Mercy ANURIKA
The Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI) and the Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) Secretariat at the OECD with the support of the European Union hosted a series of capacity-building webinars on a new international standard for monitoring resources flowing into developing countries for their sustainable development. The webinars for the IsDB member countries were held virtually on 10, 16 and 17 February 2022.
One of the challenges in monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to have reliable, accurate statistical reporting systems to measure the progress in various indicators. The TOSSD framework aims to establish a new international standard to monitor all official and private resources mobilized through official means flowing into developing countries for their sustainable development.
The framework also includes statistics on the contributions to International Public Goods, including through South-South Cooperation and Islamic Finance, that help countries achieve the SDGs. Thus, TOSSD complements the Official Development Assistance (ODA) measure by including these missing flows.
IsDB Institute’s collaboration with the TOSSD Secretariat, which is hosted at the Development Cooperation Directorate of the OECD, will help IsDB member countries establish statistical systems to better report on SDG17. With a coherent, comparable and unified system for tracking SDG-relevant investments, TOSSD will inform IsDB member countries for strategic planning, identifying emerging needs and priorities, and assessing progress.
The first webinar consisted of a general presentation of the TOSSD framework, including its political anchorage, scope, main features and benefits, as well as the recent developments related to the framework. It also included an introduction by the IsDB of the relevance of TOSSD in the context of Islamic Finance and South-South Co-operation.
The second webinar provided concrete guidance on how TOSSD reporting is carried out. It mainly targeted development co-operation providers, particularly staff in charge of reporting on development finance in the Ministries of Planning and Finance and National Statistical Offices. The last webinar was dedicated to capacity building on the use of TOSSD data for staff in recipient countries that monitor the financing of the SDGs, are involved in development planning processes, or carry out analyses on development finance.
Over 60 participants from more than 30 IsDB member countries and organizations attended the webinars. The collaboration between the IsDBI and the TOSSD Secretariat will continue to build capacity, disseminate knowledge, and establish reliable systems to measure the progress of IsDB member countries towards SDGs. As a result of the webinars, 5 IsDB member countries have requested support to start reporting on the TOSSD framework.
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