In a historic United Nations (UN) summit, world leaders adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a universal call to action to address the global challenges we face by the year 2030, including those related to poverty, inequity, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. Together, the UN and their partners have underscored the importance of evidence-based and transparent long-term pathways, in which sound metrics and data are critical for turning the SDGs into practical tools for problem solving, tracking progress and accountability.