Knowledge Session on SDG Data Management System : Introduction to the National SDG Data Portal

SDG Data Portal, which was developed and launched by the Sustainable Development Council of Sri Lanka in 2021, promotes evidence-based decision-making and facilitates measurement of progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals.

An information session on the SDG Data Portal was successfully held yesterday for stakeholders from government, private sector, civil society, academia and international organizations working in Sri Lanka to popularize the National SDG Data Portal and to promote the use data for evidence-based decision making, planning and progress monitoring and evaluation.

The National SDG Data Portal was presented by Sheron Hewawaduge, Assistant Director of the Sustainable Development Council to the audience, including its features such as the “View Dashboard” feature to show the current standing of Sri Lanka in achieving the SDGs, the “Access Data” function to look at patterns, trends, and disparities that can be formulated into holistic policies and the “Access API” feature to connect the system with other data platforms, applications, facilitating a bulk pull of government-verified data with the approval of the SDC. 

The Director General of the Sustainable Development Council, Chamindry Saparamadu, in her opening remarks, pointed out the problem of having isolated data platforms in different government agencies, leading to duplication of efforts at times, and the importance of an integrated data platform whilst emphasizing the importance of having reliable and disaggregated data for evidence-based decision-making.

Making special remarks at the event, Ms. Deepa Liyanage, Additional Secretary to the Prime Minister emphasized the importance of timely provision of information to the policy makers and public on the status of progress of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and commended the Sustainable Development Council’s initiative to bring all SDG data available within the Government institutions to a central platform. 

Dr. Ananda Mallawatantri, Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka on Environment, Climate Change and Green Finance delivering the keynote speech at the event spoke of the importance of data in new global and local context, the concept of minimum data for Management Effectiveness Tracking towards a developed country and opportunities for integrating with global data for modeling and applications etc. 

The importance of capturing data from a variety of sources including from the private sector was discussed at length which could effectively enrich the analysis on SDG progress and gap areas in Sri Lanka. In order to further improve the Data Portal, stakeholder views and suggestions were gathered through an e-survey.