Assessing the Assessment Methodology - SDG India Index
iasparliament
February 12, 2019
What is the issue?
The 'SDG India Index: Baseline Report 2018' was recently released by the NITI Aayog.
But the methodology used leads to the assessment falling short of reflecting the true picture.
What is the report on?
India was one among the 193 United Nations member states to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.
The report offers a comparative account on the performance of the States and UTs in India in their efforts to achieve the SDGs.
The index comprises a composite score for each State and UTs based on their aggregate performance across 13 of the 17 SDGs.
The score, ranging between 0 and 100, denotes the average performance of the State/UT towards achieving the goals and their respective targets.
The average Indian score was 57.
On the whole, 62 indicators representing 14 goals (of 17 SDGs) have been identified based on their measurability across States over time.
It has not been possible to establish suitable indicators for three of the 17 goals, including climate action (SDG-13).
What are the report highlights?
Based on a scale of 0 to 100, the States are categorised into four groups - achievers, front runners, performers, and aspirants.
Achievers are those States which have already accomplished the set target.
Front runners are those States that are very close to realising them.
A majority of the States are categorised as 'performers' and the states which lag behind are categorised as 'aspirants'.
Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu are the three front runner States with a score of 69, 69 and 66 respectively.
Among the UTs, Chandigarh is the front runner with a score of 68.
Overall, the average score for the States was the worst in -
gender equality (36)
creating sustainable cities and communities (39)
enabling industry, innovation, and infrastructure (44)
eradicating hunger (48)
Why is the assessment flawed?
Despite classification being an appropriate method, there is arbitrariness in the assessment exercise.
It is found that many States fall into the aspirant category, especially for SDG-5, SDG-9 and SDG-11.
These kinds of differences could be due to a different number of indicators considered under different SDGs as well as their corresponding variability across the States.
This is evident in the variation of scores across different goals among the states.
E.g. For goals 1 and 2, the range for the majority of the States is between 35 and 80; for goals 3 and 6, it is between 25 and 100.
Given these variations across different goals, merely averaging them would compromise the uniqueness of each state.
Resultantly, there seems to be a negatively skewed distribution of scores among the states.
It hints at a purposive designation of a few States in two extremes (achievers and aspirants) and a major share of them in between (front runners and performers).
Moreover, categorisation does not reflect the difference between two states of the same category (the gap) in achieving a goal.
What can be done?
Setting simple averages as targets for all states for each of the goals overlooks the aspect of inter-dependence of various goals.
A geometric average would ensure that achievement of progress in one goal cannot compensate for compromise in another.
The choice of indicators representing specific goals, beyond availability, should also have proper representation without duplication.
