(09 July 2015) – This week, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, one of Germany’s leading independent think tanks, released the fourth edition of its “Sustainable Governance Indicators”.
The SGI 2015 is a cross-national survey of 41 OECD and EU countries that analyses each country’s future viability based on 140 quantitative and qualitative indicators. More than 100 renowned experts from around the globe contribute to this large-scale study.
The SGI approach measures sustainable governance across three pillars:
- The Policy Performance Index measures each country’s performance in sixteen individual policy areas along the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, social, and environmental policies).
- The Democracy Index assesses how each country compares with regard to the quality of democracy and the rule of law.
- The Governance Index examines how well-developed reform and governance capacities are in the countries.
41 country reports shed light on each country’s strengths and weaknesses. This cross-national comparison not only signals the respective need for reform but also each country’s capacity to address the most pressing challenges that OECD and EU countries are facing today: demographic change, growing social inequalities, dwindling resources and the need for long-term oriented structural reforms of labour markets and social security systems.