Partners for Review -
P4R Activities
VNR peer exchanges
In 2020 and 2021, Partners for Review has been conducting peer exchanges for countries that where in the process of conducting a Voluntary National Review (VNR). In February 2020, the first such exchange took place in Costa Rica (see also video here). It enabled representatives from government, national statistical offices and non-state actors from Belize, Costa Rica and Georgia to learn from each other about their experiences from previous VNRs and plans for their ongoing VNR. From November 2020 to May 2021, representatives from Guatemala, Mexico, Namibia and Sierra Leone participated in a series of virtual peer exchanges on their VNR roadmaps, institutional coordination mechanisms, meaningful stakeholder engagement during the pandemic, SDG data and statistics, and effective follow-up.
Data Partnerships Initiative
Together with the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the International Civil Society Centre, Partners for Review launched the Data Partnerships Initiative in 2020. The goal was to build national data partnerships to strengthen SDG monitoring and review through the use of alternative data, especially citizen-generated data and human rights data, to fill some of the existing data gaps. The initiative began with a series of multi-stakeholder peer exchanges between the six participating countries (Canada, Costa Rica, Ghana, Nepal, Palestinian Territories, Philippines), which lasted until March 2021. The results have been documented in this lessons learned report. Building on the insights gained and the connections built during these exchanges, the Initiative has been providing targeted support to implement sustained data partnerships in some of the countries.
VLR Knowledge Hub
Beginning of 2021, Partners for Review started to develop a regional VLR Knowledge Hub for Latin America and the Caribbean. The initiative Peer learning community for subnational follow-up and review processes of the 2030 Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean aims to provide a platform for all stakeholders interested in or already engaged in subnational follow-up and review mechanisms of the 2030 Agenda to share challenges and opportunities related to VLRs, VSRs and other local monitoring mechanisms, to promote peer learning and to support networking between different actors within and across countries. This initiative has been launched in July 2021 and has been implemented in collaboration with Mexico’s 2030 Agenda Initiative of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (TEC) as co-chair institution of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Mexico, the Latin American Federation of Cities, Municipalities and Municipal Associations (FLACMA) and the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). The results have been documented in this final report.
Further collaborative activities
Data for the SDGs:
Partners for Review has collaborated with the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) to enable the increased use of available data from sources other than the traditional national statistical system. In 2018, the two jointly published a paper that disentangles the factors preventing countries from getting the most out of their data ecosystem. In addition, Partners for Review and PARIS21 have supported the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics to develop a quality assurance framework for the inclusion of citizen-generated data in consultation with Kenyan civil society (see the case study under P4R Resources).
In Colombia, a collaboration between P4R, GIZ Data Lab and DANE Colombia conducted an experiment by using satellite images to address SDG data gaps in some components of SDG 11 ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable‘, which cannot be measured using traditional sources like administrative records or surveys. Find out more information in these two blogs:
Diving deeper into SDG 11: Discovering public and green spaces in urban environments
Civil society engagement:
Together with Action for Sustainable Development, Partners for Review organised a half-day virtual peer exchange on the topic of “Meaningful civil society participation in SDG follow-up and review” on 2 June 2021. The exchange included over 20 participants from civil society, national governments and several UN agencies and was conducted under Chatham House Rule. A summary of the discussions can be found here.
