The Small Island Developing States Capacity Building Workshop on Utilizing Big Earth Data for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was launched on Sept 2 in Beijing.
The Small Island Developing States Capacity Building Workshop on Utilizing Big Earth Data for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) debuts in Beijing on Sept 2.
Photo credit: CBAS
The eight-day workshop, co-hosted by the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), and other institutions, is designed to refine the monitoring and evaluation of SDGs in small island developing states (SIDS).
Additionally, it aims to empower these states by leveraging digital technology to enhance their decision-making processes and more effectively address the obstacles to achieving the SDGs.
The SIDS is a group of 37 UN member states and 20 associate members of UN regional commissions. They account for approximately 28 percent of the cohort of developing countries and 20 percent of UN member countries.
Facing the dual challenges of major environmental change and economic growth bottlenecks, the SIDS has been given a high degree of attention in the UN system. The UN has taken various measures to support the development of SIDS, including The Barbados Programme of Action in 1994, The Mauritius Strategy in 2005, and The Samoa Pathway in 2014, calling on the international community to provide technical, financial, and capacity-building support to help SIDS address global challenges and achieve sustainable development in the economic, social, and environmental sectors.
In March, the UNDESA and other agencies jointly held the Technical Workshop in support of the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4). Attendees discussed the development of a monitoring framework for SDG indicators in line with a new decade of action for SIDS. Guo Huadong, Director General of the CBAS, was invited to lead a delegation to the technical workshop, where he presented a speech.
In May, the UN held the SIDS4 in Antigua and Barbuda with nearly 4,000 representatives from more than 100 countries in attendance. At the conference, world leaders adopted the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS): A Renewed Declaration for Resilient Prosperity as the action plan for the next decade.
In response to the ABAS and to further support the SIDS in addressing sustainable development and challenges in disaster risk, the CBAS, the UN DESA, the UN Global Geospatial Knowledge and Innovation Centre (UNGGKIC), the Aerospace Information Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the CAS-TWAS Centre of Excellence on Space Technology for Disaster Mitigation (SDIM), and the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) jointly organized the above-mentioned eight-day workshop that began on Sept 2 in Beijing.
The workshop will cover a range of topics related to global big data, including the sharing of data, the application of big data platforms, and the monitoring and evaluation of SDGs indicators. Participants can expect to engage in technical lectures, practical exercises, and discussions on various issues, such as the role of big data in supporting SDGs, global products and applications based on big data for SDGs, and monitoring technology for global land.
The workshop will also explore knowledge and techniques related to open scientific research projects on the data of the Sustainable Development Science Satellite 1 (SDGSAT-1), integrating disaster risk reduction into a new global research framework for development security, sustainable development of cities and oceans, AI-driven processing and mining of big data on SDGs cloud platforms, Earth big data analysis, and decision-making support systems in the Belt and Road Initiative partner countries.
The workshop aims to enhance understanding of how digital technology can support decision-making and the achievement of SDGs, as well as to strengthen interdisciplinary monitoring and evaluation methods for SDGs through field visits and exchange activities.
Nearly 20 representatives from SIDS countries and institutions attended the event, including those from the Guinea Bissau Ministry of Environment and Biodiversity, the Central Statistics Office of Mauritius, the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development of Dominica, the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Kiribati National Statistics Office, the Department of National Planning & Monitoring of Papua New Guinea, Maldives Bureau of Statistics, the multilateral relations department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Timor-Leste, the National Institute of Statistics of Cabo Verde and Ministry of Finance and Planning of São Tomé and Príncipe.
This will help enhance the digital technology innovation capabilities of SIDS young scholars and promote their capacities in the application and dissemination of relevant technologies.
In the future, the CBAS will continue to collaborate with SIDS institutions to offer tailored short-term capacity development activities and scientific application training programs to build a network of partners dedicated to achieving the SDGs.
Source: Chinanews.com
