,

,
,
 Assessing SDGs: A new
methodology to measure sustainability

Lorenza Campagnolo*, Carlo Carraro**, Fabio Eboli*, Luca Farnia*

ABSTRACT

The FEEM project APPS – Assessment, Projections and Policy of Sustainable Development
Goals – focuses on the quantitative assessment of the seventeen Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations at the end of September 2015. The project
consists of two phases. The first, retrospective, computes indicators for all SDGs in 139
countries and then derives a composite multi-dimensional index and a worldwide ranking of
current sustainability. This allows informing on strengths and weaknesses of today socio-
economic development, as well as environmental criticalities, all around the world. The
second phase, prospective, aims at evaluating the future trends of sustainability in the world
by 2030. The assessment of the SDGs is carried out by means of an extended version of the
recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium ICES macro-economic model that
includes social and environmental indicators. The final goal is to highlight future challenges
left unsolved in next 15 years of socio-economic development and analyze costs and
benefits of specific policies to support the achievement of proposed targets. This paper
presents the methodology and the results of the retrospective assessment. Five main steps
are described: i) screening of indicators eligible to address the UN SDGs; ii) data collection
from relevant sources; iii) organization in the three pillars of sustainability (economy, society,
environment); iv) normalization to a common metrics; v) aggregation of the 25 indicators in
composite indices by pillars as well as in the multi-dimensional index. The final ranking
summarizes countries’ sustainability performance. As expected, Middle-North European
countries are at top of the ranking (Sweden, Norway and Switzerland the first three), with the
most industrialized European countries such as Germany and UK, however, penalized by
insufficient environmental performance. Other highly developed countries are between 24th
(Canada) and 52nd place (United States). The emerging nations are scattered in our
sustainability ranking. Brazil (43rd) and Russia (45th) precede China (80th) and India (102nd),
the latter two especially penalized because of their social complexity. The worst
performances, in terms of overall sustainability, are in Sub-Saharan Africa (Comoros, the
Central African Republic and Chad occupy the last places in the ranking).

* FEEM and CMCC

** University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, FEEM and CMCC

Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals, Composite Index, ranking, indicators

JEL classification: O44, O57, Q01

Paper presented at the UN Summit on Sustainable Development Goals, New York,

September 25, 2015. Corresponding author: Fabio Eboli (fabio.eboli@feem.it, (+39) 041-
2700452), San Giorgio Maggiore Island 8, 30124 Venice (Italy).

1
1. Introduction
In September 2015, at the UN summit in New York City, the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) have been adopted by the head of governments of almost 200 countries. The goals
identify a set of objectives designed to help the world to move towards sustainable
development, by addressing its three dimensions: economic development, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
The sustainable developments goals will be measured by a set of indicators, a few per
each goal. Indicators will be the essential tool to monitor progress towards the SDGs at the
local, national, regional, and global levels. A sound indicator framework will turn the SDGs
and their targets into a management tool to help countries and the global community to
develop implementation strategies and allocate resources accordingly. They will also help
ensure the accountability of all stakeholders for achieving the SDGs.
The focus of SDG monitoring must obviously be at the national level. Each country will
choose the national SDG indicators that are best suited to track its own progress towards
sustainable development. Given the diversity of countries, there will certainly be substantial
variation in the number and type of national indicators that countries will adopt. Nevertheless,
data availability and statistical consistency are important constraint for the choice of the
statistical indicators that will be used to monitor and verify the SDGs. This will inevitably
induce some homogeneity among the indicators selected by different countries.
In addition, statistical indicators must enable the UN and all parties to compare the efforts
carried out in different countries, a comparison which is crucial to assess the effectiveness of
domestic policies and the speed towards sustainable development (and possible free-riding
behaviors as well).
Finally, indicators should not provide only a retrospective representation of the situation in
each country. Indicators should enable policymakers to evaluate different domestic policies
and their impacts on sustainable development. A prospective analysis of future dynamics of
indicators is therefore essential.
The first objective – measuring, monitoring and verification – can be achieved only if
indicators are sufficiently homogeneous – if not identical – across different countries. To
achieve the second objective, indicators should be linked and integrated into a
macroeconomic model of the world economy. This guarantees the consistency of the values
of the indicators and the possibility to assess how different policy decisions affect future
values of indicators representing the SDGs.
This paper provides a statistical and modeling framework to address these two objectives.
First, it provides a retrospective analysis of SDGs, by computing a set of sustainable
development statistical indicators for 139 countries. The selected indicators, chosen as the
main ones relevant for the 17 SDGs adopted by the UN, are organized across pillars, to
highlight a country’s overall performance in all three dimensions (social, environmental and
economic) of sustainable development. Moreover, a composite measure of sustainability is
proposed by merging the three dimensions through a non-linear aggregation procedure. This
will enable us to compute a sustainability ranking of all world countries.
Secondly, it outlines the macro-economic model, opportunely extended with social and
environmental modules, which will be used to estimate future (endogenous) trends of the
selected indicators in both reference and policy scenarios. The framework used makes it
possible to obtain a global perspective of effects of socio-economic development over the
next 15 years (until 2030), as well as that of policies which can highlight potential synergies
and conflicts between indicators when attempting to achieve sustainability targets as defined

2
by the UN Open Working Group1. Moreover, the use of the macro-economic model helps us
to understand the magnitude of investments required to achieve the goals, and to highlight
the role of international financial transfers.
The results shown in this paper relates mostly with the collection of indicators for most
world countries and their analysis to identify which countries need to make more/less effort
and progress towards sustainable development. The results derived from running the macro-
economic model into which indicators are integrated will be presented in a companion paper.
The structure of the paper is as follows. Section two describes the methodology for data
search, collection and organization. Section three provides a concise overview of the
technical aspects of benchmarking and normalization procedures, as well as the aggregation
methodology of indicators into the economic, social and environmental pillars. Section four
presents the main results of the analysis, providing a global perspective through maps and
comparisons of the indicators, in order to examine the most interesting examples of
criticalities and similarities/divergences among countries. Section five introduces our model-
based ex-ante assessment of future sustainability trends and policy impacts. The concluding
section summarizes results and outlines the scope of our future research.

2. Data screening, collection and organization

Since 2012, a new process of selection of most relevant indicators has been proceeding
along the same path traced by the MDGs experience. While the latter was mostly focused on
the social dimensions of sustainable development, the new set of SDGs is much more
comprehensive as it explores and considers all dimensions, granting greater space to the
environmental and economic pillars.
Beyond the idea of delivering indicators and targets, as clearly recognized by the UN
(2015) and the UN SDSN (2015), progress in sustainable development also relies upon an
adequate monitoring of the suitable indicators used to measure its different dimensions.2
One main issue, once the necessary information has been gathered, is to organize the
data to inform decision makers and stakeholders of where progress has been substantial and
has more closely approached expected targets and, more importantly, where challenges still
exist and require further efforts to fill gaps.
In this paper, we focus on a subset of indicators, partially considered by MDGs and the
UN SDSN as the most representative of the new SDGs endorsed in September 2015 by the
UN. A number of criteria guided the selection process.
First, as the analysis covers the whole world in large detail, down to the country level,
indicators with a limited coverage in terms of data availability have not been considered
eligible and therefore have been excluded by the dashboard. When available and reliable,
missing data for countries have been replaced with the average of the geographical area. It
is worth noting that available time series data are also unsatisfactory, especially concerning
developing countries. And in several cases there is clear mismatching of data for different
years. This has implied the infeasibility of a trend analysis.
Second, the screening procedure has been motivated by the specific requirement of
introducing and defining all indicators in the research follow-up on a macro-economic model,
so as to project possible future trends under a number of scenarios. Thus, we have excluded

1
UN OWG, 2014.
2
UN IEAG, 2015.

3
all those indicators lacking any connection with pre-existing macro-economic variables or,
more extensively, any robust empirical evidence indicating why they get better or worse.
One main objective was to cover all the 17 SDGs proposed for the 2016-2030 period. This
was fulfilled successfully. Namely, 8 SDGs are represented by a single indicator and 6 (3, 7,
8, 9, 11, 13, 15) by more than one indicator. 2 SDGs have been excluded from the list. SDG
5, on Gender Equality, has only recently started to be monitored by UN Women, and so far
data on physical violence inflicted on women have only been available for 100 countries3
and would affect the results of the analysis by pillar. SDG 17 has also been excluded as it
refers to Means of Implementation and as such cuts across all three dimensions of
sustainability.
A final consideration refers to the data format. While most of MDGs and SDGs targets are
defined in terms of their progress over a predefined time horizon (15 years), missing time
series do not provide concrete figures for this kind of assessment. For this reason, the
indicators are expressed as the current situation since the last available record. The only
notable exception is GDP per capita growth, for which we use available growth figures
related to the last two subsequent years (generally 2013-2014). In contrast to other cases,
the OWG made this benchmarking possible with its time series coverage and the presence
of a quantitative target4 for the 2016-2030 period (see Section 3).
Table 1 reports the final list of indicators considered in the present analysis (column 2),
classified by sustainability dimension. The first column reports the code name used in the
graph presentations in Section 4. The third column shows the source of the data collection.
The last column connects each indicator to its UN SDG.

Table 1 - Indicators list, data sources and corresponding SDGs

SDG
Definition Source UN GOAL
Indicator
SOCIETY
Population below $1.25 (PPP) per
SDG 1 WDI / MDGs 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
day, percentage
2. End hunger, achieve food security and
Undernourished population,
SDG 2 MDGs improve nutrition, and promote sustainable
percentage
agriculture
Physician density (per 1000
SDG 3a WDI
population) 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-
Healthy Life Expectancy (HALE) being for all at all ages
SDG 3b WHO
at birth (years)

UNESCO 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality

Literacy rate of 15-24 year olds,
SDG 4 education and promote life-long learning
both sexes, percentage / MDGs opportunities for all
Access to electricity (% of total 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable,
SDG 7 WDI
population) sustainable, and modern energy for all
PovcalNet 10. Reduce inequality within and among
SDG 10 Palma ratio
(WB) countries

3
UN Women, 2013.
4
Further clarifications on this point in the “benchmarking” section.

4
 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive
societies for sustainable development,
SDG 16 Corruption Perception Index TI provide access to justice for all, and build
effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions at all levels
ENVIRONMENT
Proportion of total water resources 6. Ensure availability and sustainable
SDG 6 MDGs
used management of water and sanitation for all
Share of electricity from
SDG 7a WDI 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable,
renewables
sustainable, and modern energy for all
SDG 7b Rate of primary energy intensity IEA
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote
Total energy and industry-related
SDG 9 IMF / CAIT inclusive and sustainable industrialization
GHG emissions over value added
and foster innovation
Mean urban air pollution of
SDG 11a WDI
particulate matter (PM2.5) 11. Make cities and human settlements
CO2 intensity of residential sector inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
SDG 11b IEA
over energy volumes
Net GHG emissions in the
agriculture, forestry and other land
SDG 13a FAO / WDI
use (AFOLU) sectors (weighted by 13. Take urgent action to combat climate
total land) change and its impacts
CO2 intensity of power and
SDG 13b IEA
transport over energy volumes
14. Conserve and sustainably use the
MDGs oceans, seas and marine resources for
Proportion of terrestrial and sustainable development
SDG 14
marine protected areas

15. Protect, restore and promote

SDG 15a Forest area (% of land area) WDI sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems,
sustainably manage forests, combat
Share of endangered and desertification, and halt and reverse land
SDG 15b vulnerable (animals and plants) IUCN degradation and halt biodiversity loss
species (% of total species)
ECONOMY
SDG 8a GDP per capita growth IMF / WDI
SDG 8b GDP per person employed (PPP) IMF / WDI 8. Promote Sustained, Inclusive and
Sustainable Economic Growth, Full and
SDG 8c Public debt as share of GDP IMF Productive Employment and Decent Work
for All
Employment-to-population ratio,
SDG 8d MDGs / ILO
percentage

Manufacturing value added (MVA) WDI

SDG 9a 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote
as percent of GDP
inclusive and sustainable industrialization
Gross domestic expenditure on and foster innovation
SDG 9b WDI
R&D as share of GDP
Direct Material Consumption over 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and
SDG12 IMF / GMWD
GDP production patterns
Source Acronyms => WDI: World Development Indicators; MDGs: Millennium Development Goals; WHO: World Health
Organization; WB: World Bank; TI: Transparency International; IEA: International Energy Agency; IMF: International Monetary
Fund; CAIT: WRI Climate Data Explorer; FAO: UN Food and Agriculture Organization; IUCN: International Union for

5
Conservation of Nature; ILO: International Labor Organization; GMWD: SERI/WU Global Material Flows Database.

Providing guidelines for actions by simultaneously viewing so many indicators can be very
challenging. Once the data have been gathered, they are carefully assessed to improve the
analysis. Benchmarking becomes essential for assessing the current level of sustainability of
a specific indicator, as well as its distance from proposed targets 5 . Normalization allows
comparability among indicators by building common metrics. Finally, the aggregation of
indicators into a single composite measure helps achieve a comprehensive assessment of
sustainability. The next section will describe those methodological steps.

3. Benchmarking, Normalization and Aggregation

Aggregating indicators in composing indices can be very useful for summarizing complex
and multi-dimensional data into a single and easily interpretable value. Especially in the case
of SDGs, where a large number of indicators structured into 17 Goals has been proposed
and will be monitored over a range of years, this can be extremely helpful for policy makers
at different governance levels.
The main purpose of this paper is to get beyond the single indicators, in order to provide a
more comprehensive view of sustainable development. This is done in two steps. First, by
considering the different dimensions of sustainability from the indicators listed in Table 1.
Second, by building an overall composite index which summarizes the three dimensions. The
sub-sections below illustrate the methodological steps adopted to compute the mono-
dimensional and the overall composite index.

3.1 Benchmarking and Normalization

The main challenge when analyzing how countries behave across a range of indicators
refers to the measurement metrics. Indicators are typically ratios. While the two components
of such ratios can be expressed in any metrics, ratios themselves help as they provide in
principle6 a measurement between 0 and 1. Unfortunately, not all indicators have this feature.
This requires a further effort to make the indicators first comparable and then, if desired,
unified in a composite index. The procedure is defined as normalization and its aim is to
bring all the indicators considered into the same measurement scale [0,1].
Generally speaking, indicators can be split into two main categories according to their: a)
positive direction (i.e. the higher the score of a country, the higher the country’s
performance); b) negative direction (i.e. the higher the score of a country, the lower the
country’s performance). As a consequence, the normalization procedure required for
transforming the raw data into a common [0,1] scale is different and specific for the two
cases. For indicators belonging to the a) category, a country is defined as fully unsustainable
whenever its score is below a critical threshold value 𝑥 , whereas it is defined as fully
sustainable whenever its score is above the threshold value 𝑥. Indicators belonging to the b)
category have the opposite normalization process. In both cases, the linear interpolation
between these two threshold values represents all the non-polar cases.

