Keeping Out Extreme Inequality from the SDG Agenda – The Politics of Indicators
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| Author | Sakiko Fukuda‐Parr |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12602 |
Keeping Out Extreme Inequality from the SDG
Agenda –The Politics of Indicators
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
The New School
Abstract
The SDGs are important because they set consensus norms. At face value, Goal 10 sets a strong norm on reducing inequality
within and between countries. Yet this is undermined and distorted by the targets and indicators which are weak and set an
agenda for inclusion rather than for reducing inequalities. This paper explains this paradox as a result of an intense contesta-
tion over the framing of the inequality agenda as inclusion, focusing on the poor and excluded, rather than on extreme
inequality. The paper provides a detailed account of the negotiations and argues that the insertion of the shared prosperity
measure in setting the target on vertical economic inequality (rather than distribution measures such as Gini or Palma ratio)
was strategic. It concludes that the political choice over the meaning of a norm is made on what is said to be a technical
basis. The technical and political considerations cannot be disentangled and greater transparency on the policy strengths and
weaknesses of measurement choices is needed.
Global development goals are important because they cre-
ate consensus norms. They define priority objectives and
ethical standards that are considered legitimate and influ-
ence the behavior of diverse stakeholders. Though global
goals are international agreements without enforcement
mechanisms, they exert influence in large part by creating
narratives and framing debates about how development
challenges should be conceptualized. At face value, the
2030 Agenda (UN, 2015) would appear to contain a strong
norm for reducing inequality. ‘Leaving no one behind’is a
central theme of the entire agenda, and the SDG framework
includes a Goal (10) that commits unambiguously to ‘reduce
inequality within and among countries’. Yet the targets and
indicators in the framework are weak and unbalanced; many
are vaguely worded, and of the 10 targets and 11 indicators,
there is not one that would oblige countries to reduce the
unequal distribution of income and wealth within and
between countries (Anderson, 2016; Donald and Saez, 2017;
MacNaughton, 2017). The targets and indicators focus on
the exclusion of marginalized groups from socioeconomic
and political opportunities to escape poverty, but neglect
issues of ‘extreme inequality’and the concentration of
income and wealth at the top. Thus targets and indicators
are not aligned with the norm set in the goal.
The aim of this paper is to provide an account of how
this misalignment between the norm and its measures came
about and to explore its consequences for the way that the
inequality norm is interpreted, and how that frames dis-
course. As elaborated in the introduction to this special
issue (Fukuda-Parr and McNeill, 2018), the key elements of
global goals as effective instruments in setting international
norms and influencing the behavior or stakeholders include:
the use of for using quantitative indicators to create a
narrative and frame a discourse; the reductionist and distort-
ing effects of quantification on norms; hegemonic effects of
framing policy agendas, focusing attention on selected pri-
orities and keep out inconvenient issues off the agenda, and
silence radical views. The paper explores these processes by
analyzing the case of the inequality goal, focusing particu-
larly on the measurement of vertical economic inequality.
The paper provides a detailed account of the negotiations:
the origins of the inequality norm, its ideational trajectory,
and the controversies that emerged. I argue that the indica-
tor reinterprets the inequality norm as inclusive growth,
framing the policy agenda to focus on poverty, and keeping
out issues of extreme inequality and the concentration of
wealth and income out of global debates. The exercise of
hegemonic power in this process is obscured behind the
seemingly technical debate about choice of measurement
method.
Research for this paper included documentary reviews as
well as observation of consultation meetings and events,
and interviews with some 40 stakeholders (members of
national delegations, UN technical support teams, advocacy
NGOs, UN Statistical Commission, among others) who had
been involved in the process of formulating the SDG frame-
work.
Why care about inequality?
Context and origins
The UN 2030 Agenda and the SDGs originated from two
parallel processes. The first was the consultations over the
‘Post-2015 Development Agenda’initiated by the UN Secre-
tary General (SG) to formulate a successor agenda to the
Global Policy (2019) 10:Suppl.1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12602 ©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 10 . Supplement 1 . January 2019 61
Special Issue Article
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