Measuring Progress Towards Achieving the SDGs
Sustainability indicators measure the progress of sustainable development and facilitate decision-making processes. While the richer nature of the SDGs represents progress, it also gives rise to certain measurement challenges. The 17 SDGs comprise 169 targets and 232 indicators to monitor progress toward the achievement of social, economic, and environmental goals before the end of 2030. Bertelsmann Stiftung (BS) and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) devised the SDG Index in 2015 as a composite system to benchmark the performance of countries across the SDGs. An updated version of the Index was released in 2017. The SDG indicators considered for the SDG Index have been criticized based on data availability. Indicators with extensive available data are a key factor in constructing useful composite indices as integrated frameworks to appraise the achievement of the SDGs at a country scale.