5
For a comparison of global and national targets see ODI (2015).
6
This is not always the case. See, for instance, public debt, which can be higher than 100% or
even negative.

6
 Equations 1) and 2) below represent the normalization method used for indicators
belonging to the a) and b) category, respectively. Errore. L'origine riferimento non è
stata trovata. visualizes these definitions.

1 𝑖𝑓𝑓 𝑥 ≥ 𝑥 1 𝑖𝑓𝑓 𝑥 ≤ 𝑥
0 𝑖𝑓𝑓 𝑥 ≤ 𝑥 0 𝑖𝑓𝑓 𝑥 ≥ 𝑥
1) 𝑓𝑎 (𝑥) = 2) 𝑓𝑏 (𝑥) = (𝑥 − 𝑥)
(𝑥 − 𝑥)
𝑖𝑓𝑓 𝑥 ≤ 𝑥 ≤ 𝑥 𝑖𝑓𝑓 𝑥 ≤ 𝑥 ≤ 𝑥
{ (𝑥 − 𝑥) {(𝑥 − 𝑥)

𝑎) 𝑏)
𝑓𝑎 (𝑥)
1 1

𝑓𝑏 (𝑥)
0 𝑥 𝑥 0 𝑥 𝑥

Figure 1 – Normalization Scheme

Defining 𝑥 and 𝑥 for all indicators is a hard task and possibly the most critical of the
present analysis. As said in Section 2, almost all indicators are expressed as the current
level in the latest available years rather than progress over a period. In fact, the latter option
is also used to define OWG targets. Nevertheless, most targets are qualitative (“improve”,
“reduce”, and so on) and only in a few cases provide quantitative levels that could have been
used to specify benchmarks.
For this reason, benchmarks for sustainable/unsustainable levels have been defined by
educated guesses for each indicator, based on an analysis of the scientific literature on each
indicator, as well as the observed data. Table 2 shows the threshold values used,
respectively, for the normalization process in the social, environmental and economic pillar.

Table 2 - Benchmarking category and values by indicator

SDG Indicator Type 𝒙 𝒙

SOCIETY
Population below $1.25 (PPP) per day, percentage b 40 0.5
Population undernourished, percentage b 20 5

7
 Physician density (per 1000 population) a 2 3
Healthy Life Expectancy (HALE) at birth (years) a 55 70
Literacy rate of 15-24 years old, both sexes, percentage a 85 99
Access to electricity (% of total population) a 5 99
Palma ratio b 2 1.2
Corruption Perception Index a 3 6

ENVIRONMENT
Proportion of total water resources used b 30 5
Share of electricity from renewables a 5 60
Rate of primary energy intensity b 10 3
Total energy and industry-related GHG emissions over value added b 2 1
Mean urban air pollution of particulate matter (PM2.5) b 25 5
CO2 intensity of residential sector over energy volumes b 3 0
Net GHG emissions in the AFOLU sector over total surface b 3 2
CO2 intensity of power and transport over energy volumes b 3 0
Proportion of terrestrial and marine protected areas a 5 20
Forest area (% of land area) a 10 50
Share of endangered and vulnerable (animals & plants) species (% of total species) b 10 5

ECONOMY
GDP per capita growth a 0 7
GDP per person employed (PPP) a 5 50
Public debt as share of GDP b 70 20
Employment-to-population ratio, percentage a 40 80
Manufacturing value added (MVA) as percent of GDP a 5 15
Gross domestic expenditure on R&D as share of GDP a 0.5 3
Direct Material Consumption over GDP a 0.5 2

3.2 Aggregation
Once the normalization procedure is completed, we use a routine script with “R” software to
compute the four composite indices (one per each of the three dimensions, and the fourth for
the overall composite sustainability index). Figure 2 shows the composite index structure; a
country’s sustainability level is determined by its overall performance in the three
sustainability pillars, which in turn depend on the values of the single indicators pertaining to
them.

8
 Figure 2 - Overall Composite Index structure

Two different aggregation procedures have been used. In the first step, concerning
composite indices by dimensions, indicator scores belonging to the same pillar have been
aggregated by their arithmetic means. Hence, defining 𝑋𝑗 as the pillar score for country 𝑗, and
𝑥𝑗𝑖 as its normalized value in indicator 𝑖 = {1,2, … , 𝑛}, the aggregated pillar score for country 𝑗
is given by:

𝑛
1
3) 𝑋𝑗 = ∑ 𝑥𝑗𝑖
𝑛
𝑖

In the second step, which provides the overall measure of sustainability, the scores obtained
for each dimension are aggregated for each country by means of fuzzy measures and the
Choquet Integral, an advanced mathematical formulation making it possible to take into
account potential interactions – from synergy to redundancy – that may exist among the
selected indicators. For lack of space, we do not discuss here in detail the methodology
behind fuzzy measures, the Choquet integral and fuzzy measure elicitation.7
The main concept of sustainability (and corresponding weights by dimension) in the
current context derives from an ad hoc questionnaire submitted to an Experts’ panel, and
hence the resulting fuzzy measures. Such measures have been used for the overall
computation of the composite index’s main node.8
A country is defined as sustainable whenever, to a certain extent, both its environmental
and social dimensions are jointly satisfied and, to a lesser extent, when both its social and
economic dimensions are jointly fulfilled; no dimension can be substituted with another one.9

7
The interested reader can refer to Grabisch (1997), Grabisch et al. (2008), Ishii and Sugeno
(1985), Marichal (2000), Marichal and Roubens (2000).
8
See Farnia and Giove (2015) for details and technical discussion.
9
Going back to the sustainability theory, this implies “strong” rather than “weak” sustainability.

9
On average, considering all the interactions among the pillars, the social dimension is valued
as the most important (38.6%), followed by the environmental (35.7%) and the economic
(25.7%) dimensions.
The Möbius set in Table 3 models the above definition for all the subsets – limited to
cardinality two at maximum – that can be formed from the set 𝑁 = {𝐸𝑛𝑣, 𝑆𝑜𝑐, 𝐸𝑐𝑜} containing
the three pillars.
Given the set 𝑁 = {𝐸𝑛𝑣, 𝑆𝑜𝑐, 𝐸𝑐𝑜} and the Möbius representation of fuzzy measures 𝑚{𝑇}
attached to the set 𝑇 ⊆ 𝑁, the Choquet Integral of country 𝑗, given its performance in pillars
𝑋𝑗𝑖 with 𝑖 = {𝐸𝑛𝑣, 𝑆𝑜𝑐, 𝐸𝑐𝑜}, is computed as:

4) 𝐶𝑗 (𝑋𝐸𝑛𝑣 , 𝑋𝑆𝑜𝑐 , 𝑋𝐸𝑐𝑜 ) = ∑ 𝑚{𝑇} ⋀ 𝑋𝑗𝑖

𝑇⊆𝑁 𝑖∈𝑇

where ∧ is the minimum operator.

