Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 25 August 2025 - The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS-UK), is convening a regional training workshop on SDG data and metadata sharing and exchange from 25–29 August 2025 in Addis Ababa. The closing project workshop will spotlight the use of Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX), the Open Data Platform (ODP) 2.0 and the Open SDG dissemination platform to strengthen monitoring and reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across Africa.
The workshop is part of an ECA initiative supported by a Eurostat grant on SDG monitoring in Africa. It builds on a continental effort to improve the centralization, validation and dissemination of SDG data produced by National statistical systems, reduce data gaps and accelerate evidence-based SDG implementation.
Since the publication of the official global Data Structure Definition (DSD) for SDG indicators in 2019, SDMX has become a widely used standard for automated data and metadata exchange. Five pilot countries—Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda and Zimbabwe—are using SDMX for SDGs and are preparing to fully launch national SDG dissemination platforms using the adopted tools. The workshop will enable these pilot countries to share experiences, challenges and lessons through peer-learning, and will introduce ODP 2.0 and Open SDG to non-pilot countries to foster uptake and sustainability.
Opening the Final Regional Training Workshop on SDMX, Open Data Platform 2.0 and OpenSDG for SDG monitoring in Africa. “With NSOs and partners, ECA, AfDB and ONS-UK are strengthening data ecosystems to accelerate sustainable development,” said Mr. Andre Nonguierma, Chief, Geographical Information Management System Section, on behalf of Tinfissi-Joseph Ilboudo, Officer-in-Charge of the African Centre for Statistics.
“With less than five years to 2030, we must modernize Africa’s data value chain—from user engagement and digital collection to QA, advanced analysis and efficient dissemination. In the AI era, APIs and interoperable stats and geospatial data are essential,” he added.
A key focus will be interoperability between statistical and geospatial standards to enable more granular and actionable SDG insights. Participants will examine how SDMX’s structured tabular data can be complemented by geospatial standards such as the ISO 19100 series and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Services, including Web Feature Service (WFS) and Web Map Service (WMS), as well as GML.
Country experiences already underway include:
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Cameroon’s integration of SDMX with OGC standards to deliver interactive dashboards that combine statistical and spatial layers.
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Namibia’s efforts to spatially disaggregate indicators for targeted policy interventions.
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South Africa’s work to advance interoperability between SDG datasets and national geospatial platforms.
The workshop aims at:
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Sharing experiences and lessons from pilot countries on SDMX, ODP 2.0 and Open SDG.
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Demonstrating the functionalities and benefits of ODP 2.0 and Open SDG to non-pilot countries.
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Setting up the basic structure of an Open SDG platform to help non-pilot countries get started.
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Building capacity to customize and integrate SDG data structures using SDMX.
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Facilitating peer-to-peer learning and regional collaboration on SDG data management and dissemination.
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Comparing SDMX with geospatial standards and identify how spatial context (e.g., via GML and OGC Web Services) can complement structured statistical data.
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Evaluating interoperability mechanisms, including automated linking between SDMX tables and OGC services, to strengthen integrated statistical–geospatial SDG monitoring and reporting.
By promoting common standards, shared tools and practical country use cases, the workshop aims to help African countries deliver higher-quality, more timely and disaggregated SDG data, improving decision-making and public accountability at national and subnational levels.
Issued by:
Communications Section
Economic Commission for Africa
PO Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Tel: +251 11 551 5826
E-mail: eca-info@un.org