Data Revolution: Is Latin America Prepared and Ready to Engage?

Suzana M. Cavenaghi, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE)

In light of the ongoing discussion of the post 2015 Agenda that suppose to jointly consider the agreements of many recent reviewed agendas as the Environment, Population and Development, Human Rights, among others, data to monitor progress for a better world becomes the star of the time. For developing countries, where economic inequality, internal heterogeneity and cultural diversity are always strong characteristics, the national capacity to produce the needed data for monitoring progress is a challenge that will take more than a large amount of technological advance. The objective of this paper is twofold. From one side will discuss if a handful of indicators of the big basket of the Sustainable Development Goals, proposed by the United Nations Groups set up to discuss the post 2015 agenda, are prone to measure and monitor the set of goals established in the agenda. Mainly, discussing the property of these indicators taking into account an approach of SMART (specific, measurable, appropriate and timely) indicators. The second purpose is to analyze if available data from administrative records, surveys and censuses produced in Latin American countries are suitable to produce these indicators. The periodicity and the level of social and geographical disaggregation, utilizing different countries as case studies, will also be discussed. The paper ends point out to measures that are needed in order to produce indicators that inform public policies but that are not cumbersome to data producers, taking note of financial and human resources and national capacity available in the region.