A re-evaluation of how well each country is doing in terms of achieving the SDGs: An objective approach based on multi-criteria-decision-analysis

Year 2024, Volume: 24 Issue: 2, 179 - 198, 25.05.2024

Selahattin Yavuz , Şefika Betül Esen

https://doi.org/10.21121/eab.1287079

Abstract

Adopting Agenda 2030, the UN issued a set of sustainable development report consisting of 17 goals. The indices created by these goals are beneficial in defining the position of a particular country across the years; however, it is relatively complex to compare its position to other countries. This is not just because it requires an extensive analysis but also because the weight of each goal must be different. It is hard to determine which goal is more important than the others, as it differs from one specialist to another. Then how should we determine the goal weights without falling into the trap of subjective suggestions? That is our question for this research paper. Therefore, we use the multiple-criteria decision-making approach (MCDM) in order to characterise each country's position more accurately. Doing so, we get diverse weights instead of just using the SDGs' arithmetical averages. Therefore, our findings show slightly different rankings than the UN’s SDG report 2022.

Keywords

Multiple-criteria decision-making, Entropy, Aras

References

• Allen, C., Reid, M., Thwaites, J., Glover, R., & Kestin, T. (2020). Assessing national progress and priorities for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Experience from Australia. Sustainability Science, 15, 521-538.
• Aras, G., & Yildirim, F. M. (2020). Sosyo-ekonomik refah düzeyinin belirlenmesinde alternatif bir endeks çalışması: ARAS yöntemi ile G-20 ülkeleri uygulaması. Business and Economics Research Journal, 11(3), 735-751.
• Arsu, T, Finansal Performansin Entropi Tabanli Aras Yöntemi ile Değerlendirilmesi: BIST Elektrik, Gaz ve Buhar Sektöründeki Işletmeler Üzerine Bir Uygulama. Hacettepe Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 39(1), 15-32.
• Ayçin, E. (2019). Çok kriterli karar verme: Bilgisayar uygulamalı çözümler. Nobel Akademik Yayıncılık, Ankara.
• Bakir, M., & Atalik, Ö. (2018). Evaluation of Service quality in airlines by entropy and ARAS methods. Journal of Business Research Turk, 10(1), 617-638.
• Bell, M.L., Hobbs, B., Elliott, E.M., Ellis, H., Robinson, Z. (2001). An evaluation of multi-criteria methods in integrated assessment of climate policy. Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 10(5), 229–256.
• Benítez, R.; Liern, V. (2020). Unweighted TOPSIS: A new multicriteria tool for sustainability analysis. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 1–13.
• Brett C., Hernán B., Navroz K. D., Srihari D., Radhika K., Serban S., Theodor S. and Marta T. (2019) Multi-criteria decision analysis in policy-making for climate mitigation and development, Climate and Development, 11:3, 212-222.
• Fullman, N., Barber, R. M., Abajobir, A. A., Abate, K. H., Abbafati, C., Abbas, K. M., ... & Dubey, M. (2017). Measuring progress and projecting attainment on the basis of past trends of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: an analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. The Lancet, 390(10100), 1423-1459.
• Gamboa, G. (2006). Social multi-criteria evaluation of different development scenarios of the Aysén region, Chile. Ecological Economics, 59(1), 157–170.
• Garmendia, E., Stagl, S. (2010). Public participation for sustainability and social learning: concepts and lessons from three case studies in Europe. Ecological Economics. 69(8), 1712–1722.
• Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1993). The entropy law and the economic problem. Valuing the Earth: Economics, ecology, ethics, 75-88.
• Greco, S., Ehrgott, M., & Figueira, J.‐R. (2016). Multiple criteria decision analysis. State of the Art Surveys. Ney York: Springer. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ (Accessed 01/02/2023)
• Ishizaka, A. and Nemery, P., 2013. Multi-criteria decision analysis: methods and software. John Wiley & Sons.
