The meeting is a first among a series of meetings designed to articulate a relevant and technically-feasible monitoring framework that will support Member States’ attainment of the 2030 Development Agenda.
The meeting will aim to facilitate a discussion to analyze governance trends and identify main features that characterize Arab countries. It will brief participants on the latest updates from the Inter-Agency and Expert Group (IAEG) and UN working groups with regard to the proposed global monitoring framework concerning SDG 16. The meeting will initiate a discussion on technical feasibility and relevance within this specific framework and widen the analytical and monitoring framework by identifying key challenges, limitations and possible opportunities on indicators that relate to institutional effectiveness, fighting corruption and ending violence that are nuanced to capacities, needs and context(s) of Arab countries. Deliberations will assess the key aspects of how these three dimensions can strengthen social cohesion and the overall framework envisaged by the 2030 Agenda. The meeting serves to act as a resource platform for policy makers/government officials, national resource persons, and technical experts to brainstorm on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that assess implementation of national 2030 development strategies.. Participants will review governance indicators and perception surveys that are of relevance to the Arab region and catalyze the use of non-traditional data collection mechanisms (big data, citizen-generated data) in measuring/assessing institutional effectiveness, corruption and violence. Deliberations will identify existing limitations to capitalizing on new technologies of data collection; and brainstorm additional focus areas to be addressed in the next expert group meetings.