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SDSN Malaysia Conducts Special Briefing on its SDG State-level Dashboard to Malaysian Policy-makers

By Amirah Majid

Since the launch of its SDG Monitor , a state-level dashboard for SDG performance, in May, SDSN Malaysia was invited to conduct a briefing on the use and benefits of this dashboard to one of its member institutions’ interested staff and students. On July 22, upon the request, a special briefing was conducted for the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), the government agency responsible for the collection, interpretation, and dissemination of real time data and the monitoring of national economic performance and social development.

This briefing was conducted by the SDG Monitor lead, Danesh Prakash Chacko from the network’s host institution, the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development. The main objective was to communicate to the agency how the data collected by DOSM has been utilized and provide an opportunity for DOSM to ask questions about the project itself. Senior representatives, the Principal Assistant Director and Assistant Director of the agency, were both present.

The following key points were highlighted in this special briefing:

  • The geographical scope and focus of the SDG Monitor in order provide context on how indicators were chosen;
  • The hybrid approach using SDG indicators from the United Nations and Sustainable Development Report (SDR) list, while highlighting issues with definition and difficulty in finding data for the UN SDG indicator list;
  • Data sources where the data by DOSM constituted around 2/3 of indicators assessed for this project;
  • Demonstration of how data by DOSM is embedded in the indicator level rating maps

The need for the government to set clear targets/thresholds for every indicator was highlighted by Chacko and next steps included the need for continued discussions to take place between the government agency and SDG Monitor team on which UN SDG indicators are not relevant to Malaysia for the purpose of data collection.

SDSN Malaysia plans to continue to conduct more outreach exercises and work closer with the government, like the Economic Planning Unit, on how the SDG Monitor can be a tool to inform and complement the work of policy-makers in the country.