Measuring the SDGs an initial picture for the Netherlands

This publication is an initial exploration of the measuring of indicators for the
United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). CBS (Statistics Netherlands)
aims to encourage a debate between policy makers, researchers and societal and
business community partners about how to construct a Dutch national SDG report
and about where the Netherlands stands in measuring the SDG indicators.
At the end of September 2015, all members of the United Nations adopted on a future
agenda for sustainable development. Leaders of all 193 governments, including the
Netherlands, signed an ambitious package of goals, the Global Goals for Sustainable
Development (SDGs). These goals refer to the period 2015–2030.
The core of the 2030 agenda consists of 17 goals, elaborated in 169 sub-goals.
The governments of the member states bear responsibility for their implementation
and the monitoring of progress. To do so, it has been agreed that the data required for
monitoring will be reported by the countries, with an important role for the national
statistics offices of these countries.
After establishing the ambition, in 2016 work was done under the aegis of the UN
to design a measuring system for reporting the progress made towards the SDGs.
The Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development
Goal Indicators (UN, 2016a) gives an initial set of indicators that are required for
the monitoring.
Source: United Nations.
This publication is the first CBS exploration of measuring the SDG indicators for the
Netherlands. As such, it forms a starting point for a broad public debate between parties
including NGOs, policy assessment organisations, knowledge institutes, ministries and
other organisations about how progress in the Netherlands in the area of the SDGs can
and should be measured.
The picture that arises from the first SDG measurements is that the Netherlands is making
progress, but that there are important points of concern, particularly with respect
to climate, energy and inequality. Various critical remarks might be made about this
conclusion. In the first place, only one third of the SDG indicators appear to be directly
measurable for the Netherlands. Many other indicators are still to be developed.
Introduction 7