Table 3 - Möbius representation elicited

Möbius Value
𝑚{𝐸𝑛𝑣} 0.196
𝑚{𝑆𝑜𝑐} 0.168
𝑚{𝐸𝑐𝑜} 0.172
𝑚{𝐸𝑛𝑣, 𝑆𝑜𝑐} 0.294
𝑚{𝐸𝑛𝑣, 𝐸𝑐𝑜} 0.027
𝑚{𝑆𝑜𝑐, 𝐸𝑐𝑜} 0.142

4. Assessing SDGs
This section is organized as follows. First, we present the current level of sustainability in all
countries, per each dimension, through worldwide maps, computed as explained in Section
3. An in-depth analysis is made for several countries to highlight the contribution of the
different indicators to the performance for each dimension of sustainability. Then, we move
on to the overall sustainability representation, once again with a worldwide map, as well as
with polar diagrams and a correlation analysis. Because of space limitations, only a few
representations can be provided in this report. Interested readers can contact the authors for
further infos and graphs/figures.

4.1 The Economic Dimension

The economic map (Figure 3) shows that South Korea 10 , Central and Northern Europe

10
Since not all of the social indicators were available for South Korea, it is not part of the final
ranking of the overall composite index, but only of the economic and environmental pillar
rankings.

10
(Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and Germany), the United States and Japan perform well
economically. Not surprisingly, the worst performers are to be found in Africa and in Latin
America. The unexpected green spot in Central Africa is the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (ranking 11th in the economic pillar), which is characterized by a high per capita GDP
growth, a low share of public debt over GDP, a high material productivity and a share of
value added in the manufacturing sector.

Economic pillar
0 - .2
.2 - .4
.4 - .6
.6 - .8
.8 - 1
No data

Figure 3 - Economic Pillar

In Figure 4, we compare the performance of the three highest and lowest performers by
looking at the normalized value of the indicators in the economic pillar (described in Table 2).
The top performers in economic sustainability are South Korea (1st), Sweden (2nd) and
Switzerland (3rd). South Korea outperforms the other two countries because of its higher per
capita economic growth (2.9% compared to Sweden’s 1.3% and Switzerland’s 0.8%) and
because of its lower public debt/GDP share (35.7% compared to Sweden’s 41.5% and
Switzerland’s 46.1%). Switzerland’s higher employment-to-population ratio (65.2% compared
to Korea’s 59.1% and Sweden’s 58.9%) is not sufficient to compensate for its lower
performance in per capita economic growth (Figure 4, left).
Figure 4 (right) shows a much different result for the lowest performers: Guinea-Bissau,
Gambia and Sudan. The normalized indicator values are all close to zero in these three
countries, with the exception of Gambia’s employment-to-population ratio (72%) and Guinea-
Bissau’s (68.1%). Interestingly, with respect to this indicator, the two countries perform better
than the three top ones on the left-hand graph; this may be explained by the lower healthy
life expectancy at birth, which enables fewer people to “enjoy” retirement age. Sudan is the
worst performer, with low scores in per capita economic growth (1%), GDP per those
employed (8.5 1000$PPP), employment-to-population ratio (45.4%), share of value added in
the manufacturing sector (7.8%), share of R&D expenditure over GDP (0.5%) and material
productivity (0.5 ml$PPP/tonnes), as well as high public debt share over GDP (74.2%),

11
 Figure 4 - Performance by economic indicators (normalized), top (left) and bottom (right) performers.

The economic pillar ranking shows some surprising results, such as the above-mentioned
good performance of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (ranking 11th), which
outperforms rapidly growing China (ranking 22nd). Figure 5 helps clarify the reasons behind
this result. Both China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have a rapid growth rate
(6.8% and 6.1%, respectively), a good score on employment-to-population ratio (68% and
66%, respectively) and a high share of their value added comes from the manufacturing
sector (30% and 20%, respectively). China surpasses the Democratic Republic of the Congo
in terms of GDP per employed (17 versus 1.1 1000$PPP, respectively) and on R&D
expenditure share (2% versus 0.13%), but the latter is completely sustainable in terms of
public debt/GDP share (20% compared to China’s 41%) and material productivity (4.57
versus China’s 0.52 ml$PPP/tonnes).
The indicator of material productivity, whose results show such a large divergence
between China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is commonly used to summarize
the intensive use of resources and the value added they are generating. However, it has to
be taken with caution in the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other
developing countries, whose low material productivity is due to the underdeveloped sector for
raw materials transformation (i.e. low domestic consumption of these materials) and a high
reliance on revenues from raw materials export.

Figure 5 - Performance by economic indicators, China vs. the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

12
4.2 The Social Dimension
The feature for catalyzing attention and facilitating the comparison proper to aggregate
indexes is particularly evident when we consider the second sustainability dimension. Figure
6 highlights the high vulnerability of the Sub-Saharan African area and, to a lesser extent,
Southern Asia, with reference to the social pillar, and a good sustainability level in Europe,
the United States and Oceania. Interestingly, some areas that in Figure 3 are characterized
by a good level of economic sustainability are in this map highlighted as high risk in the
social pillar, e.g. the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which ranks 163rd (out of 165
countries) in terms of social sustainability.

Social pillar
0 - .2
.2 - .4
.4 - .6
.6 - .8
.8 - 1
No data

Figure 6 - Social Pillar

The three best performers in the social pillar are France, Iceland and Germany, which
reach the highest sustainability level in all the social indicators. At the bottom positions of the
social pillar, we find the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and the Central African
Republic, which are close to the total unsustainable levels across all indicators. Rather than
focusing on the highest and lowest performers, it is more interesting to make a graph
analysis that compares two Middle Eastern countries, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to
European and North American countries.
Looking at Figure 7 (left), we see that Qatar, the UK and Greece have similar
performances with regard to the prevalence of poverty (1.7%, 1.1% and 1.4%, respectively),
healthy life expectancy at birth (68, 71 and 71, respectively), literacy rate (99%) and access
to reliable electricity (slightly lower in Qatar, 94%, while 100% for the others). A higher
physician density (respectively. 7.7 versus 2.8 doctors per every 1000 persons) and a lower
Palma ratio (1.5 in Qatar and 1.7 in the UK) determine the higher ranking of Qatar as
compared to the UK. Overall, this result has to be judged carefully. On the one hand, it is
worth noting that the indicator chosen to represent the quality of the health system does not

13
account directly for the access of a population to health services, and may reveal
inefficiencies. On the other hand, with reference to the Palma ratio, the missing data for
Qatar has been replaced with the average Palma ratio in the Arab world.11 The ranking of
Greece after the UK in the social pillar is certainly a more reliable result, and it is due to its
low performance in the CPI (4.3 in Greece and 7.8 in the UK). Its better performance for the
Palma ratio (1.4 versus 1.7 in UK) is not sufficient to compensate for this.
Figure 7 (right) compares a group of countries – Armenia, the United States and Saudi
Arabia – that, while very different from each other, are close in ranking in our social pillar,
with similar results in the prevalence of poverty and malnutrition, literacy rate and access to
electricity. However, the indicator determining the drop of the United States to 47th place in
social sustainability is its high Palma ratio (2 versus 1.1 in Armenia) and lower physician
density (2.5 compared to 2.7 doctors per every 1000 persons).

th th
Figure 7 - Performance by social indicators: from the 25 to 27 rank (right)
th th
and from the 46 to 48 rank (left).

