Measuring progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 16 for peace and justice

Today, a coalition of international organisations – including Saferworld– launched a website that tracks progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 16, which commits global leaders to promoting ‘peaceful and inclusive societies’.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to address a range of needs – from reducing poverty and improving healthcare to making institutions more transparent and accountable. Among these, SDG 16 focuses on building peaceful, just and inclusive societies, committing governments around the world to take action and monitor levels of peacefulness across a broad range of targets.  

Measuring progress toward the achievement of SDG 16 effectively will be a key challenge. It will take time for official statistical agencies to generate the capacity to measure the SDGs - and they will need to develop partnerships with independent organisations and third party monitors to complement what they can do themselves. That is why Saferworld, along with its coalition partners, has set up the SDG16 Data Initiative to showcase currently available data for SDG 16. The data is collected from a variety of sources – both official and independent nongovernmental. It is then compiled and presented for easy viewing on the website, where users can compare targets across countries and regions.

“The SDG16 Data Initiative condenses available data and makes it available in one easily accessible place,” said Thomas Wheeler, a Conflict and Security Adviser with Saferworld. “It will help us to identify gaps and to focus attention and resources where they are most needed.”

Today’s launch of the website at the United Nations headquarters in New York during this week’s High-Level Political Forum will be attended by national statistical agencies, civil society groups, UN officials and government stakeholders. The coalition invites feedback from users to further improve and develop the website.

Learn more about Saferworld’s engagement on the 2030 Agenda here or visit the SDG16 Data Initiative website here and leave comments on how you think it could be improved.

“The SDG16 Data Initiative condenses available data and makes it available in one easily accessible place”

Thomas Wheeler