"The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency severely imperiling progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — but it is far more. It is also a governance crisis. Governments face daunting responsibilities as they design, implement and enforce new measures to prevent the spread of the disease. If well-calibrated, these measures can reaffirm a government’s commitment to the principles of equality, accountability and participation as laid out in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 – even in times of crisis. This is critical to (re-)build trust between authorities and populations, at a time when governments need it most. And, as reminded by the UN Secretary-General, COVID-19 responses that are shaped by these principles also result in better outcomes in beating the pandemic: they help mitigate the “secondary impacts” of the crisis on people’s lives, and avoid creating new or exacerbating existing problems, such as food insecurity or domestic violence."
This document is the first guidance on governance statistics during Covid-19 and serves as an executive summary of Praia City Group’s Handbook on Governance Statistics which focuses on eight dimensions of governance. It offers practical measurement advice and some recommended indicators, including on SDG 16, to data producers and also helps data users such as policy-makers, civil society or media to explore what governance data is and to demand it.
The full Guidance Note is available below in English, Spanish and French.
