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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) focuses on how to practically measure Sustainable Development Goal 16 - Peace, justice and strong institutions. The full objective of this goal is to ‘promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels’.
In many respects, Goal 16 is the most ambitious goal of the Sustainable Development Goals and faces unique practical challenges in its measurement and implementation.

This report presents one of the first comprehensive progress audits on Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG16), which measures peace, justice and strong institutions. It is the second report by the IEP on SDG16 and follows on from the data audit conducted by IEP in 2016 which reviewed the global data availability for this goal. While a lot of the work on SDG16 thus far has been theoretical, this report begins the process of measuring the actual performance and progress of countries against the 12 SDG16 targets, based on the existing data identified by the international community, IEP and other third party organisations.

The report covers 22 of the 23 SDG16 indicators, and finds that:

• Eight of the 22 have data for less than 50 per cent of countries.

• Only seven indicators have data for more than 90 per cent of countries.

• Some of the most important indicators capturing violence against children, sexual violence, and under-reporting of violence are comparable for less than 40 per cent of countries.

• One indicator is only measured globally, not disaggregated by country and therefore not covered by the report.

The report finds that while the inclusion of SDG16 is a major achievement of the international community, and important recognition of how violence and conflict can undermine development, there are still major challenges facing SDG16.
There are numerous methodological issues, political challenges, as well as practical and implementation issues around data collection and statistical capacity that if not addressed may undermine the achievement of the goal. The progress report finds that at this stage, globally comparable data is either not available or only gathered for a limited number of countries for many indicators and countries.

Currently there is not enough official data or statistical capacity available at the national level to properly measure SDG16 in a cross-country comparable way. Many countries covering a significant proportion of the global population do not have the required data to understand whether their citizens have access to justice and strong institutions or live in peaceful contexts.

This means secondary sources or what are unofficial sources at the moment will, in many cases, be important to fully measure SDG16 in a comparable way across the world. It also means composite measures like the IEP Global Peace Index (GPI) and Positive Peace Index (PPI) that are independently and rigorously developed, will remain important global barometers of progress toward peace.

Continuing on from last year’s report, the 2017 SDG16 report also assesses the general trends in SDG16 indicators since 2005 to understand whether countries are making progress. To do this, IEP has assembled data from a range of sources, both government and third party organisations, focusing on the indicators with the broadest coverage and highest levels of comparability. Having a clear understanding of the state of available data and how countries are performing is integral to developing the policies and interventions necessary for improving not just the measurements for SDG16, but also the outcomes for peace, justice and strong institutions. The development and use of harmonised data to compare different countries on the same measures will be critical to hold countries to account and also help direct resources to where they are needed most.

Whilst national statistical offices (NSOs) will be responsible for gathering the official data that will be recognised by the UN, in practice it will take many years for them to build the necessary capabilities. This will also require a sustained financial investment, as well as the necessary knowledge transfer and training. Third party data and reporting like the IEP’s GPI and PPI will also be vital in providing an important benchmark against which to gauge progress and to independently audit NSOs data.
In many respects, SDG16 is the most ambitious goal of the SDGs and faces unique practical challenges in its measurement and implementation. It has also been described as an enabling or transformative goal, in so much as that many of the other SDGs will be easier to achieve by improving SDG16. But without better quality data, it will not be possible to properly report on the goal and understand if countries are moving in the right direction.

Because the SDGs have been derived from an inherently political process, they do not comprehensively monitor all key factors, institutions and structures that are associated with peace. For both political and practical reasons, SDG16 will not monitor all of the known key factors that support peace. Comparison of SDG16 to IEP’s empirically derived Positive Peace framework which maps the key attitudes, institutions and structures that build peace, finding that certain key aspects are only partially covered. This is clear when comparing SDG16 indicators to the Positive Peace pillars for Free Flow of Information, WellFunctioning Government and Low Levels of Corruption.
On the methodology of the report it should be noted, where possible, IEP has used data from sources identified by the IAEG on SDG indicators, which are listed in the UN Stats metadata repository. However, only 11 of the 22 indicators that can be measured by country are identified in the IAEG on SDG indicators metadata repository, and for several of these indicators, a methodology has been identified but the data has yet to be collected. Therefore, IEP has relied on data from other organisations. Where an IAEG source was not identified, IEP used either sources identified by the SDG16 Data Initiative, or from a review process carried out by the IEP research team.

The report is broken into three main sections. Section 1 provides background on why SDG16 is important, its relationship to Positive Peace and some methodological foundations for the progress report. Section 2 provides summaries of the global performance of each of the 12 targets. Section 3 contains 163 country progress reports that provide summary figures on the data availability, relative performance of each SDG16 indicator relative to other countries and where available trend data on each indicator.
Moving forward, IEP will continue to monitor progress against SDG16 with available data and help work with international partners to raise awareness of the key challenges facing the proper monitoring and achievement of SDG16, which include:

1. Data Availability and Capacity – Statistical capacity will take a very long time to build, it is likely data will not be available for years on some indicators.
   Regular reporting on data gaps like this report will be necessary to maintain international awareness.

2. Political challenges – Some targets cannot be practically independently measured by NSOs for politically sensitive reasons. For example, SDG indicators 16.5.1 on corruption or 16.10.1 on the killing/detention of journalists/human rights activists are challenging for government to monitor.

3. Methodological challenges – Some targets are inherently multidimensional and cannot be measured by one or two indicators i.e. SDG16.3 on rule of law is illustrative of this. Furthermore not all of the indicators in official Inter-Agency Expert Group (IAEG) on SDG indicators process adequately cover the full ambition of what the targets say. For instance, adequate data does not exist for SDG16.7, ‘Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels’.

4. Context specific reasons - In the absence of peace, some countries in outright conflict will not be able to maintain statistical capacity, independent conflict monitors like the Iraq Body Count or Syrian Human Rights Observatory will continue to be important.

5. Globally oriented design - SDG16.8 and SDG16.10.2 on broadening and strengthening the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance require independent and third parties like the World Justice Project to monitor progress.