Technical Meeting on Security, Violence and Justice Indicators to Monitor Sustainable Development Goals

From 11 to 14 September 2017, the Center of Excellence for Statistical Information on Government, Public Security, Victimization and Justice (CoE), joint project of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) of Mexico, with the support of the InfoSegura project of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), held a technical meeting that allowed representatives of the national institutions responsible for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the region, National Statistical Offices and authorities of the Criminal Justice System to share their experiences and discuss the availability of data associated with the indicators of security, violence and justice. Participants discussed existing methodologies for measuring these indicators and discussed the development of regional, national and sub-national indicators, especially for objective 16 “Peace, justice and strong institutions”.

Among the most important objectives of this meeting, were the exchange of best practices and experiences at a technical level to produce indicators for SDG 2030. This technical meeting allowed participants to identify relevant data sources to feed SDG indicators in the areas violence, illicit trafficking, access to justice and corruption, as well as discussing a possible list of complementary indicators that can be used at the national and regional levels to monitor issues relevant to the region. For four days, participants discussed the strengths of existing data sources, as well as identified methodological developments and strengthen technical capacities to foster a statistical culture to monitor SDG 2030 goals and indicators. The Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2015, is a universal, indivisible and transformative vision to eradicate extreme poverty in a period of 15 years within a framework of peace and sustainable development for people and the planet.

The meeting was held in Mexico City with the assistance of 19 countries of the region: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay.