In the last week or so, news stories have emerged around the world on how 'happy' countries are (see World Happiness Report 2016 Update). Putting journalistic license aside, the data and indexes that underpins this are under review and development, and you can contribute to that work, during the public consultation period. From the press release:

Global SDSN has launched a public consultation on an initial country-level SDG Index and Dashboard that measures SDG achievement across the 17 SDGs. Comments can be submitted online until 31 March 2016.

During the public consultation they would be particularly grateful for help and advice on how to fill some of the following major data gaps in the preliminary SDG Index and Dashboard.

For example, on SDG4, Quality of Education, the initial indicators (labels, sources) and 'thresholds' in Tables 3 and 4 of the linked document are:

Expected years of schooling 2014 UNDP (2015)

>15 [Green] 12 = value = 15 [Yellow] 12 [Red]

Population aged 25-64 with tertiary education (%) 2011 OECD (2016)

>25% [Green] 15% = value = 25% [Yellow] 15% [Red]

PISA score 2012 OECD (2016)

>493 [Green] 400 = value = 493 [Yellow] 400 [Red]

Proposed indicators for other SDGs are also included, and a global ranking and score by country and aggregation method. These findings were the ones that made the news recently on the ‘happiness’ front, but not yet in terms of other parts of the report, such as on the weak or strong sustainability or substitution aspects, or the sustainable consumption and/or production aspects.

Find out more, and how to comment, at:

http://unsdsn.org/resources/publications/sdg-index/

http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/160215-Preliminary-SDG-Inde...

PS our image for this entry - a rare form of double rainbow - symbolic of this quest, or ...?