Supporting Process: Capacity development 

Rationale

Monitoring the 2030 Agenda implies huge changes of perspective in the way people and institutions envisage development. It also implies a deep transformation in the methods and tools that will be applied for defining priorities, designing and deploying interventions as well as for steering policies and monitoring results. All these changes and transformations call for important efforts in capacity development. 

Different levels will have to be considered in a complementary and interrelated way: 

• Individual capacities. People are at the centre of the 2030 Agenda and a special attention will have to be brought for making sure that they are all on board and that no one is left behind. Investments will have to be made for improving knowledge, increasing skill levels (technical and managerial) and changing attitudes and perspectives. This could be addressed through facilitation, training, retraining and competency development and valorisation. A particular attention will have to be made for capacitating the most vulnerable for making sure that their voice is heard and considered. 
• Capacities of organisations and institutions. Investments will have to be made to reinforce the strategic management functions, structures and relationships but also for improving operational capacity (processes, systems, procedures, sanctions, incentives and values). Human and financial resources will also have to be considered (policies, deployment and performance). Last but not least, investments will have to be made on knowledge and information resources, infrastructure and equipment and as well in capacities for coordination and cooperation. 
• Capacities of the society as a whole. Implementing the 2030 Agenda will require political commitment and a vision that is shared by all stakeholders. This will have to be translated into policy, legal and economic frameworks and in the related national public sector budget allocations and processes. The issues of governance and power structures, incentives and social norms will also play an important role. A “Whole-of-Society-Approach” requires skills and capacities on a systemic level. 

The efforts and investments deployed at the national level will need to be relayed and supported through a better access to and transfer of technologies (science and innovation) among countries and in particular from the global north. Efforts will also have to be made in developing sustainable and innovation technologies that are adapted to the contexts and problems of the less developed countries. See Sustainable Development Goal 17.  

There are more specific challenges for building capacities in statistics that have been identified by the community of statisticians. A strategy in four steps is recommended by the international community that articulates as follow: 

• First, an assessment of where the country stands not only with respect to data availability for SDG indicators, but on capacity to produce data across all statistical domains, needs to be carried out.2  
• Second, an assessment of the level of capacity in different areas, as a benchmark for planning the volume and content of the required investment in capacity building,
• Third, the development of concrete actions for statistical training and data capacity development taking into account existing structures and mechanisms, adjusted to the country absorption capacities and deployed to the benefit of all the data producers,
• Fourth, the setting-up of partnerships in order to generate transfer of knowhow, to exchange  best practices, to share investments and to develop mutual support. 

These four steps could be covered under the long-term statistical programmes or strategies, or in case of developing countries, in a national strategy for the development of statistics (NSDS).