Measuring What Matters - Towards a Relevant and Effective Framework for
Sustainable Development Indicators
2016 marks the beginning of a
new global commitment towards eradicating poverty in all its dimensions.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognise that the
well-being of People is inextricably tied to the health of our
Planet and that ensuring sustained Prosperity for all will
require genuine Peace and equitable Partnerships.
All that we do must therefore be directed to achieve the core objectives
of human prosperity and planetary health. But how will we know that our
actions and the results of our actions are leading to the fulfillment of
sustainable development at the most local and the most global of levels
and everything in between? This is where indicators for the SDGs come
in. Indicators form the back-bone of the SDG framework of the 2030
Global Sustainable Development Agenda. The indicator framework is
expected to be the management tool to help countries develop
implementation strategies and allocate resources accordingly. For each
of the 169 targets, indicators based on measurable outcomes need to be
defined. The UN system initiated a process in March 2015 to define what
should be measured and how. This process will conclude in March 2016 to
provide a set of indicators that can help track, monitor and guide
global and regional development priorities over the next 15 years.
Member states will need to define national indicators and prioritise
those depending on national contexts. The national indicators will
respond to national priorities but will need to be in sync with and
complementary to the global reporting framework. With the focus of
implementation and therefore of reporting at the national level, the
role of an institutional system that is in a position to coordinate with
different ministries horizontally as well as with sub-national and local
levels vertically is significant. In India, the key responsibility for
the identification of national targets is assigned to the NITI Aayog
who has been working in close association with the Ministry of
Statistics and Programme Implementation and the Ministry of External
Affairs for the purpose.
The situation in India is complex. The federal structure requires
ownership of the metrics of development and the capacities to track it
at the state level. The diversity across the length and breadth of the
country means that each state will need to relate to a set of indicators
that address each of their specific challenges, priorities and
preferences while feeding into a common national indicator framework.
This complexity is compounded by a nascent ‘NITI Aayog’, still in
a process of formalising its own institutional systems, work plans and
strategies even as it is required to coordinate a nation-wide
consultative process in a very short time frame. In addition to the
institutional challenges we face today, the indicators will need to
balance real development needs with pragmatic operational requirements.
Obvious operational concerns demand that the development of national SDG
indicators take into account the practical aspects of data collection
for measurement – its source, periodicity, disaggregation level and
collection methodology. Selected indicators must also be relevant to the
target, attempt for full coverage of and give equal weight to all
targets, must maintain the balance of the three dimensions of
sustainability and not introduce new or contentious issues, be limited
in number and while an indicator may cover multiple targets, it should
avoid duplication. They must be measurable and accessible in terms of
ease of communication and should be developed through due consultation
with stakeholders.
Besides the availability of data and human and institutional capacities
for data collection and management, one of the biggest concerns of
tracking development is the definitions or ‘What we are actually
measuring’. What we value determines what we chose to measure, and
what we measure will determine what we will act upon. Getting
half a billion people out of absolute poverty and ensuring sustainable
livelihoods and meaningful jobs for 65% of our population are India’s
priorities today. Therefore, the indicators we choose need go beyond
merely counting numbers reached to the quality and to the expected
impacts of the reach.
For example, with 300 million people lacking the benefits of modern
electricity, indicators regarding energy access must not only measure
the number of villages where poles and wires have reached and the
quantum of renewable energy produced but also, and more importantly, the
definition of ‘access’ must include quality and reliability of the
energy service at the last mile as well as how ‘green’ this energy is.
Similarly, the goal on safe water would not only measure construction of
piped water supply or wells dug, but also the rejuvenation of water
sources, quality of the water available and the quantity and reliability
of flow 24×7. Since India must increase its independence in technology
development and innovation, the Goal on education and human capacity
must measure primary, vocational education and higher education,
especially in STEM fields disaggregated by gender, caste, religion and
region as well as the state of our research centres and infrastructure.
