By Collins Nweze
EY West Africa and EY, University of Edinburgh engage stakeholders on SDGs data analytics at University of Edinburgh last week engaged stakeholders on the Sustainable Development Goals Data Analytics, with participants drawn from the public and private sectors as well as developmental institutions, civil societies and NGOs.
The three-day workshop with the theme ‘SDGs Data Management for enhanced Corporate Sustainability Performance’, had specific objectives to understand the current efforts to implement the SDGs in Nigeria, set goals and agree on a collaborative implementation roadmap for SDGs data management required for sustainable socio-economic development.
At the end of the interactive and insightful events spanning three days, participants generally called for the creation of a multi-stakeholder initiative for mainstreaming SDGs data gathering, impact measurement, tracking and reporting in Nigeria.
Professor Kenneth Amaeshi, Chair, Business and Sustainable Development and Director, Scaling Business in Africa (SBIA), University of Edinburgh Business School, United Kingdom, led most of the discussions at the workshops while Samuel Agbevem, Partner EY, West Africa, opened the Day 1 and 2 workshops with a welcome address respectively.
In his opening remarks, Anthony Oputa, EY Regional Managing Partner for West Africa, stated that the key purpose of the workshop was identifying gaps and rallying both the public and private sector stakeholders for a unified SDGs data metrics.
According to Oputa, the workshop aimed, among others, at harnessing the power of data analytics for the attainment of the SDGs as well as to build an expert working group on the SDGs.
Professor Christina Boswell of Edinburgh University, on the other hand, while explaining the rationale behind the workshop, noted that the workshop was in line with the strategic goals of the University of Edinburgh, which, according to her, is big on harnessing and tapping data for social goals.
She also informed that the University is currently collaborating with organisations like UNICEF, MEDELIN in Colombia to build a wide range of data base to address urban planning.
“University of Edinburgh is partnering with organisations like UNICEF and MEDELIN in Colombia to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while aiming to use data analytics/big data in partnerships with public and private sectors to develop products, services and to develop data literacy in an inclusive and socially progressive way”, Professor Boswell said.
All the participants, who took turns to make presentations during the events, commended EY and University of Edinburgh for the initiative, noting that the Workshop could not have […]