The status of millennium development goals: monitoring and reporting in selected Caribbean countries

In spite of various initiatives, Caribbean countries continue to have difficulties in
addressing demands of monitoring and measuring progress towards the fulfilment of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other Internationally Agreed upon Development
Goals (IADGs)1. To address this gap, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC) has received funding for a technical assistance project, Strengthening the
capacity of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in the Caribbean Small Island Developing States
to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals and other Internationally Agreed Development
Goals (IADGs). The main imperative of the project is to support the strengthening of national
institutional capabilities for generating reliable data to meet these monitoring and reporting
requirements. The project seeks to build on past and current initiatives directed towards
broadening and improving statistics and indicators through the use of already available
knowledge, experience and expertise at the national and regional level. In an effort to avoid
duplication of present or repetition of past activities in this field, ECLAC considered it important
to conduct a thorough assessment of the status and structure of MDG and IADG monitoring and
reporting at the national and regional levels as well as to provide an overview of initiatives
undertaken by other regional development partners and intergovernmental bodies in the
subregion.
This paper is composed as follows: The first chapter of the document will present an
overview of the statistical infrastructure at the national level, followed by a summary of the
results of a survey administered to Caribbean NSOs that gathered information on the status of
and mechanisms in place in MDG and IADG monitoring and reporting at the national level.
Then, an attempt will be made to provide a briefing on activities carried out by
intergovernmental bodies and development partners in the region. The fourth section presents a
brief summary of data sources for secondary data and introduces concepts for metadata
collection and reporting. It further discusses major challenges with poverty measurements and
monitoring in the subregion. The paper ends with a summary and recommendations for the way
forward.