Abstract

Just seven years away from 2030, it is evident that we are falling significantly short of our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs) principle of "leave no one behind." Not only do we lack official statistics with the necessary granularity for remote communities and marginalized population groups across a larger number of SDG indicators, but our data collection instruments for official statistics often fail to capture the challenges and lived experiences of these communities.

On the other hand, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has fostered a "whole-of-society" approach, not only in its implementation but also in the compilation of data for monitoring. Communities and civil society organizations have taken the lead in generating data that empowers citizens, turning them into agents of change and bridging critical data gaps for groups that have been marginalized in data collection.

To leverage the power of the citizen data, the session will present the draft “Copenhagen” Conceptual Framework on Citizen Data and discuss the roadmap for its implementation to overcome key challenges in engaging with citizens in data processes such as data quality, building trust and keeping the engagement sustainable. This initiative has been developed by the Collaborative on Citizen Data, established in April 2023 and led by the UN Statistics Division and UN Women, with members from national statistical offices, civil society organisations, human rights institutions, academia, regional and international organisations.