In order to accurately measure and report data on the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Barbados must enhance capacity building across ministries, particularly those offering social services.
This view was expressed recently by Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment, Patrick McCaskie, during an interview with the Barbados Government Information Service.
It came at the end of the National Consultation on the Identification of Priority Sustainable Development Goals Indicators for Barbados, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St. Michael, recently.
The consultation formed part of a programme being implemented through the United Nations Joint SDGs Fund under the theme: Leaving No One Behind. It was hosted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment, United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Joint SDGs Fund.
Mr. McCaskie proffered the view that a central coordinating body was needed to further synthesise the information from the data measurement exercises. He pointed out that the Barbados Statistical Service (BSS) was “well placed” to undertake this work.
“Currently within the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment we are seeking to restructure the Barbados Statistical Service and also building a data analytics capacity within the Ministry. As such, we have to extend BSS’ [operations] to quantify social indicators,” he stated.
While noting that there is already a Social and Demographic Statistics section in the BSS, Mr. McCaskie said, however, the agency needs to be strengthened through enhanced technology, human resources and IT infrastructure “to meet the demands of the new global environment in terms of the production and reporting of statistics”.
“This is about sustainable development and sustainable development is about people’s wellbeing.“
The senior Government official also noted that the recently concluded national consultation provided an opportunity for Barbados to evaluate its capacity to effectively monitor progress in advancing the implementation of the SDGs.
“It also prioritised the SDGs indicators for which we will dedicate resources and establish systems to monitor going forward in line with our national development priorities. We also discussed current initiatives being undertaken to advance the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals,” he added.
Mr. McCaskie stressed that the consultation was a success, pointing out that participants identified the benchmarks during the group sessions. He acknowledged that the island’s true success would be based on implementation as it relates to “our ability going forward to be able to measure these indicators that we have identified”.
He also outlined the next steps following the consultation. “We are now going to do our internal assessment and provide a report and that report will be taken to our Minister and to Cabinet for noting and approval. After Cabinet approval, the report will be disseminated to international agencies through the UN.
“We are basically trying to ensure that we keep apace with other countries in terms of measuring our SDGs progress. So, what we did is that we selected those key SDGs indicators that are relevant to Barbados’ situation and having those in place, then we can report globally about our progress,” Mr. McCaskie proffered.
He further stated: “This is about sustainable development and sustainable development is about people’s wellbeing. The theme of this consultation was Leaving No One Behind. So, basically what we’re saying here is that the Government is pursuing growth and development while at the same time leaving no one behind.”
The Acting Permanent Secretary maintained that sustainable development was about inclusive growth which factors in persons at the very bottom of the “echelons of this society”.