This step includes collecting, monitoring, reporting and analyzing data relating to migration and the SDGs. It provides advice on how implementing bodies can take steps towards improving the overall quality of migration data.
Access the full Monitoring and Reporting Section of the guide.
Monitoring of some kind is a necessary component of any activity relating to the SDGs. Establishing effective local and national reporting structures is a way to strengthen accountability towards the 2030 Agenda. It is key that regular reporting takes place at the local and national levels, because countries are only asked to report at the global level twice before 2030.
Reporting enables governments to use the SDG monitoring process as an ongoing management tool. A strong indicator and reporting framework can be highly valuable, as it can help turn the SDG framework into a tool for governments to inform migration policy and programmes.
Implementing bodies may decide to choose SDG priorities, design and implement interventions, and only then develop indicators. It should be noted that if indicators are developed first around migration priorities, interventions can be more meaningful as they strive to meet the indicators that reflect priorities.
National Statistical Offices (NSOs) should take a leading role in SDG monitoring, reporting and any other data-related activities. In consultation with national-level policymakers, NSOs should lead the process of indicator development, gather and coordinate data provision, and report indicators. Alternatively, another body such as the migration or development planning agency or the main implementing body of the SDG process could lead. If this is the case, there should be close collaboration of this body with the NSO. If the country has taken part in any migration data initiatives with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the past, such as conducting a Migration Profile or a Migration Governance Indicators (MGI) assessment/Migration Governance Profile, any technical working groups or other bodies that were formed to enable this process could lead.
Implementing bodies will need to decide how to engage with national statistical offices. If there are local-level, regional or federal-level statistical offices, they could lead this step. If there are no such bodies and statistical offices only exist at the national level, local implementing bodies may agree to collaborate with them if needed. The NSO could provide input and guidance in agreed stages of the process. The nature of this collaboration will depend on the context and capacities of local-level policymakers and statisticians.
Close collaboration between implementing bodies and relevant statistical bodies during monitoring and reporting is important. This helps ensure that SDG targets and general planning are broadly measurable, and in turn that indicators are accepted and relevant for policymakers.
Implementing bodies need to take stock of existing data relevant to the targets to establish what is available and what the indicator options may be. This can be done with a data mapping stage to gather information on what data is already captured that may be relevant to that target and how it is used. If there is already a sufficient overview of migration data available or local or national indicators in place that can be used for the targets, the data mapping step can be skipped.
If the aim is to monitor targets explicitly on migration, examine first if the global indicators for these can already be produced. Consult the metadata available and examine data availability against this. Even if the aim is to measure the targets referenced above and the global indicators can indeed be monitored, it is useful build an overview of data available in each area.
A list must be created of potential data sources and actors who may hold data relevant to a particular target. International, non-governmental and other actors can be included; keeping in mind that data used for indicators must be accurate, reliable and regularly refreshed.
Check whether a Migration Profile is available for your country: this lists national migration data sources.
Consult the Global Migration Data Portal: this may contain some national existing data.
Following this, hold interviews or consultations to gather or consolidate information on relevant data capture and process for that target. This should include the following and can be gathered using the Data Mapping Template tool:
Once there is a view of the data available for prioritized targets, implementing bodies should consider which indicators can be reported on. If the mapping exercise reveals that global indicators can be reported, these indicators should be used so that progress can be comparable to that of other countries. If global indicators cannot be reported, or as an addition to the process, governments may develop proxy indicators to monitor targets separately at the local or national level.
Developing proxy indicators adapted to your context could be a good approach for several reasons:
This will be especially relevant much of the time in the context of integrating migration across SDG implementation, because most global indicators do not mention migration. Global indicators will need to be adapted at the very least by introducing a migratory disaggregation. Monitoring these indicators every year until 2030 also enables governments to track progress in prioritized migration issues.
Proxy indicators may not always be comparable with those of other countries, but they can generate meaningful reporting on migration and strengthen accountability for governments in achieving migration objectives under the 2030 Agenda. To strike a balance between global SDG monitoring and local/national relevance, implementing bodies may wish to use a mix of global-level and proxy indicators.
Implementing bodies can choose how many indicators to create for each target depending on capacity and resources; often each has between one and three.
The following principles should be used to guide the development of indicators:
Data systems and processes may need to be adapted to ensure data are collected appropriately. For example, implementing bodies may learn that data needed for an indicator may already be captured, but not reported or analysed. This requires ensuring data collected by different stakeholders are easily accessible by all relevant stakeholders. This can be done by setting up a data sharing mechanism between stakeholders for one actor to compile and disseminate the data.
