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MDG Mapper: visualizing the Millennium Development Goals’ progress using Geo-information tools
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| 1 August 2007 | United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
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 The MDG Mapper is a tool developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) for dynamic mapping of comparative progress by African countries towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Using data provided by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), it enables the speedy acquisition of up-to-date information on which countries have made the most and the least progress. For countries making the least progress, the Mapper enables the calculation of the extent to which they are off target.
Background
The MDGs and le Plan d'Action de Marrakech pour les Statistiques (PAMS) requested UNECA Geo-Information to produce thematic maps to help tell the story visually for the UNECA report 'Accelerating Africa's Growth and Development to meet the MDGs: Emerging Challenges and the way forward'. Their initial thought was to create an atlas-like annex of maps for the report, but that would carry logistical problems such the vast amount of hardcopy prints required and the difficulty of including the total amount of maps, together with the fact that printed maps become obsolete as data would change.
Instead, the decision was made to create an online annex of maps which would be generated dynamically from databases with a user-friendly interface where the user can generate his/her own publication-quality image. As the World Bank, and more recently United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), have or are in the process of launching online MDG tracking sites with limited thematic mapping functionality, ECA is bringing mapping a step closer. In order for them to differentiate their contribution to the above institutions, they are providing a more robust set of online tools for analysts, MDG and poverty specialists, geographers, researchers, academics, etc. These tools include the raw data, derived data, the scripts for calculating the derived data, summary statistics, graphs/charts, dynamic maps, measures of spatial dependence and assessment of 'gaps'.
Data Procurement
UNSD maintains the official one-stop indicator database for all countries. It consists of data sourced from relevant agencies with a total of 126 series grouped by goals (8), targets (18), and indicators (48) - all exportable in Excel.
Methodological Problems
The two main problems are -
- although 1990 is the official baseline for MDG targets, very few countries can offer this data which makes it difficult to determine quantative targets,
- not all countries report data for the same years and therefore the comparison of countries based on same time époques becomes more difficult.
Data Processing and MDG Utils
This Excel-based Visual Basic Application program was created primarily to:
- Delete non-African countries from the data set
- Extract and organize data into separate sheets by goals, targets, indicators and series for ease of inspection and analysis
- Determine the optimum base year (when 1990 data are not available) for each data series
Secondly the above application has the following objectives:
- Determine the optimum reference year
- Calculate the time series of improvements
- Calculate the estimated values for 2015 if the current trend persists
- Calculate the off-target value and percentage completion of the target.
What's next…
The short-term tasks for ECA will be to complete the beta version, develop packages to install at national and sub-regional levels, work with ACS (African Centre for Statistics), UNStats and other partners to streamline the MDG data procurement, vetting and dissemination process, as well as working with UNSD to obtain access privileges to the MDG database.
Since there is a potential for such a system to be inaccurate, it will be necessary to negotiate agreement, jointly with ACS, for direct access to the UNSD database(s).
Lastly, the map server will be linked to the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS)/ MDGs Knowledge Sharing network (http://www.uneca.org/africanprsp/index.asp).
The long-term tasks will include:
- the ability to drill-down where sub-national data are available using the Second Administrative Level Boundaries (SALB)
- add functionality for users to incorporate their own data
- link the map server to ACS databases
- link with the proposed African Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure nodes and United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure.
For more information and to use the MDG Mapper, please visit: http://geoinfo.uneca.org/mdg. |
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