4.3 The Environmental Dimension

Mapping performance in environmental sustainability (Figure 8) helps us to ascertain that
environmental degradation and exploitation is more heterogeneous within each continent. In
fact, it is more linked to the development level as well as the degree of awareness of and
concern for environmental risks. Overall, Northern European, Sub-Saharan African and Latin
American countries are among the top performers, while South Asian, North African and
Middle Eastern countries are at the bottom of the ranking.

11
UNDP, 2015.

14
 Environmental pillar
0 - .2
.2 - .4
.4 - .6
.6 - .8
.8 - 1
No data

Figure 8 - Environmental Pillar

Figure 9 enables us to compare the performance of the top three and lowest three
countries for each environmental indicator considered. Latvia, the first country in the ranking,
is completely sustainable with respect to water use (1.1%), has a very low level of CO2
intensity in the residential sector (0.3 ktonsCO2/ktoe) and in the power and transport sector
(2 ktonsCO2/ktoe), negative GHG emissions from AFOLU (-0.2 ktonsCO2e/Km2), a high
share of forest area (54%) and a low percentage of endangered species (3%). Sweden
slightly outperforms Latvia in terms of GHG emissions over value added in the industrial
sector (respectively 0.46 versus 1.13 MtCO2e / billion$2011PPP) and a lower PM2.5
concentration (respectively 6 versus 9 mg/m3), but shows a lower share of protected areas
as compared to Latvia (respectively 13% versus 17%). The Congo’s third-place ranking is
mainly due to higher CO2 intensity in the power and transport sector (2.6 ktonsCO2/ktoe) and
PM2.5 concentration (14 mg/m3).
Figure 9 (right) explains the reasons behind the low performance of the three lowest-
ranking countries. The score in most of the environmental indicators is close to zero for
South Africa, Uzbekistan and Syria. The three countries perform equally well only in
SDG13a, having an insignificant amount of GHGs emissions from AFOLU. Furthermore,
Uzbekistan and Syria have an average CO2 intensity level in the power and transport sector
(respectively 2.4 and 2.6 ktonsCO2/ktoe) and South Africa has an above average
performance in the indicator of PM2.5 concentration (7.8 mg/m3).12

12
We invite readers not to forget that for all normalized indicators “the higher the better” rule
applies, irrespective of the direction on pre-normalization values (see Section 3).

15
 Figure 9 - Performance by environmental indicators (normalized), high (left)
and low (right) performers

4.4 The Multi-Dimension Sustainability

The final and perhaps most remarkable outcome of the present analysis is the construction
of the composite index for overall sustainability. As opposed to the mono-dimensional
performance presented earlier, there is in this case a further methodological improvement in
the application of the Choquet Integral to define different weights for the various dimensions
based on experts’ elicitation.
The map below (Figure 10) reports the aggregate sustainability covering 139 countries
across the world. The only country in the world that shows a fully sustainable performance is
Sweden. 9 out of 10 top scorers are from Europe, with Norway and Switzerland respectively
in 2nd and 3rd place. Slovenia is the only Mediterranean country (10th), while it is worth
mentioning the good situation in the Baltic region, with Latvia (4th) and Lithuania (8th). The
only non-European country in the top 10 is New Zealand, ranked 9th and lagging behind
somewhat, especially in the environmental and economic pillars. The most industrialized
countries in Europe rank between 15th and 35th, highlighting their linkage to environmental
drawbacks. Other countries worth mentioning are Japan (44th), Russia (45th), the USA (52nd),
China (80th) and India (102nd).
Not surprisingly, the bottom ten all belong to Sub-Saharan Africa, with the Comoros, the
Central African Republic and Chad ranking, respectively, 137th, 138th and 139th, with huge
gaps, especially in the social pillar, balanced out only partially by their performance in the
environmental pillar, mainly explained by their low rate of industrialization. The first non-Sub
Saharan country near the bottom is Syria, ranking 122nd. The Annex reports the overall
ranking and the score by pillar for the 139 countries considered in the global analysis.13
Figure 11 provides another graph illustration of sustainability, connecting overall
sustainability (vertical axis) with the economic pillar (horizontal axis).14 There emerges a clear
correlation between the two, but also several interesting features of the sustainable
development assessment.

13
Each pillar takes several countries into consideration, but we have streamlined the sample for
the multi-dimensional index by using only those countries for which all dimensions are covered.
14
Names are only provided for a few countries, to enable a clear reading of the graph.

16
 SDGs index
0 - .2
.2 - .4
.4 - .6
.6 - .8
.8 - 1
No data

Figure 10 – Multi-Dimension Composite Index

0.9 Sweden

Norway Switzerland
0.8 Latvia
Denmark
New Zealand
Brunei
0.7
Costa Rica Hungary
SUSTAINABILITY

Germany

United Arab Emirates

0.6 Uruguay
Brazil Chile Japan
Albania Russia United States
El Salvador
0.5 Bhutan
Bahrain
Belize Turkey China
Ukraine Kazakhstan Turkmenistan
0.4 Jamaica
Guyana Jordan India Bangladesh
Ghana Mali Iraq
Niger Cote d'Ivoire
0.3 Yemen Dem. Rep. Congo
Gambia
Nigeria
Sudan
0.2
Central African Rep. Chad
0.1

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ECONOMY

Figure 11 - Economy and Sustainability mapping

Color legend. Blue: Sub-Saharan Africa; purple: Middle East and North Africa; yellow: Southern Asia; black:
former Russian countries and Turkey; green: Latin America; red: Europe; orange: other developed (non-
European) countries.

On one hand, it enables us to group together countries by continent, by juxtaposing the

two dimensions. Sub-Saharan Africa is located at the bottom-left, which denotes a lag in both
the economic and the sustainability dimension, with the exception of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo for the former, and Mauritius and Cape Verde for the latter (thanks to
their environmental integrity). The Middle East and North Africa (Mena) are slightly better in
terms of sustainability, while sharing a similar economic pattern. Asia improves upon Mena in
both respects. Latin America is on the same level of sustainability as Asia, with a reduced
economic performance but benefiting from lower environmental deterioration. The situation

17
appears more heterogeneous for the previous Russian countries and Turkey. Other (non-
European) developed countries share similar economic scores but differentiated levels of
sustainability. Finally, Europe occupies the top-right part of the picture, which shows that
there is still much to do before it can become fully sustainable, even if we look only at the
economic dimension.
On the other hand, it is important to highlight similarities and divergences between
countries in different parts of the world by looking at the different components of
sustainability. In fact, it can be interesting to take a more in-depth look at what produces
differences in sustainability for countries having the same level of economic performance.
This is the case, for instance, for Norway, Russia and China, which occupy the same column
in the above picture, but on different rows. Figure 12 (left) helps explain the reason for this.
There is a marked difference of ranking between the three countries in the other dimensions,
with Norway performing (much) better than Russia and, in turn, Russia surpassing China in
both the social and environmental dimensions. Our analysis can go the other way around to
explain the different compositions for an equal level of sustainability, as for Costa Rica and
Germany, with the former having a higher score in the environmental dimension and the
latter having a higher score in the social and economic component (Figure 12, right).

