NITI Aayog SDG India Index: Baseline Report 2018

NITI Aayog SDG India Index: Baseline Report 2018 is intended to provide a holistic view on the social, economic and environmental status of the country and its States and UTs. It has been designed to provide an aggregate assessment of the performance of all Indian States and UTs, and to help leaders and change makers evaluate their performance on social, economic and environmental parameters.

The Index has been constructed spanning across 13 out of 17 SDGs (leaving out Goals 12, 13, 14 and 17). It tracks the progress of all the States and Union Territories (UTs) on a set of 62 National Indicators, measuring their progress on the outcomes of interventions and schemes of the Government of India.

The Index can be useful to States/UTs in assessing their starting point on the SDGs in the following ways:

  • Support States/UTs to benchmark their progress against national targets and performance of their peers to understand reasons for differential performance and devise better strategies to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
  • Support States/UTs to identify priority areas in which they need to invest and improve by enabling them to measure incremental progress.
  • Highlight data gaps related across SDGs for India to develop its statistical systems at the national and State levels.

NITI Aayog has the twin mandate to oversee the implementation of SDGs in the country, and also promote Competitive and Cooperative Federalism among States and UTs. The SDG India Index acts as a bridge between these mandates, aligning the SDGs with the Prime Minister’s clarion call of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, which embodies the five Ps of the global SDG movement – people, planet, prosperity, partnership and peace.

The world is now into the third year of the SDG era. The SDGs are ambitious global development goals that address key aspects of universal wellbeing across different socio-economic, cultural, geographical divisions and integrate the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development.

India’s National Development Agenda is mirrored in the SDGs. India’s progress in SDGs is crucial for the world as the country is home to about 17% of the world population.

The SDG India Index tracks progress of all States and UTs on 62 Priority Indicators selected by NITI Aayog, which in turn is guided by MoSPI’s National Indicator Framework comprising 306 indicators and based on multiple-round consultations with Union Ministries/Departments and States/UTs.

The Index spans 13 out of 17 SDGs. Progress on SDGs 12, 13 & 14 could not be measured as relevant State/UT level data were not available and SDG 17 was left out as it focuses on international partnerships.

A composite score was computed between the range of 0-100 for each State and UT based on their aggregate performance across 13 SDGswhich indicates average performance of State/UT towards achieving 13 SDGs & their respective targets.

If a State/UT achieves a score of 100, it signifies that it has achieved the 2030 national targets. The higher the score of a State/UT, the greater the distance to target achieved.

Classification Criteria based on SDG India Index Score is as follows:

      • Aspirant: 0-49
      • Performer: 50-64
      • Front Runner: 65-99
      • Achiever: 100

 

OVERALLAspirantAssam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
PerformerAndhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur,
Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Delhi and Lakshadweep
Front RunnerHimachal Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh and Puducherry
AchieverNA

Download the SDG India Index – Baseline Report 2018 34.72 MB

How to End Poverty in 15 Years

The legendary statistical showman Professor Hans Rosling returns with a feast of facts and figures as he examines the extraordinary target the world commits to this week – to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide. In the week the United Nations presents its new goals for global development, Don’t Panic – How to End Poverty in 15 Years looks at the number one goal for the world: eradicating, for the first time in human history, what is called extreme poverty – the condition of almost a billion people, currently measured as those living on less than $1.25 a day.

Watch this absolute wonderful 1 hour video by Professor Hans Rosling

Rosling uses holographic projection technology to wield his iconic bubble graphs and income mountains to present an upbeat assessment of our ability to achieve that goal by 2030. Eye-opening, funny and data-packed performances make Rosling one of the world’s most sought-after and influential speakers. He brings to life the global challenge, interweaving powerful statistics with dramatic human stories from Africa and Asia. In Malawi, the rains have failed as Dunstar and Jenet harvest their maize. How many hunger months will they face when it runs out? In Cambodia, Srey Mao is about to give birth to twins but one is upside-down. She’s had to borrow money to pay the medical bills. Might this happy event throw her family back into extreme poverty?

The data show that recent global progress is ‘the greatest story of our time – possibly the greatest story in all of human history’. Hans concludes by showing why eradicating extreme poverty quickly will be easier than slowly. Don’t Panic – How To End Poverty In 15 Years follows Rosling’s previous award-winning BBC productions Don’t Panic – The Truth About Population and The Joy Of Stats.

SDG The Global Goals for Sustainable Development

UN general assembly has formally adopted new development goals,Agenda consists of 17 goals designed to end poverty and hunger by 2030,new goals expected to shape political policy worldwide for next 15 years.

Twenty years after the Rio Summit, the world met in June 2012 at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, the so-called Rio+20. The key takeaway was a document titled The Future We Want, in which the idea of a new agenda for the post-2015 era was posted. World leaders committed to migrate from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the SDGs. An Open Working Group of nations was set up, and the next three years saw negotiations leading to a 24-page document including 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets. The SDGs are to be achieved between January 2016 and 2030.

What are these 17 goals?

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development

  • 1) End poverty in all its forms everywhere
  • 2) End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
  • 3) Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  • 4) Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
  • 5) Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
  • 6) Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
  • 7) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
  • 8) Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
  • 9) Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
  • 10) Reduce inequality within and among countries
  • 11) Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
  • 12) Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
  • 13) Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
  • 14) Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
  • 15) Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
  • 16) Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
  • 17) Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

How are SDGs different from MDGs?

To begin with, much of the world, including the developing world for whom the MDGs were designed, heard of them towards the end of the 15-year period during which they were to be achieved. SDGs have seen much more effective consultation. According to co-chair of the Open Working Group Macharia Kamau, “No one can say they were not consulted. There was wide consultation and therefore there is accountability.” SDGs are also wider in nature, and include, for the first time, specific goals on economic indicators. They also offer a paradigm shift in tune with a world in flux, where new groupings of nations seem set to render the old world order of western dominance obsolete. But most significantly, the SDGs are universal — they are for all nations, not just for the developing world.

