STRATEGY FOR THE HARMONIZATION OF STATISTICS IN AFRICA (SHaSA) GOVERNANCE, PEACE AND SECURITY (GPS) DATA

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STRATEGY FOR THE HARMONIZATION OF STATISTICS IN AFRICA (SHaSA) GOVERNANCE, PEACE AND SECURITY (GPS) DATA

July 6, 2017

In March 2016, the United Nations, advised by the UN Statistical Commission and its Inter Agency and Expert Group (IAEG), approved indicators for the 169 targets of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Included is a goal on justice, peace, and accountable institutions: Goal 16, which has 12 targets and 23 indicators.

In January of 2015, the 24th Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) adopted Agenda 2063: A Shared Strategic Framework for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Agenda 2063 envisions an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena.

By these decisions the world and its statistical system will officially recognise the relationship between good governance, peace and security (GPS) on the one hand and sustainable development on the other. This subtle but important relationship, central to the thrust of the SDGs, was known and celebrated in the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000, but a corresponding goal was not included in the Millennium Development Goals for lack of consensus at that time about how it could be reliably measured.

In the intervening 15 years, and indeed for some years preceding them, the reliable measurement of GPS steadily advanced. Throughout this period, and particularly in the last three years, Africa has played a leading role in the research and implementation of GPS measurement, through the particularly advantageous conjunction with the Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA) that is GPS-SHaSA.

These GPS-SHaSA achievements have in turn informed the GPS measurement-requirements of new Africainitiated development processes that have been taking shape while also aligning to the SDGs; notably the Common African Position and the renewed monitoring apparatus of the African Peer Review Mechanism.