Looking Back Before You Leap

Last week was the Financing for Development conference where global funding was discussed to make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a reality. Key IFIs are pre-gaming by announcing plans to extend more than $400 billion in financing over the next three years to meet the needs of the SDGs.

Owen Barder breaks down what the meeting is all about and emphasizes that this shouldn’t just be a passing of the aid collection basket, but focus on the context of the setting that would hinder the SDGs from succeeding. Many are pushing to make sure key issues don’t get overlooked during such a pivotal moment, such as making sure government and finance transparency becomes integrated into the implementation of the SDGs. (BTW if you missed the live chat on The Guardian about aid transparency, here are 16 key takeaways from the session.)

If you had the chance to be there, hopefully you didn’t miss out on all the side events that are taking place, including one on “The Role of Data Standards and International Initiatives on Mobilizing and Monitoring Financing for Development Commitments.”

In support of the data revolution that has come out of the MDGs and thrust forward with the new SDGs, Open Data Watch has released a new report on lessons from case studies on how data can lead to impact.

We were all waiting for it, and now the UN has released The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015. As twitter makes clear, there are two truths, over a billion people are no longer living in extreme poverty, and over 800 million are still living in extreme poverty. Which should we focus on? Well, both.

We have the opportunity to learn both what went right and needs to be improved to make the kind of progress we want to make with the new set of goals. Check out the New York Times article if you don’t have the time to read the full report yet, or The Guardian’s if you have even less time and want to check out their pretty infographics based on the report.

This piece has been modified and was originally posted on the First Tranche.