Principal Indicators to Monitor
Sustainable Development Goals
Ming XU
Tsinghua University
xu-ming@tsinghua.edu.cn
https://www.tiangong.earthHistory of sustainable development◼ “Sustainable development is the developmentthat meets the needs of the present withoutcompromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.”◼ In 2000, the United Nations issued Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) which focuses
the sustainable development into eightchapters.

1987 Brundtland Commission Report

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU0LrTe0uDw

Source: https://www.sumivector.com/news/what-have-the-un-millenniumdevelopment-goals-achieved-whats-next-post-2015

Sustainable Development Goals◼ In 2015, the United Nations set 17

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
◼ SDGs act as a universal call to eliminate
poverty, protect the environment, andensure peace and prosperity for all people
and the planet.

Source: https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Hierarchical SDGs

◼ Each SDGtargets.
✓is underpinned by

For example, the first target of SDG 9 is“Develop quality, reliable, sustainable andresilient infrastructure…”.

◼ Each SDG target is measured bymeasurable SDG indicators.
✓Source: https://slocat.net/our-work/2030-agenda-sdgs/

For example, the first indicator of SD
target 9.1 is “Proportion of the rural
population who live within 2 km of an allseason road”.

Leave no one behind◼ Leave no one behind is the central
promise of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development.
✓Progress of each country should bemonitored.

◼ The SDG indicators are tracked at
the national level by several globalorganizations.
✓Source: https://datatopics.worldbank.org/sdgs/SDG-selected-indicators.html

For example, the World Bank collects
the data of 351 indicators to measure
the 17 SDGs of 217 countries andregions from 1990 to 2022.

Expensive data collection
Human Cost

Financial Cost

Cost Gap

Over 1,200 partners

Around 45 billion USD

Around 10 billion USD
Source: https://opendatawatch.com/the-state-of-development-data-2016/

Extract a small set of indicators (principal indicators)
to represent the most variation of all SDG indicators

Two features of principal indicators (variation & cost)◼ The principal indictors should represent
most of the variation of all the SDGindicators.
✓ Statistically, principal indictors are highlycorrelated with other indicators✓ Principal component analysis and multilinear
regression is used to quantify variation◼ Variable health_outcome has a potential tobe principal indicator.

principalindicator✓ Both positive and negative correlations are
considered

Correlation matrix
Correlation matrix

Two features of principal indicators (variation & cost)
Collection cost (missing rate)◼ Data collection for variable Age isrelatively easy
✓ All data are complete

Cheap✓ Lower portion means easier to be collectedand lower cost

Observation✓ Portion of missing data (missing rate) is used
to measure cost

Expensive◼ The principal indictors are cheapest to becollectedThree steps to find the best principal indicator set◼ Given a variation aim, find a principal
indicator set with the lowest cost✓

E.g., 90% variation✓

Infinite number of principal indicator sets meet theaim

Variation of SDGs

Set 90% variation aim◼ Set missing rate limit of SDG indicators
Filter out principal indicator sets that have too
many data missing◼ Compare each principal indicator set andselect the best one with lowest difficulty✓

lest amount of missing dataPrincipalindicators
selection

Set 1

Set 2

Set 3

Set 4

Set 5

Set 6

Set 4

Set n…

Several setswith different cost

Set cost aim
100%90%Observation✓Multiple sets

40%…

Principalindicators
selection

set 1
under 100%

set 2
under 90%…

set 5
under 40%Compare several sets
set 1
under 100%

set 2
under 90%

Total missing
data: 300

Total missing
data: 230…

set munder 40%

Total missing
data: 330

Principal SDG indicators selection
360

A 340

360

shape
Number of candidate indicators

B 340

Number of principle indicators

32011000300

Number of candidate indicators

300

320

Number of principle indicators

360

320

shape

340

280

shape
Number of candidate indicators
Number of principle indicators

280

Total numberof missing
pointsNumberof indicators

10000
260

260

280

Number of indicators

240
260
220
240
220
200
200

180

180

160

160

140

220
9000

200
180
160

8000

140

Missing rate threshold

missing
missingrate
rate<< 100%
100%

missing rate < 100%

missing rate < 100%

missing rate < 90%

missing rate < 90%

missing rate < 80%

missing rate < 80%

missing rate < 70%

missing rate < 70%

missing rate < 60%

missing50%missingrate
rate << 50%

missing rate < 60%

Missing rate threshold

missing
missingrate
rate << 90%
90%

100
7000

100

missing
missingrate
rate << 80%
80%

100

missing
missingrate
rate << 70%
70%

120

120

missing
missingrate
rate << 60%
60%

120

missing
missingrate
rate << 50%
50%

140

missing48%
missingrate
rate << 48%◼ We only need 147 principal indicators
to explain 90% of the variation of thetotal 351 SDG indicators.

240

missing
missingrate
rate << 48%
48%◼ Many sets of principal indicators canexplain 90% of the variation of the total
351 SDG indicators.

Number of indicators

300

147 principal SDG indicators
12345678910 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 2223 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 4445 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 8384 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124
125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165
166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206
207 208 209 210 211 212 213214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254
255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263
264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276
277 278 279 280 281 282◼ These 147 principal indicators belong to 14 of the 17 SDGs.
◼ No indicators in three SDGs are selected as principal indicators.

283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291✓

292 293 294 295 296 297 298
NA NA

Goal 1 “No Poverty”, Goal 13 “Climate Action”, and Goal 16 “Peace, Justice andinstitutions”.

◼ Principal indicators are correlated with other indicators

299 300 301 NA302 303 304 305 NA NA NA NA306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317✓e.g., sanitation infrastructure is associated with poverty

318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351

351 SDG indicators and 147 principal indicators

Conclusions

We only need 147 principal indicators to represent at least 90%of the variation of 351 SDG indicators.

123◼ We do not necessarily recommend to stop tracking non-principal indicators.

◼ We recommend to regularly examine the principal indicators in the future.
◼ We may consider developing an integrated index using principal indicators
for an overall evaluation.

Thank you!
Ming XU
Tsinghua University
xu-ming@tsinghua.edu.cn
https://www.tiangong.earthThank you!
Ming XU
Tsinghua University
xu-ming@tsinghua.edu.cn
https://www.tiangong.earth