Measuring progress on the Sustainable Development Goals

1. Progress assessment

Measuring and tracking progress with reliable information is key to understanding how the Basque Country is progressing toward achieving the SDGs.

Closely monitoring the progress of each indicator reveals where progress is being made and where efforts should be focused. Furthermore, it enables open and transparent reporting on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, as well as the adjustment or development of effective, evidence-based policies, thereby helping to ensure the achievement of the goals.

Various organizations have developed methodologies to measure progress on SDG indicators. In order to conduct a transparent, understandable, and comparable assessment, Eustat has developed a methodology based primarily on the one used by Eurostat to measure progress on the European Union’s SDG indicators, incorporating elements from INE’s methodology, along with specific modifications to adapt the assessment to the reality of the Basque Autonomous Community.

The assessment method considers whether an indicator has moved towards or away from the target set in the 2030 Agenda, as well as the speed of this movement. The method focuses on progress over time and not on the current status.

For some indicators the 2030 Agenda set a global quantitative targets to be reached by 2030. In these cases, the target has been adopted to measure progress on the indicator within the Basque Autonomous Community.

In other cases, the Agenda does not specify a numerical target, but it does indicate the normative direction —that is, the desirable trend for the indicator’s value. When the normative direction is “Increase” it is desirable for the indicator’s value to rise; when the normative direction is “Decrease” it is desirable for the indicator’s value to lower. The normative direction for each indicator has been drawn from the 2026 Technical Note for Progress Assessment by the United Nations Statistics Division.

Disaggregations of indicators or sub-indicators (sex, age, territory, etc.) are not taken into account when measuring progress; only total data are used.

2. Categorías de progreso

Symbol With quantitative target Without quantitative target
Significant progress Target met or on track. The target has been reached, or —if progress continues as it has so far— it will be reached by 2030. Significant progress. Significant progress made in the desired direction.
Moderate progress Moderate progress towards the target. It is approaching the target, but some acceleration is needed in order to reach it by 2030. Moderate progress. Moderate progress made in the desired direction.
Stagnation [Category not applicable] Stagnation. No progress nor deterioration.
Moderate deterioration Insufficient progress towards the target. Progress made towards the target, but significant acceleration required to reach it by 2030. Moderate deterioration. Moderately moving in the direction opposite to the desired one.
Significant deterioration Movement away from target. Getting further away from the target. Significant deterioration. Significantly moving in the direction opposite to the desired one.
Not evaluable Not evaluable. Progress cannot be reliably assessed because there is insufficient data, the desired direction is unclear, or for other reasons.



There are two other categories in the Progress Report:

No data available

There is currently no data for this indicator, but we are analyzing various sources in order to provide data soon.

Not applicable

Certain indicators cannot be applied to the Basque Country for various reasons:

3. Methodology

The methods for measuring progress differ between indicators or sub-indicators that have a numerical target for 2030 and those that do not. Furthermore, for indicators composed of more than one sub-indicator, an additional calculation is performed in order to assess progress.

3.1 Indicators without quantitative targets

When there is no quantitative goal, the assessment is based on whether the indicator is moving in the desired direction or in the opposite direction, and at what pace.

For this purpose, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is used. By taking the figure for the base year (typically 2015) and the most recent available figure, the annual growth rate over that period is calculated (expressed as a percentage).

\[CAGR_{a} = \left( \frac{v_{t}}{v_{b}} \right)^{\frac{1}{t-b}} - 1\]

Non: 𝑏 = base year (tipically 2015), 𝑡 = last year with available data (for example 2026), 𝑣𝑏 = value in base year 𝑏, 𝑣𝑡 = value in last year 𝑡

Then

Next, the calculated \(CAGRa\) is adjusted according to the desired direction of the indicator:

\[CAGR_{z} = CAGR_{a} * (-1)\] \[CAGR_{z} = CAGR_{a}\]

Finally, the adjusted compound annual growth rate is evaluated according to the following intervals:

\(CAGR_{z}\) Progress category
≥ % 1 Significant progress
< % 1 eta > % 0.1 Moderate progress
≤ % 0.1 eta ≥ % -0.1 Stagnation
< % -0.1 eta > % -1 Moderate deterioration
≤ % -1 Significant deterioration



3.2 Indicators with quantitative targets

In cases where a quantitative target exists, the indicator’s progression is compared with the progression required to reach that target.

