The SDGs Indicators: A Challenging Task for the International Statistical Community
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12631 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Author | Enrique Ordaz |
The SDGs Indicators: A Challenging Task for
the International Statistical Community
Enrique Ordaz
National Institute of Statistics and Geography, Mexico
Abstract
The papers in this Special Issue raise a number of relevant and important questions, of which three particularly deserve com-
ment. Are indicators reductionist? They might be indeed, both regarding the process of defining them and in their use, which
is why it is essential that each be based on a deep and sufficient knowledge of the phenomenon concerned. The human
development index illustrates both the pitfalls and potential of global indicators. Are there dark forces behind the selection of
indicators? The agreement of the 2030 Agenda was the outcome of a political process that led to a negotiated consensus
accomplished by the Open Working Group. In determining the indicators, the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable
Development Goal Indicators (IAEG SDG) was asked for a simple and robust framework which would not affect the political
equilibrium reached in the Open Working Group (OWG); no easy task. Is the IAEG SDG an arcane bureaucratic entity? In the
face of this immensely challenging task, it has sought a balance between what is feasible in the short term and what is
required in the long term. The IAEG SDG has become a space for open and constructive dialog between national statistical
offices and international agencies.
Many questions arise from reading the introduction to this
publication. From my point of view, and considering my par-
ticipation in the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustain-
able Development Goal Indicators (IAEG SDG), I want to
refer to three issues in a very brief way, even as answers are
elusive to me: reductionist indicators; the darkness in the
selection of SDG indicators and the IAEG SDG itself.
Are indicators reductionist?
Certainly, the indicators can be reductionist of the phenom-
ena they measure. Two elements converge in this situation:
(1) the first reductionist element is the process of defining
the indicators; (2) the second is defined by how these indi-
cators are used. Some potential users of the global indicator
framework developed by the IAEG SDG, regard it as a mini-
malist expression of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Devel-
opment, and think that for the new items already included
in the Agenda, such as those of Objective 16, it is necessary
to develop a thematic framework of indicators. But, to
develop this type of framework, it is an essential require-
ment to possess deep and sufficient knowledge of the phe-
nomena of violence, insecurity, crime, peace and
government, and then identify what can be measured in
the short term, and what is desirable to measure in the
future. For statisticians this requires a complete understand-
ing of these phenomena for the design of adequate data
collection tools, but also, and simultaneously, to promote
strengthening of the capacity of national statistical offices
and systems. Without these conditions, the indicators pro-
duced will inevitably reduce and reorient the contents of
the Objective.
On the user’s side: should the indicators guide and define
public policies, by forcing numerical values and deadlines
by which these should be reached? Matching a complex
phenomenon or public policy with an indicator does not
seem to be the right approach. Nor is it to define a public
policy solely in the quantitative terms of an indicator. This
kind of use of the indicators distorts the purpose of public
policy and reduces it to the policymakers trying to achieve
a number and render ‘positive accounts’, without making a
full assessment of a problem or the impact of a proposed
solution. Trying to solve a problem with the aim of reaching
the numerical value of the indicator is to ignore the function
of the indicator.
A good example of the production of an indicator and its
use is the Human Development Index (HDI). This index has
been produced and published since the 1990s. For those
who created and promoted it, it has been an invaluable
instrument that supports public policy decisions aimed at
improving the populations’well-being. Economic growth is
not synonymous with human development or with well-
being. It has been necessary to quantify other dimensions:
income, health, education, gender equality, inequity, etc.
However, for many users, probably the majority, and here
some government officials must be included, the HDI only
serves to rank countries and find out who is up and who is
down, and to compare in the most basic journalistic way.
Undoubtedly, the index produces competition between
countries and within regions, but only up to that point. For
these users the important things about the HDI are not the
concepts or their theoretical foundations but how a country
looks in relation to others. These users are not aware about
the message that HDI is trying to convey. In fact, in some
Global Policy (2019) 10:Suppl.1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12631 ©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 10 . Supplement 1 . January 2019 141
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