The 2020 SDG Index in brief
Since 2015, all member states of the United-Nations (UN) have been implementing Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Subsequently, to assess where each country stands with regards to achieving the SDGs, Jeffrey Sachs and a team of independent experts working at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Bertelsmann Stiftung have been preparing the Sustainable Development Report (SDR).
The report usually includes the SDG Index & Dashboards. However, the 2020 edition of the SDR, published on June 30, 2020 by Cambridge University Press, additionally and very timely, focuses on the likely short-term impacts of Covid-19 on the SDGs and describes how the SDGs can frame the recovery.
The 2020 SDG Index includes 166 UN member countries. Out of the 57 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries, 55 are included in this report. This short article is an attempt to look at a glance at the performances of OIC countries separately. For the sake of our discussion, let us divide 166 countries into three groups as follows: Group-A represents the top 50 countries, while Group-B represents the bottom 50 countries and the rest 66 countries (from 51th to 116th) belong to Group-C.
belong to Group-C.
Group-A Countries
Top 5 performing OIC member countries are: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kyrgyz Republic, Azerbaijan, Algeria, and Iran (see, Figure-1). It is also important to mention here that Bosnia-Herzegovina is the only OIC member country in Group A which ranked 50th with a score of 73.38.
Group-B Countries
In contrast, in Group-B, 25 countries (50 %) are from OIC members. Of them, 20 countries (80 %) are from African regions. The countries are ordered in accordance with their performances in the SDG Index: Senegal (ranked 127th with a score of 58.27), Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Mauritania, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Mozambique, Uganda, Benin, Comoros, Togo, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali, Niger, Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, and Chad(ranked 164th with a score of 43.75).
Among the rest 5 countries, two are from South Asia, namely, Pakistan (134th) and Afghanistan (139th), two from the Middle East and North African (MENA) regions, namely, Yemen (151st) and Syria (126th), and the remaining one, Guyana (124th), is from the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region.
Group-C Countries
In Group-C, 29 are from OIC member countries (nearly 44 %). These countries are from six diverse regions. Among them, 21 countries (72.41%) are from 2 regions. Seven Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries are: Kyrgyz Republic (ranked 52nd with a score of 73.01), Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan (ranked 114th with a score of 63.03). Among them, Kyrgyz Republic and Azerbaijan are also among the top 5 performing OIC countries. The fourteen MENA countries are: Algeria (ranked 56th with a score of 72.27), Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq (ranked 113th with a score of 63.13). Among them, Algeria and Iran are also among the top 5 performing OIC countries.
The two South Asian countries are: Bangladesh (109th), and Maldives (91st). The three South-East Asian countries are: Malaysia (60th), Brunei Darussalam (88th) and Indonesia (101st).
The rest 3 countries are from 3 different regions. Turkey is the only Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country among the Muslim world, with a score of 70.30 and ranked 70th and 12th among the global and OIC levels respectively. Suriname is the only country from the LAC region with a score of 68.36 and ranked 86th. Gabon is the only African country with a score of 63.40 and rank 111th.
Figure 1: Top 5 and bottom 5 performing OIC member countries in the 2020 SDG Index
Missisng Data Challeges
The 2020 SDG index excludes 27 countries out of 193 UN members because these countries do not have adequate data. To minimize biases from missing data, the 2020 SDG Index only includes countries that have data for at least 80% of the variables included in the global SDG Index.
85 countries, more than half of the countries (nearly 52%), have less than 5 % missing data. Among these 85 countries, 25 are OIC members (see Table-1). Hence, it is said that OIC countries have more missing data than the non-OIC countries.
Another interesting fact we see is that 37 countries have no missing data, among them, only 9 are from the Muslim world (see, Table-1). These are the counties which can be examples for others.
Table-1: Percentage Missing Values
| Missing values (%) | OIC | Non-OIC | Overall | |||
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
| No missing | 9 | 16.36 | 28 | 25.22 | 37 | 22.28 |
| >0 to 4.99 | 25 | 45.45 | 60 | 54.05 | 85 | 51.20 |
| 5.00 to 9.99 | 7 | 12.72 | 12 | 10.81 | 19 | 11.44 |
| 10.00 to 14.99 | 9 | 16.36 | 6 | 5.41 | 15 | 9.03 |
| 15.00 to 20.00 | 5 | 9.09 | 5 | 4.50 | 10 | 6.02 |
| 55 | 100 | 111 | 100 | 166 | 100 |
Source: Author’s analysis from SDR 2020 Database
Concluding Remarks
It is generally observed that the performance of the majority of OIC member countries are relatively poorer than non-OIC countries. Hence, OIC as the collective voice of the Muslim world should respond through its various organs, committees and institutions such as the Islamic Center for the Development of Trade (ICDT), the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to enhance cooperation among the OIC members so that the performance of OIC countries can be collectively improved.
Another important issue is to focus on real-time information especially in this pandemic time (COVID-19). It is observed that countries with free flow and easy access to real-time data and information are doing better in fighting Covid‑19. The Muslim world is far behind in data collection.
Hence, the OIC needs to focus on collecting important data for the Muslim world. At the inter-country level, to this end, Ankara-based ‘Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries’ (SESRIC) has a great role to play. At the country level, in addition to strengthening the efficiency of public sector data management, the private sector must be patronized for making a wealth of real-time data available for the evidence-based policy making.
*The author is an economist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the International Islamic University, Malaysia. He has been a consultant to the UNDP and the UNCDF. He can be reached at foyasal.khan@gmail.com
