Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

in: Loewe, Markus / Nicole Rippin (eds.), Translating an ambitious vision into global transformation: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), (Discussion Paper 7/2015), 51-58

ISBN: 978-3-88985-671-5

SDG 8 is a difficult goal, as it is vague and therefore under-ambitious. Most of its targets are formulated in a manner that makes it difficult to operationalise in a meaningful and manageable way.
In the medium term, per capita income growth and employment as indicators of socioeconomic progress should be replaced with new indicators and indices that measure the average progress of people across the multiple dimensions of their socio-economic wellbeing in their multidimensional socio-economic well-being. The Correlation Sensitive Poverty Index mentioned in the chapter on SDG 1 could be a good starting point for this purpose. It can be constructed in a way that allows the index to measure the mean of wellbeing of people in different countries in terms of their achievements / capabilities in different relevant dimensions. The advantage of the index is that it can capture different aspects of well-being and still account for inequalities.
In addition, the indicators suggested by the IAEG-SDGs could be complemented by additional ones that are able to control for the inclusiveness and sustainability of growth.

About the authors

Altenburg, Tilman

Economic Geography

Loewe, Markus

Economy

Pegels, Anna

Economist

Further experts

Asimeng, Emmanuel Theodore

Urban Planning, Sustainability 

Baumann, Max-Otto

Political Science 

El-Haddad, Amirah

Economy 

Götze, Jacqueline

Political Scientist 

Hackenesch, Christine

Political Science 

Hilbrich, Sören

Economy 

Janus, Heiner

Political Science 

Keijzer, Niels

Social Science 

Koch, Svea

Social Science 

Mathis, Okka Lou

Political Scientist 

Schwachula, Anna

Sociology 

Sommer, Christoph

Economist 

Sowa, Alina

Economics 

Srigiri, Srinivasa Reddy

Agricultural Economist 

Strohmaier, Rita

Economy 

Stöcker, Alexander

Economics 

Vogel, Tim

Economy 

Vogel, Johanna

International Cultural Economy 

von Haaren, Paula

Development Economics 

Vrolijk, Kasper

Economy 

Wehrmann, Dorothea

Sociology 

Zintl, Tina

Political Scientist