Each indicator should be accompanied by a brief description of metadata and methodology. In addition to this, where baseline data is available this may be included, if the data are available or in the case of an indicator already operational. The final list of indicators should be formally reviewed and adopted by the implementing body and all other relevant stakeholders.
Strengthening disaggregation of data by migratory status is called for specifically in the SDGs and is key to integrating migration across the 2030 Agenda. This disaggregation helps practitioners see beyond statistical averages in development data and understand migrants’ socioeconomic and other characteristics, such as their health, education, employment and income status.
Improving disaggregation is a particularly important area of focus because it is linked to migration mainstreaming. This will shape discussions on migrants’ situation and needs in these sectors, enabling policy makers to address them. In this way, improved disaggregation is a prerequisite for successful migration mainstreaming, as it makes it easier to consider migration as a cross-cutting theme across sectors.
As a result of data mapping, implementing bodies may find that new indicators are not needed to measure certain targets, and instead the objective may be simply to add disaggregation by migratory status, or other migration variables, to existing indicators. The IEAG recommends that 24 global SDG indicators can be disaggregated by migratory status. While some indicators cannot be disaggregated at the global level as they are composite indicators or collected by different countries, individual countries may indeed be able to disaggregate more than twenty-four.
In practice, disaggregating data by migratory status involves including the following variables into administrative registries and census-based data collection:
Governments may wish to take further steps and collect variables on:
It may be possible to use existing census microdata to achieve this. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) data can disaggregate many global SDG indicators by nativity status for different countries; therefore, statistical offices or relevant stakeholders should make full use of this, if possible.
Where relevant, practitioners should also work to strengthen the disaggregation of migration data by variables such as age, sex, occupation, employment status and others to gain deeper insights into migrant populations.
The follow-up and review process for the 2030 Agenda is intended to be “open, inclusive, participatory and transparent for all people and will support the reporting by all relevant stakeholders.” At the same time, managing SDG reporting efficiently requires extensive coordination, as it can be complex. There are four layers to SDG follow-up and review at the global, regional, national and thematic levels
A mechanism should be set up to report migration indicators. Reporting mechanisms could establish new processes or indicators could be integrated into existing reporting platforms, such as those reporting other local or national development progress against plans.
At the national level, either NSOs, migration or development planning agencies, or another coordinating body, should publish indicators.
At the local level, the relevant government agency or implementing body should do so using a locally-owned platform and could consider additionally reporting through a platform managed by the NSO.
The following should be features of any indicator reporting platform (UNECE, 2017):
SDG monitoring and reporting processes provide a useful opportunity to create and strengthen vertical coherence on migration data.
At the national level, all migration indicators and information should be reported alongside any other national-level SDG reporting. National-level actors also must consider coherence with regional and global level reporting. Where national indicators are the same as any regional or global indicators, these should be fed into appropriate systems and aggregated directly if it uses the same methodology and is of the same standard of quality.
At the local level, actors must consider coherence with national-level reporting. Care must be taken to ensure that information gathered by local government is used in national reporting in so far as it can be. Where local and national-level indicators are the same and use the same methodology, local indicators should aggregate up to national indicators.
Implementing bodies seeking to coordinate with regional-level migration data processes should also consult the Global Migration Data Portal to take stock. Implementing bodies in countries where Voluntary National Reviews for the HLPF are being conducted should ensure migration indicators and any other migration-SDG developments are included.
Once monitoring and reporting mechanisms for SDG indicators are established, implementing bodies need to go further to evaluate progress made against the SDGs. Independent reviews may be conducted, regularly or on an ad-hoc basis, analyzing progress made towards migration targets. Indicators reflect progress against certain metrics, but a wider process of evaluation is needed to assess what is behind changes in the indicators.
Data is a particular challenge in migration governance, where current information is scarce and data capacities are constrained across countries and topics. Policymakers need timely, reliable, accessible and comparable data on international migration to manage migration effectively and protect the rights of migrants. Improving migration data is a crucial step to improving migration governance, and the SDG implementation process can help kick-start efforts to do this.
Meeting the requirements of SDG follow up and review mechanisms is difficult for most countries, especially for many developing countries with low statistical capabilities. The challenge is even greater when considering that as of late 2017, no data exist for two-thirds of the 232 official internationally-set SDG indicators (OECD, 2017). This means that not only should practitioners mobilize around improving migration data for SDG reporting, they should do so alongside other stakeholders and under ongoing efforts of the data revolution in the context of the 2030 Agenda.
Activities on migration data capacity building should be ongoing. They can and should be undertaken during and after any migration-SDG implementation effort. Throughout these efforts, there should be ongoing cooperation of data representatives with policymakers, so that developments in migration data can be used to improve policy and, in turn, policy needs are reflected in data activities.
Activities on migration data capacity building might include (Laczko, 2016):