Professor Tom Moultrie, Direcotr of the Centre for Actuarial Research aat UCT, will present the Department of Statistical Science seminar with a talk entitled, "Statistical, data, and other challenges in meeting, measuring and monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals".

Tom Moultrie is a Professor of Demography, and Director of the Centre for Actuarial Research (CARe) at UCT. He has been closely involved in a number of policy arenas in related to the measuring and monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals – particularly the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN-SDSN).

Abstract: The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were launched with much fanfare two years ago. With 17 goals, and over 240 associated targets and indicators, the SDGs represent the outcome of extensive negotiations to define the global development agenda through to 2030. The goals are ambitious and will require concerted efforts to meet, there is even greater uncertainty as to how to measure and monitor progress towards these goals. This seminar explores a number of themes related to the measuring and monitoring of the SDGs that are currently exercising the minds of data analysts, demographers, and statisticians around the globe. I explore issues related to the availability and collection of data; the urgent need for a whole new suite of statistical methods that have yet to be developed; the utility of modelling exercises; the potential for ‘big data’ to come to the party; and the idea of the ‘data revolution’ and what it might mean for the SDG process. Along the way, the essentially political nature of the global SDG agenda is reflected upon, along with its implications for the work of statisticians, demographers and data scientists