The Sustainable Development Goals Confront the Infrastructure of Measurement
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12606 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
The Sustainable Development Goals Confront
the Infrastructure of Measurement
Sally Engle Merry
New York University
Abstract
This brief article comments on the special issue on SDGs - Knowledge and Politics in Setting and Measuring the SDGs.
Acknowledging that the articles in the issue show how reliance on indicators changes the way development is conceived,
Merry asks why is it so difficult to produce better indicators. If they are too narrow, why not simply produce more? She argues
that conceiving of measurement as an infrastructure provides important insight into these questions.
How does reliance on quantified indicators change the way
development is conceived? This important collection
addresses this question, arguing that it fundamentally shifts
the way we think about development. The turn to indicators
has the effect of defining development narrowly in terms of
specific accomplishments rather than as structural change.
For example, it focuses attention on the number of people
in poverty, not the extent of inequality within or between
countries. The shift from the MDGs to the SDGs shows how
the use of quantifiable measures restricts the vision of
development. Although, as Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Des-
mond McNeill (this collection) show, the SDGs were pro-
duced by a far more collaborative process that included
more civil society and South government perspectives than
the MDGs, the translation of the SDGs’broad, aspirational
goals into concrete measurable indicators greatly reduced
their transformative significance. Broad goals, such as ‘access
to justice for all’, are measured by narrow and limited mea-
sures which fail to do justice to the conceptions behind the
goals. Moreover, as Alicia Ely Yamin (this collection) points
out, measures such as maternal mortality rates provide evi-
dence of problems but fail to address the particular factors
that might remedy the problem. She advocates instead
measuring availability of emergency obstetric services as
both easier to count and more directly related to the prob-
lem and to its solution.
Clearly, the turn to using indicators as a central tech-
nique for promoting and monitoring development raises
important difficulties. The challenges of identifying the
correct indicators and converting broad goals into con-
crete measurable phenomena are clear, as this collection
of articles demonstrates. Why is it so hard to produce
better indicators? If each one is too narrow, why not sim-
ply produce more? I think conceiving of measurement as
an infrastructure provides important insight into these crit-
ical questions.
The infrastructure of measurement describes the material
and technological basis of deciding what to count, how to
count it, and how to analyze and present the data (see
Merry, 2016). It has physical, organizational, and knowledge
dimensions. It encompasses the costs, expertise, personnel,
organization, and models used to count. It includes access
to computers or paper forms, templates of questionnaires or
administrative records, the existence of bureaucrats and
offices, electricity, roads, etc. Most important, it refers to the
resources available to count: the people, the expertise, and
the technology to gather, analyze, and share data. In order
to gather national statistical data, governments must decide
to spend resources on counting rather than fighting wars or
providing benefits for low-income citizens. They need to
have bureaucrats available to collect and manage data and
they need experts to determine how to convert concepts
into readily countable form. They need a public interested
enough in gathering data to cooperate in providing infor-
mation and agreeing to pay for it.
While broad ideas, such as ‘Reduce inequality within
and among countries’(Goal 10) and ‘Promote sustained,
inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and pro-
ductive employment and decent work for all’(Goal 8), are
now part of the development framework, they are not all
being measured thoroughly. Once the goals and targets
were established, the ‘technical’project of producing the
indicators was turned over to the UN Statistical Commis-
sion which created an Interagency Expert Group on SDGS
(IAEG-SDGs). This group confronted the difficult challenge
of finding ways to count such broad goals. They devel-
oped indicators that inevitably covered only small slices
of each goal.
Furthermore, many of the indicators measuring the newer,
more ambitious goals remain undefined. The IAEG-SDGs
committee has divided the indicators into three tiers,
depending on whether there is a methodology and data to
measure them. As of 15 December 2017, the tier classifica-
tion contained 93 Tier I indicators, 66 Tier II indicators, and
68 Tier III indicators (UNSC, 2017). In addition to these, there
were five indicators that have multiple tiers (different
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:Suppl.1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12606
Global Policy Volume 10 . Supplement 1 . January 2019
146
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