Close monitoring needed to achieve 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — DOSM

TheEdge Thu, Dec 10, 2020 04:49pm - 3 years View Original


KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 10): With just 10 years left to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a close monitoring is essential to ensure Malaysia is on the right track to achieve the agenda.

Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators are crucial to help monitor the progress towards sustainable development, develop implementation strategies, allocate resources accordingly and ensure the accountability of all stakeholders.

Hence, he said the newly-launched DOSM's “SDG Indicators, Malaysia, 2019” report will provide evidence on SDG progress and thus become an evaluation tool towards the 2030 Agenda.

“Malaysia has achieved a better level of indicator availability with the addition of 37 new indicators and 18 indicators at the district level.

“This, in turn, can help in the measurement and monitoring of the SDGs at the smallest area. Over 72% of the data are from other ministries and agencies while 28% data are from the DOSM,” he said during the launch of the SDG report today.

Mohd Uzir said three goals achieved the highest data availability, namely Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being (86%), Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (83%) and Goal 4: Quality Education (75%).

Meanwhile, nine goals which have reached the level of data availability exceeding 50% are Goal 1: No Poverty; Goal 2: Zero Hunger; Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being; Goal 4: Quality Education; Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy; Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth; Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; Goal 13: Climate Action and Goal 17: Partnerships To Achieve The Goal. 

Goals that record data availability of less than 30% are Goal 11: Sustainable Cities And Communities and Goal 16: Peace And Justice Strong Institutions. 

SDGs integrate and balance five focus areas, namely People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership.

”For the People focus area, the overall incidence of poverty improved from 7.6% (525,743 households) in 2016 to 5.6% (405,441 households) in 2019.

“Prosperity focus area showed the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at constant prices in 2019 grew 3.9% compared to 3.6% in 2018,” he said, adding that there were seven states which GDP outpaced the national level, namely Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Negeri Sembilan, Labuan, Perlis, Kedah and Kelantan.

He said the proportion of the forested area has decreased by 0.3 percentage point to 55.3% in 2018 compared to 2017 (55.6%) for the Planet focus area, with the highest proportion of forested area being in Sabah with 64.5% and the lowest recorded by Melaka with 3.3%.

The number of intentional homicide cases remained unchanged at 1.0 case per 100,000 population in 2019 compared to 2018.

Selangor recorded the highest number of intentional homicide cases in 2019 with 1.4 cases per 100,000 population, while Terengganu registered the lowest number of intentional homicide cases with 0.1 case per 100,000 population.

He said the indicator development effort will be continued to reduce the data gaps for an inclusive SDG monitoring with the commitment from the relevant ministries and agencies.

“The DOSM will also pursue engagement with civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academia related to SDG data sharing,” he added.

For the purpose of disseminating and sharing data related to SDGs, the DOSM has launched the National SDG Progress Monitoring System (SDG Dashboard) in March 2019 consisting of 81 statistical indicators.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Civil Society Organisations (CSO)-SDG Alliance co-chair Prof Datuk Denison Jayasooria said for 2021, the All-Party Parliamentary Group Malaysia on SDGs (APPGM-SDGs) is proposing to include an additional 20 parliamentary constituencies, which would be in the states that are not covered in 2020.

“The pilot 10 constituencies of 2020 will undergo phase two of SDG localisation in 2021,” he said.

A sum of RM5 million is allocated for 2021’s activities including for awareness and capacity building; mapping, research, documentation and publication; community projects; coordination of APPGM-SDGs; and contingencies.

“APPGM-SDGs illustrates a bi-partisan action in localising SDGs. The field visits and local consultations illustrate that local people know the issues and what solutions need to take place,” he noted.

Previously, the DOSM has published the “Initial Assessment of the SDG Indicators for Malaysia, 2018” which present preliminary assessment of the availability of data for 244 SDG indicators in Malaysia.

The first report of SDG Indicators, published in 2019, consisted of 99 indicators with available status.

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