95
Consequently, the group determined that a measure of liquid asset poverty should be included as
an indicator to track the city’s progress in achieving SDG 1, over a more basic measure of income
poverty. There are clear benefits to tailoring the
IAEG indicators to make them more locally relevant and useful for policy purposes; however,
the wide variation in SDG indicators being used
across cities, and very different approaches being
utilized to identify new indicators or proxies for
SDG outcomes in different cities, presents challenges when seeking to review local, regional, or
aggregate national progress and/or to use local
data to complement national SDG monitoring
efforts.
7.10 Local SDG Monitoring Is
Encouraging the Use of New
Data Sources and Is
Supporting the Push
for Open Data
Across all of the cities studied, acute data gaps
were identified where both federal and local data
were missing for key SDG dimensions, for example, timely, disaggregated measures of maternal
mortality. City stakeholders expressed their
eagerness to fill these gaps as soon as possible,
rather than waiting for the production of additional official statistics from the National
Statistical Office or local government. City stakeholders would utilize new methodologies and
external partnerships, even though these processes are costly and time-consuming. In San
Jose, for example, Stanford University provided
a prototype dashboard to the city, of the kinds of
block-level analysis that could be done using
third-party data on vehicle miles traveled and
workers commuting time. Specifically, they used
LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics
(LODES) and the Google Maps Directions API
to estimate the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by
both residents and workers who drive alone to
and from individual block groups.
16
Discussions
16 Ouyang, D. and J. Lundquist (2017) ‘Data Tools for the
California Bay Area’, SDSN TReNDS Working Paper.
on new data sources and methods were active in
all of the cities studied, though few had actively
started curating third-party data over time, suggesting the challenges of finalizing methods and
brokering fair, secure, and sustainable agreements with third-party data providers.
17
In all of the cities studied, local stakeholders
were eager to set up SDG data monitoring mechanisms and platforms which would enable easy
tracking of SDG progress. Academic partners in
San José and Baltimore are currently in the process of researching and setting up SDG data systems for the cities, which are open source, align
with existing datasets, and provide user-friendly
visualization tools for policy-makers and public
citizens. Additionally, in New York, groups like
Measure of America are looking at how to expand
their current open-source city dashboards to also
map the city’s OneNYC and SDG indicators. All
three cities are considering methods for integrating these with the US’s national reporting platform for the SDGs. In every case, city stakeholders
expressed the necessity to make the data dashboards open source and readily accessible for
government policy-makers and planners, as well
as local residents so they might use the dashboard
to track progress within their communities and
hold city representatives to account.
7.11 Conclusion: A Twin
Monitoring Approach
for City-Level Action
and Political Engagement
This chapter has reflected upon two different
methodologies for local SDG monitoring,
employed by SDSN and its local US partners.
The first method involved a centralized, topdown review of comparable cross-national indicators and the subsequent compilation of a US
tent/uploads/2017/09/180123-trends-brief-sanjose-sdgplatform.pdf
17 As further discussed in SDSN TReNDS’ related project
trends.org/blog/2019/1/22/introducing-contracts-datacollaboration
7 Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to the SDG Monitoring Challenge
Consequently, the group determined that a measure of liquid asset poverty should be included as
an indicator to track the city’s progress in achieving SDG 1, over a more basic measure of income
poverty. There are clear benefits to tailoring the
IAEG indicators to make them more locally relevant and useful for policy purposes; however,
the wide variation in SDG indicators being used
across cities, and very different approaches being
utilized to identify new indicators or proxies for
SDG outcomes in different cities, presents challenges when seeking to review local, regional, or
aggregate national progress and/or to use local
data to complement national SDG monitoring
efforts.
7.10 Local SDG Monitoring Is
Encouraging the Use of New
Data Sources and Is
Supporting the Push
for Open Data
Across all of the cities studied, acute data gaps
were identified where both federal and local data
were missing for key SDG dimensions, for example, timely, disaggregated measures of maternal
mortality. City stakeholders expressed their
eagerness to fill these gaps as soon as possible,
rather than waiting for the production of additional official statistics from the National
Statistical Office or local government. City stakeholders would utilize new methodologies and
external partnerships, even though these processes are costly and time-consuming. In San
Jose, for example, Stanford University provided
a prototype dashboard to the city, of the kinds of
block-level analysis that could be done using
third-party data on vehicle miles traveled and
workers commuting time. Specifically, they used
LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics
(LODES) and the Google Maps Directions API
to estimate the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by
both residents and workers who drive alone to
and from individual block groups.
16
Discussions
16 Ouyang, D. and J. Lundquist (2017) ‘Data Tools for the
California Bay Area’, SDSN TReNDS Working Paper.
on new data sources and methods were active in
all of the cities studied, though few had actively
started curating third-party data over time, suggesting the challenges of finalizing methods and
brokering fair, secure, and sustainable agreements with third-party data providers.
17
In all of the cities studied, local stakeholders
were eager to set up SDG data monitoring mechanisms and platforms which would enable easy
tracking of SDG progress. Academic partners in
San José and Baltimore are currently in the process of researching and setting up SDG data systems for the cities, which are open source, align
with existing datasets, and provide user-friendly
visualization tools for policy-makers and public
citizens. Additionally, in New York, groups like
Measure of America are looking at how to expand
their current open-source city dashboards to also
map the city’s OneNYC and SDG indicators. All
three cities are considering methods for integrating these with the US’s national reporting platform for the SDGs. In every case, city stakeholders
expressed the necessity to make the data dashboards open source and readily accessible for
government policy-makers and planners, as well
as local residents so they might use the dashboard
to track progress within their communities and
hold city representatives to account.
7.11 Conclusion: A Twin
Monitoring Approach
for City-Level Action
and Political Engagement
This chapter has reflected upon two different
methodologies for local SDG monitoring,
employed by SDSN and its local US partners.
The first method involved a centralized, topdown review of comparable cross-national indicators and the subsequent compilation of a US
tent/uploads/2017/09/180123-trends-brief-sanjose-sdgplatform.pdf
17 As further discussed in SDSN TReNDS’ related project
trends.org/blog/2019/1/22/introducing-contracts-datacollaboration
7 Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to the SDG Monitoring Challenge