Soc Soc
1 1
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
0 0

Eco Env Eco Env

Norway Russia China Costa Rica Germany

Figure 12 – Performance by (normalized) pillar for similar levels of economic (left)

and sustainability (right) score

5. An introduction to the prospective analysis

Will SDGs be achieved by 2030 worldwide? Which is the socio–economic–environmental
path more consistent with the SDGs achievement? Which countries will present major
problems to meet SDGs and in which areas? Which policies could support this process and
which is the most efficient way to allocate the costs of these interventions?
Answering to all these questions requires a model-based assessment relying upon a
comprehensive and multi-dimensional setting. Since main drivers and challenges for future
development are linked to socio-economic drivers in a globalized context, we employ a
macro-economic model, traditionally used for scenario analysis, adapted to this scope.
The core of this framework is the recursive-dynamic Computable General Equilibrium
(CGE) model ICES (Intertemporal Computable Equilibrium System; see Eboli et al., 2010),
applied to climate change impact and policy assessment. As standard in CGE models, ICES
is suited to assess world-wide and economy-wide implications of environmental as well as
other policies and/or economic shocks on variables such as income per capita, commodities

18
outputs and demand, commodities prices, international trade.
The macro-economic framework – based on perfect competitiveness in all markets and
stylized behavior of economic agents that maximize profits (firms) and consumption
(households) respectively – and the explicit inter-connections among domestic and
international markets allow highlighting higher-order costs and benefits at global and country
level, going beyond the perspective of the sector/country/indicator originally impacted by the
policy/shock. For this reason, CGE models provide an integrated view of the economy and its
future development, which can mimic endogenous changes in production and consumption
patterns induced by social economic drivers such as population and economic growth
characterizing different future scenarios.
In the present application, the basic ICES model is purposely enriched with social and
environmental indicators to cover all dimensions of sustainability, namely the SDGs
indicators presented in Table 1 and used for the retrospective analysis in this paper. This
allows assessing in an internally consistent framework how and at which extent changes in
macro-economic variables may affect the achievement of SDGs all around the world. This
approach considers the actual response of economic agents to the perturbation occurred in
the socio-economic system (market-driven or autonomous adaptation) and the interactions
among SDGs (synergies and/or trade-offs), such to capture more realistically the likely future
outcomes of all sustainability indicators in different scenarios (e.g. reference and policy).
The sectoral and regional specification considers around 20 productive sectors and 40
countries/regions covering the whole world. Economic benchmark is taken for 2007 by
Narayanan et al. (2012). The historical records of indicators’ values rely on international
databases (Table 1) and defining the starting point in the baseline scenario design. The
model solves in one-year time steps. The time horizon of the analysis is 2007-2030 (and
possibly beyond). The interval 2007-2013 replicates historical trends of SDGs. Thereafter,
exogenous (e.g. population) and endogenous (e.g. Gross Domestic Product and sectoral
value added) socio-economic variables move based upon assumptions taken by Socio-
Economic Shared Pathways - SSPs 15 and indicators will move according to the dynamic
mechanism assumed for each of them.
These future reference scenarios are then used as terms of comparison to evaluate the
so-called “counterfactual” scenarios, consisting of social and environmental policies
implementation aimed to achieve one or more sustainability targets not reached in the
reference. The rationale behind the analysis is multi-fold: a) quantifying the country specific
distance from the SDG targets; b) designing effective policies to bridge the gap, such to not
undermine other dimensions not explicitly considered by the policy action; c) defining the
financial effort required to implement the policies above.
Modelling social indicators in a CGE framework is a difficult task, especially when these
imply dispersion measures such as poverty prevalence and Palma ratio (SDG1 and SDG10).
In these cases, we relax the relatively rigid representative agent structure proper of CGE
models and rely on the empirical literature (Ravallion 1997, 2001; Bourguignon 2003) and on
few modelling exercises (Lofgren et al. 2013; Hilderink et al. 2009). Regarding the first
indicator, a key element to consider is the growth elasticity of poverty i.e. a measure of the
responsiveness of poverty prevalence to a change in average income per capita and its
distribution. Using the lognormal approximation of the original income distribution to compute
the growth elasticity of poverty allows taking into account both mean and standard deviation
changes affecting poverty prevalence (Bourguignon 2003).

15
https://secure.iiasa.ac.at/web-apps/ene/SspDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about

19
 Future patterns of income inequality are even more complex to predict. While most of
global CGE models assume only one type of household, Lofgren et al. (2013) and Hilderink
et al. (2009) assume that income distribution is constant over time. We try to overcome this
assumption relying on the recent empirical literature on determinants of within-country
inequality, both country-specific and across-countries analyses, such as differentials in
labour productivity between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors (Bourguignon and
Morrison 1998), sectoral wage differentials between skilled and un-skilled labour,
globalization, education rates, market reforms and policy interventions (Alvaredo and
Gasparini 2015). Alternatively, a more straightforward approach consists in imposing an
exogenous, but not constant, trend of inequality in our future scenarios (van der
Mensbrugghe 2015).
The indicator on malnutrition prevalence (SDG 2) also presents several challenges in a
modelling exercise. Following FAO methodology, we isolate the two main drivers of change
of undernourishment: the variation of average dietary energy consumption and the change in
its distribution. Developing this indicator in a CGE framework allows us to endogenously
obtain a scenario-specific evolution of food consumption consistent with macroeconomic
projections, assumptions on agricultural sector productivity and food price changes.
Therefore, the resulting change in household consumption of food is used to project the
change in average dietary energy consumption. Setting a scenario-specific pattern for the
coefficient of variation is instead more complicated; FAO methodology estimates it using
GDP PPP per capita, Gini index, an indicator on food prices and regional dummies as
explanatory variables of the coefficient of variation (FAO 2008).
The evolution of other social indicators, i.e. physician density (SDG 3a), healthy life
expectancy at birth (SDG 3b) and literacy rate (SDG 4) are directly linked to the endogenous
evolution of economic variables in the ICES model, such as changes in per capita
expenditure in public education and health relatively to the base-year levels. In addition, the
share of population with access to electricity - a proxy of energy access (SDG 7) - evolves
endogenously driven by the reduction of the gap between a country’s GDP per capita and
the OECD average GDP per capita.
With reference to the environmental pillar, the CGE modelling literature of the past
decades has highlighted that CGE models are a powerful tool also to assess the evolution of
some key environmental indicators, such as land use determined by land owners’ revenues
maximisation or GHG and CO2 emissions directly linked to agents’ production and
consumption choices (Böhringer and Löschel 2006).
Nevertheless, a few indicators require further modelling developments. The indicator on
water use (SDG 6) accounts for the intensiveness of water employed by agriculture, industry
and households. Its dynamics depends on the demand of water services by the three sectors
endogenously computed by the ICES model, while the country-specific water availability will
either kept constant to the base-year levels or, according to data availability, changed
accounting for the climate change influence on water reserves. The indicator on
concentration of urban air pollution of particulate matter - PM2.5 - (SDG 11) is related to the
evolution of PM2.5 emissions in urban areas and on the trend of urban population.
Results obtained by using the CGE modeling framework briefly described in this section
will be presented in a companion paper.

