The Sixth Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development held in Suva, Fiji in 6-7 December 2022, provided an important opportunity for the Pacific participants to highlight the key challenges and opportunities of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Participants emphasized the need for guidance in developing a realistic/rational set of indicators that could be used by small islands developing States (SIDS) to report on the SDG’s, other global and regional sector- specific reporting needs, as well as meet their own national reporting requirements. In particular, the challenge of producing adequate and coherent data to report progress against the SDGs was advocated.

The Strategic Framework for Pacific Statistics, 2022-2030, developed under the leadership of the Pacific Community (SPC), includes a relevant outcome under the Key Focus Area 2 “All PICTs are producing and disseminating (either in-house  or  through TA) an agreed core set of high-quality economic, social, and environmental statistics in  a timely and user-friendly manner in line with national priorities and are integrating SDGs and regional/global reporting requirements”. Guidance tools for supporting the production of a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics have been developed, however, no single framework or guidance tool is available to allow Pacific policymakers, planners and statisticians to best develop this “core set” of high-quality and timely statistics. Pacific National Statistical Systems and Planning Offices continue to face funding and capacity constraints to effectively develop and maintain a “core set” or ensure their use can be maximized for policy and planning implementation and monitoring.

The key objective of the EGM will be to commence the formulation of a set of guidance notes to assist countries in the Pacific subregion to first better understand the internal and external demands placed on their National Statistical Systems with respect to indicator requirements, and secondly to identify potential approaches that could be taken to best address the challenges faced by small, often underfunded National Statistical Systems. A particular focus will be to ensure a nationally led and tailored approach, by receiving extensive inputs from national experts, especially  senior officials from National Statistics Offices (NSOs) and Planning Departments, who best understand the capacities within their country, and the ever changing challenges faced with this element of their work, and then guide the follow-up activities.