Looking beyond indicator levels and trends: understanding the numbers

Sarah Kabaija, UNICEF Uganda Country Office

A critical aspect of improved data for the Sustainable Development Agenda is information provision on the numbers of people who are not realizing their rights. This will address a key critique of MDGs – namely, they did not focus enough on leaving no one behind. For selected indicators collected in the four Uganda Demographic and Health Surveys between 1995 and 2011, the numbers of those not achieving the corresponding right were derived from indicator levels and population projections. The results show that an improvement in indicators does not necessarily imply a decrease in number of people left behind. For example, the number of under 5’s dying annually could steadily increase while corresponding mortality rates decline, due to changing population dynamics. To achieve both improved indicators and universal coverage, it is necessary to monitor the number of people left behind, and ensure it is reflected in geographic prioritization of development interventions.