Measuring SDG economic indicators in Uganda: Exploration of data deficiences

Abstract

Almost 2 years have passed since the launching of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals but no big strides have been made especially on data compilation to track and measure these goals. Uganda, like the rest of the world has to base its development agenda on SDGs. However, the major constraint often lies on measuring the indicators and even compilation of data. The author discusses 7 SDG economic indicators based on the Ugandan context. This paper considered a baseline year of 2014 for the economic indicators of the SDGs in Uganda. A comparative review of data was obtained from UNSD SDG indicator global database and available national data in Uganda to update the Uganda country page constructed by the ACS survey in 2017. Metadata analysis was invoked following a 4-assessment check. Results showed that a lot of data from administrative sources could be used to feed into the Ugandan page given that censuses and surveys are not regularly updated. However, the paper shows some discrepancies in the ACS survey report data. There is need to explore more of the administrative data in government ministries and agencies in order to close the data gaps for the economic indicators of the SDGs.