General introduction to the special issue: Governance Statistics and the UN Praia City Group

International organisations recently brought good governance and peace in the forefront of the development agenda. The measurement of related indicators, which differ by their nature, their sources and the institutions in charge of their collection, with National Statistics Institutes in the frontline, as well as their analyses keep growing. This paper introduces the special issue of nine articles on the measurement and analyses of Governance, Peace and Security statistics in four continents. It presents initiatives for some led by the only UN city group on statistical methodologies based in Africa, the Praia Group. Members of the latter group describe the advances and challenges such data collection implies particularly in time of pandemics. Following articles focus on the state of the art of statistics about transparency in Brazil, criminal violence in France and conflict more broadly. A set of articles in four African countries interrogate the relationship between perceptions and experiences and analyse their determinants. The issue ends with the works of international leaders in governance data collection, Mali and Peru. This special issue shows how statistical data on governance make a twofold contribution to achieving the principles of SDG 16 by providing reliable indicators and voicing public opinion to governments.