20
6. Conclusions
This paper has described the methodological steps and reported the main results of a new
assessment of sustainability worldwide. The originality of this work lies in its effort to organize
the data collected for 27 indicators and 139 countries covering almost all the 17 UN SDGs
adopted by the UN in New York in September 2015, in order to provide a comprehensive
measurement of sustainability for its three dimensions as well as a multi-dimensional index.
This latter index, which enabled us to compute a world sustainability ranking, is derived from
the application of a non-linear method based on the Choquet Integral.
According to our analysis, best performances in terms of sustainability occurred in
Europe, due to its economic and social development. Some industrialized countries,
however, are penalized by environmental pollution, which negatively affects their
sustainability. Environmental protection is the only pillar in which poor countries perform at
sustainable levels, given their embryonic stage of economic growth, especially in Sub-
Saharan Africa. Our analysis allows for both a graphical and an in-depth numerical
assessment of similarities/divergences between geographically or economically different or
similar countries.
This paper constitutes the first part of a twofold research effort. The retrospective analysis
of this paper will be followed by an ex-ante prospective assessment performed using a
macro-economic model integrated with a social and an environmental module. The ultimate
purpose is to evaluate to what extent the world will be able to move towards sustainability by
2030, greening the economy in developed countries and guiding developing countries
towards highly inclusive economic growth with low pollution. In addition, the model-based
analysis will deliver information on the costs and the effectiveness of policy choices
necessary to follow a sustainable development path.

21
References

Alvaredo, Facundo and Leonardo Gasparini. 2015. “Recent trends in inequality and poverty
in developing countries.” In: Handbook of Income Distribution, edited by Anthony B. Atkinson
and Francois Bourguignon, Volume 2A. Elsevier B.V.
Bourguignon, Francois. 2003. “The growth elasticity of poverty reduction: explaining
heterogeneity across countries and time period.” World Bank Working Paper 28104.
Bourguignon, Francois, and Christian Morrisson.1998. “Inequality and development: the role
of dualism.” Journal of Development Economics 57: 233–257.
Eboli, Fabio, Parrado, Ramiro, and Roberto Roson. 2010. “Climate Change Feedback on
Economic Growth: Explorations with a Dynamic General Equilibrium Model.” Environment
and Development Economics 15: 515-533.
FAO. 2008. FAO methodology for the Measurement of Food Depriviation, Updating the
minimum dietary energy requirements, Food and Agriculture Organisation Statistics Division.
Farnia, Luca and Silvio Giove. 2015. “Fuzzy measures and experts’ opinion elicitation.”
Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 37: 229-241.
Grabisch, Michel .1997. “k-order additive discrete fuzzy measures and their representation.”
Fuzzy Sets and Systems 92: 167–189.
Grabisch, Michel, Kojadinovic, Ivan and Patrick Meyer. 2008. “A review of methods for
capacity identification in Choquet integral based multi-attribute utility theory – Applications of
the Kappalab R package.” European Journal of Operational research 186: 766-785.
Hilderink, Henk, Lucas, Paul, and Marcel Kok. 2009. Beyond 2015: Long-term development
and the Millennium Development Goals. Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
(PBL).
Ishii, Kazuki and Michio Sugeno. 1985. “A model of human evaluation process using fuzzy
measure.” International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 22: 19-38.
Kojadinovic, Ivan. 2007. “Quadratic distances for capacity and bi-capacity approximation and
identification.” 4 OR - A Quarterly Journal of Operations Research 5: 117-142.
Kojadinovic, Ivan. 2007. “Minimum variance capacity identification.” European Journal of
Operational Research 177: 498–514.
Lofgren, Hans, Cicowiez, Martin, and Carolina Diaz-Bonilla. 2013. "MAMS – A Computable
General Equilibrium Model for Developing Country Strategy Analysis." In: Handbook of
Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edited by Peter B. Dixon and Dale Jorgenson,
Vol. 1. Elsevier B.V.
Marichal, Jean-Luc. 2000. “An axiomatic approach of the discrete Choquet integral as a tool
to aggregate interacting criteria.” The IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems 8: 800-807.
Marichal, Jean-Luc and Marc Roubens. 2000. “Determination of weights of interacting criteria
from a reference set.” European Journal of Operational Research 124: 641–650.
van der Mensbrugghe Dominique. 2015. “Shared Socio-Economic Pathways and Global
Income distribution.” Paper presented at the 18th Annual Conference on Global Economic
Analysis, 17-19 June 2015, Melbourne, Australia.

22
Narayanan, Badri, Aguiar, Angel, and Robert McDougall. 2015. Global Trade, Assistance,
and Production: The GTAP 9 Data Base. Center for Global Trade Analysis, Purdue
University
https://www.gtap.agecon.purdue.edu/databases/v9/v9_doco.asp.
ODI. 2015. “Mind the Gap – A comparison of international and national targets for the SDG
agenda.”
http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/9663.pdf
Ravallion, Martin. 1997. “Can high-inequality developing countries escape absolute poverty?”
Economics Letters 56: 51-57.
Ravallion, Martin. 2001. “Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Looking Beyond Averages”, World
Development 29: 1803-1815.
UN. 2015. Zero draft of the outcome document for the UN Summit to adopt the Post-2015
Development Agenda. United Nations.
http://www.un.org/youthenvoy/2015/06/zero-draft-outcome-document-adopt-post-2015-
development-agenda/
UNDP. 2015. Perspectives on Inequality Challenges in the Arab Region, Regional
Coordination Mechanism (RCM), Issue Brief for the Arab Sustainable Development Report.
United Nation Development Program.
http://css.escwa.org.lb/SDPD/3572/Goal10.pdf
UN IEAG. 2014. A World that Counts – Mobilising the Data Revolution for Sustainable
Development. UN Secretary-General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data
Revolution for Sustainable Development.
http://www.undatarevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A-World-That-Counts2.pdf
UN OWG. 2015. Open Working Group Proposal for Sustainable Development Goals. Open
Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals, United
Nations.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1579SDGs%20Proposal.pdf
UN SDSN. 2015. Indicators and a Monitoring Framework for Sustainable Development Goals
– Launching a Data Revolution. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, United
Nations.
http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/150612-FINAL-SDSN-Indicator-Report1.pdf
UN Women. 2013. Violence against Women Prevalence Data: Surveys by Country. United
Nations.
http://www.endvawnow.org/uploads/browser/files/vawprevalence_matrix_june2013.pdf.