The indicator framework also needs to monitor and track what is expected
to happen if targets are met – what is being tracked, where is it being
tracked and which target group are being tracked. For example, access to
quality energy and connectivity of road and tele-communication
contributes to economic growth. The target on economic growth must look
for these in the remote villages of India and not just in industrial
parks and SEZs. Or, for example, access to education and jobs to women
has been empirically identified as the single most critical contributor
in reducing family size and lowering the growth rate of the population
which is amongst the most pressing needs of our country today. Another
area, we are grappling with is employability, skills and jobs for youth.
Looking through studies on what contributes to this, we see access to
primary education and to skill development opportunities and
localisation of manufacturing, industry and infrastructure. This clearly
shows links between the goal on access to education and economic growth
but more critically the overall poverty eradication Goal #1.and the
national programmes of Make in India and Skilling India Goal # 8, 9 and
4. Another desirable feature of an indicator is its representation of
multiple targets. Many researchers have referred to the complex and
interrelated nature of the SDG framework. This provides an opportunity
to design smart indicators that reflect the connections and
inter-dependence across the Goals and respond to more than one target.
For example, the health of and access to water resources is a binding
thread across a large number of Goals (Kamepalli and Pattanayaka,
Current Science, 2015). This indicates not only the significance of
water and aquatic systems in our lives but also that tracking the health
of aquatic systems, the availability of water for variety of
applications, the access of safe water by all segments of society and
the role of effective water management in ensuring climate resilience is
critical. Thus, even though for some of the aspects, we may not yet have
baselines and data collection systems, we will need to build them.
Another example is land – a limited eco-system on which depend most of
the goals such as those relating to agriculture and therefore food
security, urban growth, industrialisation, forests, energy
(plantations), biodiversity etc. Availability and access and rights to
land impact poverty and equity issues and therefore it is necessary to
track shifts and trends in the human use (and abuse) of the land and
terrestrial eco-systems in order that we can track and predict what may
happen to our food systems, our forests, our community economies as well
as our industrial economies.
A third example is indicators related to the empowerment of women and
girls and its manifestations across goals. Therefore, gender segregated
data with respect to girls in school or girls in STEM fields, women in
employment and women at management and decision-making positions, asset
ownership by women and maternal and reproductive health, average age of
marriage and number of children will need to be tracked. A fourth
example and no prizes for guessing, is climate resilience. The impacts
of this Goal #13 in the SDG framework are far reaching as we know. Much
of the development gains are threatened to be rolled back due to extreme
events, unpredictable weather patterns and shifts in the temperature –
precipitation regimes. Therefore, mainstreaming this goal through the
entire goal framework with relevant indicators of adaptation and risk
mitigation measures is critical. And so, while it may be necessary to
prioritise in order to have a handle-able set of indicators to work
with, it would be wise to select those that indicate the most
connections across the goal framework so that these provide relevant
information and knowledge to guide policy and programme action. India is
standing at very interesting cross-roads. Innovations in technology and
delivery systems can help us leap-frog many hurdles and achieve our
development goals for sustainable food production, energy access,
sanitation, drinking water, health and shelter. The motivation, however,
must be the greater empowerment of and expansion of human capacity and
the conservation, indeed revitalisation of our natural capital forming
as it does the life support of our existence. The process must
essentially be participative, accountable and just. And, the
indicators must measure the processes and the health of our life support
systems along with expected human development results.
With limited resources, it would be prudent to ensure that we generate
maximum value from the investments that we make towards a sustainable
future. This will require careful prioritisation based on not only what
is feasible and logical under current circumstances and capacities but
what is desirable and opportune, even if in some cases, it will need us
to make counter intuitive choices and demand additional institutional
and human capacities. New greener jobs, vibrant local economies and
resilient communities are our gains if we measure what really matters
and direct investments and energies towards these. q
Zeenat Niazi
zniazi@devalt.org
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