FuSDG: A Proposal for a Fuzzy Assessment of Sustainable Development Goals Achievement

The cornerstone of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are the 17 Sustainable development goals (SDGs). These goals are measured through 109 indicators and, in very basic terms, the degree of achievement of the 17 SDGs for a country, the so called SDG Index, is calculated with a weighted sum without taking into account any priorities among the goals. Besides this, several facts are not considered: the different situations and priorities of every country, the different relevance that can be given to the SDGs and the potential imprecision in the data. Here we propose a fuzzy alternative to the SDG Index, called FuSDG, having two main features: 1) it does not require an explicit set of weights to model priorities among SDGs, 2) it implicitly considers the imprecision in the input data, and explicitly in the output value. A FuSDG value will be modelled with a triangular fuzzy number due to the reduced number of parameters required and the easy interpretation of its meaning. We illustrate the application of FuSDG over recent data, and we discuss potential issues.