Agreement of the central statistical bodies of the Autonomous Regions

In 2015, the UN approved the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which set 17 goals, covering areas such as eradicating poverty, combating climate change, education, gender equality, protection of the environment and the design of our cities. Each of these goals contains a series of specific targets setting out the action to be taken.

Since its adoption, various bodies at all institutional levels, from local to multinational, have adhered to the Agenda.

In November 2016, the European Commission presented its strategic approach to implement the 2030 Agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals.

In September 2017, the Spanish Government ordered the establishment of the High-Level Group for the 2030 Agenda, with the aim of coordinating Spain's position and the action necessary to achieve the Agenda's goals.

At different stages, all Autonomous Regions have adhered to the 2030 Agenda, developed their own strategies and taken on the challenge of aligning themselves with the Sustainable Development Goals.

In all cases, it is essential to calculate the indicators used to measure the extent of achievement of the various targets and goals.

To do so, it is imperative for the statistical bodies to play their part, since they are the best placed of all Government bodies to ensure that the indicators are correctly defined and obtained, as outlined in UN General Assembly resolution 71/313.

The National Statistics Institute (INE) and the statistical bodies in the Autonomous Regions have included in their statistical plans and programmes the statistical operation entitled “Indicators of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, whose aim is to develop a framework of statistical indicators in line with those established by the United Nations for the monitoring of the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the various territorial levels.

In 2019, in order to coordinate work on the development of the indicators across the Autonomous Regions, a working group was created with the statistical bodies of the Autonomous Regions, in the form of a collaborative network aimed at reaching an agreement on the methodology for calculating the United Nations indicators for the Autonomous Regions, by looking for alternatives in view of the problems associated with territorial distribution of competences and ownership, and ensuring comparability in all cases.

After some intensive work, every Autonomous Region has an initial set of common and uniform indicators and a standard methodology file, which the statistical bodies will publish on their respective websites.