District-Level SDG Dashboard Launched to Monitor and Improve SDG Advancement in Malaysia

The SDG dashboard projects - led and supported by the Jeffrey Sachs Center at Sunway University, the host institution of SDSN Malaysia - serves as a tool for education, policy planning, and academic research on the SDGs.

The state-level SDG dashboard launched in March 2022 includes data that Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) makes publicly available and utilizes the methodology developed by the team who works on the annual Sustainable Development Report (SDR). This first dashboard included qualitative assessments from academic experts from within the Malaysia network to elaborate on the progress of and recommendations for achieving the SDGs in Malaysian states.

The district-level SDG dashboard which similarly uses publicly available DOSM data and the SDR methodology was launched for public viewing on 7 September 2023. It was officially presented to one of SDSN Malaysia’s members, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), on 11 September and to DOSM on 5 October while a session with another SDSN Malaysia member, Universiti Malaya, is tentatively scheduled for December. Sharing sessions on the district-level dashboard have been carried out with Universiti Tun Hussein Onn, Sarawak State Library, The Edge, JUPEM, All Party Parliamentary Group in Malaysia (APPGM), and exchange students from Finland. Three write ups from UUM analyzing the performance of road traffic deaths, unemployment rates, and proportion of population covered by mobile networks have been submitted as part of the district-level dashboard.

The next phase of this project that will be pursued is an aesthetic and user interface overhaul of the state-level dashboard for ease of access and navigation of the dashboard. This overhaul will include the addition of profile pages for each state to indicate their performance and rankings relative to all Malaysian states, aimed at increasing state-level stakeholders, such as government agencies and local NGOs’ engagement with the district-level dashboard and in the monitoring and improvement of SDG advancement through the use of the dashboard.

The dashboards currently track 40 indicators across 14 SDGs at the state level and 19 indicators across 10 SDGs at the district level. The state-level dashboard has recorded 114,741 views (69,586 in 2023 alone) and the district-level dashboard has recorded 8,396 views since their respective launches.

State Level: https://sdg-for-malaysian-states-.hub.arcgis.com/

District Level: https://sustainable-development-goals-.hub.arcgis.com/