• Jakimowicz, A. (2020). The role of entropy in the development of economics. Entropy, 22(4), 452.
• Karaatli, M. (2016). Entropi-Gri ilişkisel analiz yöntemleri ile bütünleşik bir yaklaşim: Turizm sektöründe uygulama. Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 21(1), 63-77.
• Karami, A., & Johansson, R. (2013). Utilization of multi attribute decision making techniques to integrate automatic and manual ranking of options. Journal of information science and engineering, 30(2), 519-534.
• Karaşan, A.; Kahraman, C. (2018). A novel interval-valued neutrosophic EDAS method: Prioritization of the United Nations National Sustainable Development Goals. Soft Computing, 22, 4891–4906.
• Lim, S. S., Allen, K., Bhutta, Z. A., Dandona, L., Forouzanfar, M. H., Fullman, N., ... & Chang, J. C. (2016). Measuring the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: a baseline analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015. The Lancet, 388(10053), 1813-1850.
• Oliveira, A.; Calili, R.; Almeida, M.F.; Sousa, M. A. (2019) systemic and contextual framework to define a country’s 2030 Agenda from a foresight perspective. Sustainability , 11, 6360.
• Resce, G.; Schiltz, F. (2020). Sustainable development in Europe: A multicriteria decision analysis. Rev. Income Wealth.
• Ringius, L., Asbjørn, T., Holtsmark, B. (1998) Can multi-criteria rules fairly distribute climate burdens? OECD results from three burden sharing rules. Energy Policy 26(10), 777–793
• Sachs, J., Lafortune, G., Kroll, C., Fuller, G., Woelm, F., (2022). From Crisis to Sustainable Development: the SDGs as Roadmap to 2030 and Beyond. Sustainable Development Report 2022. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Salvia, A. L., Leal Filho, W., Brandli, L. L., & Griebeler, J. S. (2019). Assessing research trends related to Sustainable Development Goals: Local and global issues. Journal of cleaner production, 208, 841-849.
• Schwerhoff, G., & Sy, M. (2017). Financing renewable energy in Africa–Key challenge of the sustainable development goals. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 75, 393-401.
• Shemshadi, A., Shirazi, H., Toreihi, M., & Tarokh, M. J. (2011). A fuzzy VIKOR method for supplier selection based on entropy measure for objective weighting. Expert systems with applications, 38(10), 12160-12167.
• Sims, N. C., England, J. R., Newnham, G. J., Alexander, S., Green, C., Minelli, S., & Held, A. (2019). Developing good practice guidance for estimating land degradation in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Environmental Science & Policy, 92, 349-355.
• Stafford-Smith, M., Griggs, D., Gaffney, O., Ullah, F., Reyers, B., Kanie, N., ... & O’Connell, D. (2017). Integration: the key to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability science, 12, 911-919.
• Stanujkic, D., Popovic, G., Zavadskas, E. K., Karabasevic, D., & Binkyte-Veliene, A. (2020). Assessment of progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals of the “Agenda 2030” by using the CoCoSo and the
• Shannon Entropy methods: The case of the EU Countries. Sustainability, 12(14), 5717.
• Yildirim, B. F. (2015). Çok kriterli karar verme problemlerinde ARAS yöntemi. Kafkas Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 6(9), 285-296.
• Zavadskas, E. K., & Turskis, Z. (2011). Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods in economics: an overview. Technological and economic development of economy, 17(2), 397-427.
• Zavadskas, E. K., Turskis, Z., & Vilutiene, T. (2010). Multiple criteria analysis of foundation instalment alternatives by applying Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) method. Archives of civil and mechanical engineering, 10(3), 123-141.
• Zhang, H., Gu, C. L., Gu, L. W., & Zhang, Y. (2011). The evaluation of tourism destination competitiveness by TOPSIS & information entropy–A case in the Yangtze River Delta of China. Tourism Management, 32(2), 443-451.
• Zhu, Y., Tian, D., & Yan, F. (2020). Effectiveness of entropy weight method in decision-making. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2020, 1-5.