23
Annex – Full ranking (ordered by multi-dimensional sustainability)

Multi-dimensional
Economy Society Environment
Sustainability
1 Sweden 0.86 0.74 1.00 0.90
2 Norway 0.79 0.59 1.00 0.86
3 Switzerland 0.79 0.74 1.00 0.75
4 Latvia 0.78 0.54 0.91 0.91
5 Finland 0.77 0.57 0.99 0.83
6 Austria 0.77 0.63 1.00 0.78
7 Denmark 0.76 0.68 1.00 0.73
8 Lithuania 0.75 0.65 0.96 0.75
9 New Zealand 0.73 0.55 0.93 0.79
10 Slovenia 0.72 0.63 0.93 0.71
11 Iceland 0.72 0.62 1.00 0.70
12 Slovakia 0.72 0.58 0.95 0.74
13 Brunei 0.71 0.69 0.76 0.71
14 Czech Rep. 0.68 0.65 0.97 0.60
15 Estonia 0.67 0.63 0.99 0.60
16 Germany 0.67 0.65 1.00 0.58
17 Hungary 0.67 0.58 0.95 0.64
18 Costa Rica 0.66 0.50 0.73 0.80
19 Romania 0.65 0.51 0.85 0.68
20 Ireland 0.63 0.57 0.96 0.55
21 Portugal 0.62 0.46 0.98 0.62
22 France 0.62 0.50 1.00 0.58
23 Croatia 0.62 0.40 0.93 0.67
24 Canada 0.62 0.50 0.86 0.62
25 United Arab Emirates 0.62 0.66 0.87 0.51
26 Netherlands 0.61 0.55 0.98 0.53
27 Belgium 0.61 0.54 0.98 0.53
28 Belarus 0.60 0.48 0.84 0.60
29 Peru 0.60 0.44 0.61 0.84
30 Colombia 0.60 0.46 0.60 0.82
31 Spain 0.59 0.48 0.96 0.54
32 Uruguay 0.59 0.34 0.88 0.66
33 Poland 0.59 0.53 0.88 0.52
34 United Kingdom 0.59 0.51 0.90 0.53

24
35 Indonesia 0.58 0.53 0.60 0.64
36 Saudi Arabia 0.58 0.57 0.81 0.51
37 Georgia 0.58 0.43 0.76 0.62
38 Australia 0.58 0.51 0.98 0.49
39 Malaysia 0.58 0.55 0.69 0.56
40 Suriname 0.57 0.44 0.56 0.83
41 Venezuela 0.57 0.45 0.59 0.75
42 Chile 0.57 0.41 0.75 0.61
43 Brazil 0.57 0.31 0.65 0.83
44 Japan 0.57 0.63 0.91 0.41
45 Russia 0.56 0.59 0.72 0.50
46 Italy 0.56 0.47 0.89 0.51
47 Argentina 0.56 0.48 0.75 0.55
48 Paraguay 0.56 0.39 0.54 0.87
49 Panama 0.55 0.43 0.58 0.69
50 Albania 0.55 0.22 0.75 0.72
51 Ecuador 0.55 0.45 0.57 0.68
52 United States 0.55 0.61 0.81 0.43
53 Sri Lanka 0.53 0.51 0.52 0.58
54 Mauritius 0.52 0.46 0.77 0.48
55 Dominican Rep. 0.52 0.61 0.52 0.49
56 Thailand 0.52 0.47 0.65 0.51
57 El Salvador 0.52 0.38 0.54 0.73
58 Kuwait 0.52 0.49 0.84 0.43
59 Bahrain 0.50 0.66 0.72 0.33
60 Vietnam 0.50 0.41 0.63 0.51
61 Oman 0.50 0.53 0.79 0.38
62 Azerbaijan 0.50 0.43 0.82 0.43
63 Mexico 0.50 0.47 0.66 0.46
64 Guatemala 0.49 0.47 0.41 0.78
65 Macedonia 0.49 0.36 0.75 0.49
66 Gabon 0.49 0.40 0.41 0.82
67 Turkey 0.49 0.53 0.69 0.40
68 Bhutan 0.49 0.28 0.48 0.85
69 Armenia 0.49 0.32 0.81 0.49
70 Philippines 0.49 0.50 0.44 0.62
71 Trinidad and Tobago 0.48 0.43 0.58 0.49
72 Serbia 0.48 0.32 0.79 0.49

25
73 Cambodia 0.48 0.51 0.43 0.63
Bosnia and
74 0.47 0.30 0.78 0.48
Herzegovina
75 Nepal 0.47 0.38 0.43 0.72
76 Bolivia 0.47 0.37 0.44 0.71
77 Nicaragua 0.46 0.37 0.37 0.84
78 Botswana 0.46 0.40 0.38 0.77
79 Belize 0.46 0.16 0.53 0.79
80 China 0.45 0.59 0.61 0.32
81 Honduras 0.45 0.33 0.45 0.67
82 Myanmar 0.45 0.46 0.36 0.69
83 Tunisia 0.45 0.41 0.73 0.38
84 Kyrgyzstan 0.44 0.31 0.65 0.47
85 Greece 0.44 0.36 0.90 0.34
86 Moldova 0.44 0.34 0.85 0.37
87 Kazakhstan 0.42 0.50 0.81 0.24
88 Algeria 0.42 0.44 0.64 0.33
89 Turkmenistan 0.41 0.60 0.50 0.30
90 Lebanon 0.41 0.31 0.82 0.34
91 Ukraine 0.41 0.24 0.83 0.38
92 Cape Verde 0.40 0.27 0.58 0.43
93 Namibia 0.40 0.37 0.27 0.85
94 Egypt 0.40 0.30 0.76 0.34
95 Jamaica 0.39 0.19 0.57 0.46
96 Jordan 0.38 0.31 0.84 0.27
97 Bangladesh 0.38 0.54 0.27 0.52
98 Iran 0.37 0.42 0.63 0.26
99 Morocco 0.37 0.27 0.48 0.40
100 Guyana 0.37 0.17 0.37 0.73
101 Pakistan 0.37 0.33 0.36 0.46
102 India 0.37 0.41 0.40 0.33
103 Iraq 0.35 0.36 0.43 0.33
104 Ghana 0.34 0.15 0.37 0.64
105 Cameroon 0.34 0.44 0.19 0.70
106 Mali 0.34 0.28 0.27 0.61
107 Swaziland 0.32 0.36 0.19 0.65
108 Niger 0.32 0.26 0.25 0.58
109 Cote d'Ivoire 0.31 0.48 0.16 0.61

26
110 Ethiopia 0.31 0.42 0.18 0.62
111 South Africa 0.31 0.32 0.52 0.23
112 Nigeria 0.29 0.42 0.17 0.53
113 Dem. Rep. Congo 0.29 0.65 0.02 0.76
114 Yemen 0.28 0.27 0.28 0.29
115 Senegal 0.28 0.27 0.17 0.60
116 Angola 0.27 0.33 0.09 0.78
117 Burundi 0.27 0.33 0.13 0.66
118 Benin 0.27 0.31 0.18 0.49
119 Zambia 0.27 0.31 0.06 0.86
120 Guinea 0.27 0.22 0.15 0.66
121 Rwanda 0.26 0.35 0.11 0.65
122 Syria 0.26 0.24 0.64 0.15
123 Tanzania 0.26 0.36 0.08 0.71
124 Gambia 0.25 0.12 0.19 0.62
125 Mauritania 0.25 0.16 0.22 0.46
126 Uganda 0.24 0.33 0.07 0.68
127 Guinea-Bissau 0.24 0.14 0.15 0.64
128 Mozambique 0.24 0.35 0.03 0.77
129 Sudan 0.24 0.09 0.22 0.52
130 Togo 0.24 0.25 0.11 0.60
131 Sierra Leone 0.23 0.28 0.11 0.56
132 Burkina Faso 0.22 0.30 0.08 0.61
133 Malawi 0.22 0.29 0.03 0.72
134 Madagascar 0.22 0.36 0.04 0.61
135 Kenya 0.21 0.31 0.03 0.65
136 South Sudan 0.21 0.22 0.06 0.65
137 Comoros 0.20 0.25 0.08 0.51
Central African
138 0.19 0.21 0.01 0.76
Republic
139 Chad 0.19 0.31 0.01 0.61

27
č