While this ensures unprecedented accountability, the universality principle has also become contentious: the G77 and China, or the “developing nations”, expect the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) to apply to the SDGs. [CBDR means that while the responsibility towards the Earth is commonly shared, it is the developed countries, in view of their historical and greater contribution to environmental degradation, that must do the heavy-lifting of responsibility.] Additionally, as resource mobilisation for implementing the SDGs will focus on nations’ capacities instead of the traditional categorisation of ‘developed’ or ‘developing’, the old North-South relationship could be challenged over the next 15 years.

What will be the constraints?

The UN’s description of the MDGs as the most effective anti-poverty initiative in history notwithstanding, there has been little international assessment of their overall impact. The SDGs, for now, also suffer from lack of clarity on evaluation, accountability and transparency, though these are to be addressed soon. There are other worries: 17 seems too many, and 169 target indicators might be difficult to monitor even for countries with good data collection mechanisms. The big concern, though, remains resources. The inclusion of the chapter on the ‘Means of Implementation’ — basically a framework of financial resources and technology transfer to developing nations, and structural reform of international financial and trade architectures — nearly caused the three-year negotiations on the SDGs to collapse when the developed world resisted.

Smart development goals

By September, the world’s 193 governments will meet in New York and agree on a set of ambitious, global targets for 2030. Over the next 15 years these targets will direct the $2.5 trillion to be spent on development assistance, as well as countless trillions in national budgets.

Based on peer-reviewed analyses from 82 of the world’s top economists and 44 sector experts organised by the Copenhagen Consensus, three of us – Finn, Tom and Nancy – have prioritised more than a hundred of the proposed targets in terms of their value-for-money.

The natural political inclination is to promise all good things to everyone, and the UN is currently poised to pick 169 well-intentioned targets. The analyses of the experts suggest that some of the targets are barely worthwhile, producing only a little more than $1 in social benefits per dollar spent, while others produce much higher social returns.

We have selected the 19 targets that we expect to produce the greatest benefits. The expert analyses suggest that if the UN concentrates on these top 19 targets, it can get $20 to $40 in social benefits per dollar spent, while allocating it evenly across all 169 targets would reduce the figure to less than $10.

Smart development goals expert panel’s 19 targets

People

Planet

Prosperity

Reaching these global targets by 2030 will do more than $15 of good for every dollar spent.

The expert analyses suggest that if the UN concentrates on 19 top targets, it can get $20 to $40 in social benefits per dollar spent, while allocating it evenly across all 169 targets would reduce the figure to less than $10. Being smart about spending could be better than doubling or quadrupling the aid budget” – Bjorn  Lomborg.

Consider a couple of targets that help people directly through health benefits. Tuberculosis (TB) is a ‘hidden’ disease. Over two billion people carry the bacterium that causes it, about 10% of those people will develop TB at some point, and about 1.5 million people each year die from TB. But treatment is inexpensive and, in most cases, highly effective. Spending a dollar on diagnosis and treatment is a low-cost way to give many more years of productive life to many people. Ebola may get the headlines, but TB is a much bigger problem.

Reducing childhood malnutrition is another excellent target. A good diet allows children’s brains and muscles to develop better, producing life-long benefits. Well-nourished children stay in school longer, learn more and end up being much more productive members of society. The available evidence suggests that providing better nutrition for 68 million children each year would produce over $40 in long-term social benefits for every dollar spent.

There are excellent targets involving the planet as well. Governments around the world still subsidise the use of fossil fuels to the tune of over $500 billion each year. Cutting these subsidies would reduce pollution and free up resources for investments in health, education and infrastructure.

Protecting coral reefs turns out to be a surprisingly efficient target as well. There are benefits in terms of biodiversity, but healthy reefs also produce more tangible and immediate benefits. They increase fish stocks – benefitting both fishermen and consumers and attract visitors who explore their beauties – benefitting everyone working in the tourist industry, as well as the tourists themselves.

Perhaps the most important, over-arching problem facing the world is poverty, which still afflicts billions of people. Poverty is the ultimate source of many other problems. The immediate result is high rates of infant mortality, as well as poor cognitive skills and reduced productive capacity among surviving children. The ultimate result is a cycle of poverty.

Better nutrition and better schools will help alleviate poverty, but there is another target that promises to be even more effective: lowering barriers to international trade. The historical evidence on this point is compelling. In China, South Korea, India, Chile and many other countries, reducing trade restrictions has lifted incomes and reduced poverty, and triggered decades of rapid income growth.

Poverty reduction was the first item in UN’s list of Millennium Development Goals, and the numerical target was achieved. Why? Income growth in China was a big part of the story. And how did the Chinese achieve that remarkable feat? Most evidence suggests that international trade was a key ingredient. Trade produces immediate benefits by opening up markets, but it also facilitates the flow of ideas and technologies, producing even greater benefits over a longer horizon. A successful Doha free trade agreement could lift 160 million people out of extreme poverty.

Our list of targets will not solve all the world’s problems, but neither can any list under realistic budgets. Our list can help the UN make its choices like a savvy shopper with limited funds. Choosing good targets will vastly increase the benefits to people around the world, as well as generations to come. Governments should forgo the instant gratification of promising everything to everyone, and instead focus on choosing smart development goals.

(Kydland and Schelling are Nobel Laureates in Economics. Lomborg is President of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre. Stokey is Professor, University of Chicago.) via TOI and copenhagen consensus