On October 15, 2014, the SDSN in partnership with the UN Statistics Division, the World Bank, Paris21, the Center for Global Development, Simon Fraser University, and the Gates Foundation, convened a meeting on a needs assessment for SDG monitoring and statistical capacity development.

The meeting responded to three unique political opportunities; the creation of the Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution, which will deliver recommendations on November 6, 2014, the Financing for Development Conference, which takes place in Addis Ababa in July, 2015, and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Summit in September 2015.

These events offer a platform to make the case for increased investments in development data, but to do so the statistical community need agree upon a robust estimate of resource needs. Over the course of this half-day meeting, participants considered the innovations and investments that are required to provide comprehensive, interoperable and frequent development data, to monitor the SDGs.

They reviewed cost estimates for key statistical tools and discussed a methodology to reconcile these estimates. Participants at the meeting, including select members of the IAEG, agreed to form a working group that will develop an initial estimate of resources requirements by early 2015.

SDSN will be coordinating this work and will put out a report in early January 2015 for public consultation. The report will be finalized ahead of the FfD Conference in July 2015. As agreed at the meeting, the objective of this report is to make an investment case and to tell a story about the power and utility of development data, effectively produced, analyzed and disseminated to policy-makers and the public.

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