69 per cent of data required to monitor the indicators related to the goal was not available at the moment. Tracking the SDG 14 (conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources) will also be challenging as 60 per cent of data needed to evaluate the goal is also not available.
Some 57 per cent of required data to monitor the SDG 13 (taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts), 45 per cent of data related to the SDG 6 (ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all) and 39 per cent of data related to the SDG 16 (promoting peaceful and inclusive societies) are also not available.
However, maximum data on indicators regarding SDG 1 (end to poverty), SDG 2 (end to hunger) and SDG 5 (achieving gender equality) and for some other goals are either readily available or partially available.
The report said that the challenge of data gap should be addressed through a coordinated manner to get better outcome.
At the report launching programme, GED member Shamsul Alam said that they had identified the gap of data and would take necessary steps to bridge the gap.
Statistics will play a key role in monitoring the progress and ensuring sustainable results from the achievement of the goals, he said.
The two other reports launched at the programme are: Banking Atlas and Workshop Outcome Document on Environment and Climate Change Policy Gap Analysis in Haor Areas.
Planning minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, economist Wahiduddin Mahmud, UNDP country director Sudipto Mukerjee, Institute of Business Administration professor Syed Munir Khasru, Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management director general Toufic Ahmad Choudhury and United International University professor Hamidul Haque spoke, among others, at the programme.