Measuring countries’ progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: methodology and challenges

Michal Shinwell () and Guillaume Cohen ()
Additional contact information
Michal Shinwell: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Statistics and Data Directorate
Guillaume Cohen: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Statistics and Data Directorate

Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2020, vol. 17, issue 1, No 10, 167-182

Abstract: Abstract The 2030 Agenda, adopted by countries in 2015, sets a broad and ambitious set of targets to be achieved by 2030, covering social, environmental and economic issues. With 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 targets and 244 indicators, it presents a complex data landscape to navigate. With targets ranging from abstract to definite and quantifiable, ambitious to achieved, countries need to understand how they can measure their performance and what progress is needed. We present a methodology for measuring the distance countries must cover in order to reach the targets by 2030, using publicly available data from official sources (UN and OECD databases). The methodology allows comparison of performance across goals, targets and indicators, and can provide a basis for further analysis, such as disaggregation, performance over time and forecasting achievements.

Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals; z-score normalisation; Target setting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F53 H41 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40844-019-00132-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eaiere:v:17:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s40844-019-00132-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... theory/journal/40844

DOI: 10.1007/s40844-019-00132-6

Access Statistics for this article

Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review is currently edited by Kiichiro Yagi, Yuji Aruka and Takahiro Fujimoto

More articles in Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().