African countries urged to invest in research for sustainable development

African countries have been called upon to come up with ways of sharing statistics and receiving data on the implementation and success of the SDGs.

Africa’s Continental Workshop on Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and Governance of SDGs organized by the African Union Peer Review Mechanism Secretariat (APRM) with the Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa (SDGC/A) is underway in Kigali to discuss this and more.

Experts believe that African countries to date only share their data and statistics on SDGs implementation at a rate of 40%. This comes at a time when only 50% of the countries have conducted development research in the last 20 years.  

The lack of infrastructure and systems to collect data to measure the Sustainable Development Goals continues to be the biggest hindrance to the voluntary national reviews of many African countries.

This was said in a two-day meeting, hosted in Kigali, that brought together different African union member states.

The voluntary National Reviews help countries to engage in a self-assessment exercise towards the annual progress of the attainment of the SDGs.

Since the establishment of the SDGs, only 35 countries, Rwanda included, have submitted their Voluntary National Reviews.

According to Yousouf Murangwa, the Director-General of the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, the government has made heavy investments to ensure that quality data is available.

Data from African countries is not only scarce, but it is also highly politicized. This is according to the CEO of the African Peer Review MechanismEddy Maloka.

Apart from Data, SDG Financing has also been a major deterrent to the realization of the SDGs in African countries. Dr. Belay Begashaw, the Director-General of the SDG Center for Africa, said that an African based fund will be established as part of the solution adding that the political goodwill of different countries will be required.

The two day meeting aims to take stock of the progress of the African Union Member states towards the implementation and reporting on the Agenda 2030 SDGs as well as Agenda 2063.