The SDG Index scores every country from 0 to 100 on its progress across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. A score of 100 would mean every Goal has been achieved. Finland leads at 87.4; South Sudan sits lowest at 39.9.
SDG Index 2026. Scores run 0–100, where 100 means every Goal has been achieved. Countries in grey are not included in the Index. Source: Sachs, J.D., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., Iablonovski, G. (2026). Implementing Sustainable Development: 2030 and Beyond. Sustainable Development Report 2026. Paris: SDSN, Dublin: Dublin University Press. DOI: 10.82163/225
The Index is compiled annually by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and published in the Sustainable Development Report. It draws on roughly a hundred indicators, normalised to a common 0–100 scale where 0 marks the worst observed performance and 100 marks Goal achievement.
Each of the 17 Goals receives a score, and the overall Index is their arithmetic mean. That equal weighting is a deliberate methodological choice rather than a technical necessity: it treats every Goal as equally important, refusing to assume that economic goals matter more than environmental ones, or the reverse. It is a defensible position, but it is a position, and results should be read with that in mind.
Use the buttons above the map to switch between the overall score and any individual Goal. The difference between a country’s overall rank and its performance on a specific Goal is often where the interesting question lies.
Overall scores compress a great deal. A country scoring 70 might be strong across the board, or excellent on ten Goals and failing on seven. Switching to individual Goals reveals which.
High-income countries score well but export their costs. The Index scores performance within national borders. Goal 12, on responsible consumption and production, is where this shows: several countries near the top of the overall ranking perform poorly on it, because their consumption drives environmental pressure elsewhere.
Trajectory is not visible here. A score is a snapshot. A country improving rapidly from a low base and one stagnating at a similar level look identical on this map.
Grey means not included. Around two dozen countries lack sufficient data coverage for a reliable score.
My own work engages with SDG measurement in several places, particularly on the construction of composite indicators and the trade-offs they conceal: