Assessing the Assessment Methodology - SDG India Index

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 -

1. gender equality (36)
2. creating sustainable cities and communities (39)
3. enabling industry, innovation, and infrastructure (44)
4. 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.

Source: The Hindu