Global Competetiveness Report

Scoring
Methodology
Data sources
Data sources were chosen according to their
reputation and reliability (as well as
availability of global data). The largest
percentage of indicators was derived from
the immense wealth of the World Banks
indicator database, followed by data sets
and indicators provided by various UN
agencies.
Calculation
The raw data as provided by the various
databases consist of numerical values. While
values can be ranked against each other,
they cannot be compared or added to other
values (two apples plus three oranges are not
equal to five pineapples). It is therefore
necessary to extract a scalable and
comparable score from the raw data as a first
step. In the second step, the relative
importance of the indicator is assessed
against other indicators to calculate the
sustainability performance.
World
Bank
UNDP
FAO
UNEP
WHO
IMF
Others
Inclusion of trends: analysis over time
Current or recent data on its own limits the
perspective to a momentary picture in time.
Of equal importance are recent trends and
development of the performance. Analysing
trends and developments allows for
understanding of where a country is coming
from, and more importantly, indicates the
direction of future developments. Increasing
agricultural efficiency for example indicates
capability to feed an increasing population,
or the opposite if decreasing. Where sufficient
data series are available, the trend was
calculated for 5 or 10 year periods and
scored to evaluate the current level as well as
the future outlook and sustainability potential
of a country.
2000 2005 2010 2015
While the momentary picture of these two series might
be equal in 2010, the grey series is likely to improve in
the future, whereas the blue line is likely to decrease
The Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index
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