Three steps are followed:

\[CAGR_{r} = \left( \frac{X_{z}}{v_{b}} \right)^{\frac{1}{z-b}} - 1\]

Non: 𝑏 = base year (tipically 2015), 𝑧 = target year (tipically 2030), 𝑣𝑏 = base value in year 𝑏, 𝑥 = target value in target year

\[R = \frac{CAGR_{a}}{CAGR_{r}}\]

Next, the ratio is evaluated according to the following intervals:

\(R\) Progress category
≥ % 95 Target met or on track
< % 95 eta ≥ % 60 Moderate progress towards target
< % 60 eta ≥ % 0 Insufficient progress towards target
< % 0 Movement away from target



3.3 Indicators composed of several sub-indicators

In some cases, an indicator has several sub-indicators at the same level, with no single sub-indicator being predominant. In such instances, the progress of the indicator is evaluated by taking the mean of the progress of all its constituent sub-indicators. To calculate this mean, the following scoring functions are used, which convert the progress values ​​of the sub-indicators (growth rate or ratio) into scores ranging from -5 to +5:

Sub-indicators without quantitative targets

\(CAGR_{z}\) Score
≥ % 2 5
< % 2 eta > % -2 \(CAGR_{z}\) * 2.5
≤ % -2 -5


Sub-indicators with quantitative targets

\(R\) Score
≥ % 130 5
< % 130 eta ≥ % 60 0.0714 * (\(R\) - 60)
< % 60 eta > % -60 0.0416 * (\(R\) + 60)
≤ % -60 -5


Once the progress of all sub-indicators has been measured using a score between -5 and +5, their arithmetic mean is calculated, assigning equal weight to all sub-indicators.

Finally, the progress category corresponding to the mean score is assigned, in accordance with the following intervals:

Mean score Progress category
> 2.5 Significant progress
≤ 2.5 eta > 0.25 Moderate progress
≤ 0.25 eta ≥ -0.25 Stagnation
< -0.25 eta ≥ -2.5 Moderate deterioration
< -2.5 Significant deterioration



3.4 Considerations and exceptions

Due to the nature of the data, a number of considerations and exceptions have been defined:

  1. When the value of the last year meets the target, the goal is considered to have been reached, regardless of the trend in recent years.

  2. When the value of the last year is close (maximum difference of 0.1%) to 0% or 100%, this being the objective, it is considered that the target has been reached.

  3. In some cases, indicators have natural maximum or minimum limits (for example, indicator 9.c.1, the proportion of the population covered by a mobile network, cannot exceed 100%). If the indicator value in the base year is very close to this limit, it may be impossible to achieve the growth rate required for the “Significant progress” category. In such cases, a scaling factor is used to adjust the growth rate thresholds for each category.

  4. When data for 2015 are unavailable, the first available year—either following or preceding 2015—is used as the base year.

  5. In the absence of a specified target date, 2030 is assumed to be the target period.

  6. Binary indicators can only take Yes/No values ​​(for example, 17.18.2: The legislation on statistics complies with the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics). These indicators will be assigned one of the following progress categories: if the answer is “Yes,” “Target achieved”; if the answer is “No,” “Movement away from target.”.

  7. For some indicators, reaching the target is desirable, but exceeding it can have negative consequences. For example, regarding the parity indices for indicator 4.5.1, the goal is to achieve the highest possible level of parity (index = 1); falling either above or below this target would be equally negative. In such cases, the assessment of progress takes into account deviations from the ideal, in either direction. These include indicators 4.5.1, 5.4.1, 5.5.1, 5.a.1, 16.6.1, and 16.7.1.

  8. Progress estimates oversimplify reality. Progress needs to be contextualized with other relevant information.

  9. It takes time for data to reflect the impact of policies; the longer the time series, the better the methodology for measuring progress.