Going ‘beyond GDP’ should not mean sidelining the SDGs
Summary
Author style: Punchy — the editorial is a clear nudge to policymakers: don’t dump the SDG work when you design new measures of progress.
The UN secretary-general’s High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP will soon publish recommendations for measures that complement gross domestic product. Nature’s editorial warns that those recommendations must not ignore the decade of work behind the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 200+ indicators. The SDG monitoring framework — built and refined by the Inter-Agency Expert Group — produced a tiered, evidence-based system for indicators, moving many measures from experimental (tier 3) to established (tier 1). The editorial argues that the Beyond GDP advisers should learn from and build on the SDG framework rather than start anew, to preserve robust, transparent and inclusive systems for tracking human and planetary progress.
Key Points
- The UN High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP will recommend new progress measures to complement GDP; member states will consider them in the UN General Assembly.
- There is concern the group may produce a much smaller set of indicators and fail to incorporate the SDG indicator work.
- The SDGs are monitored with more than 200 indicators developed through a decade-long, tiered process (tiers 1–3) overseen by the Inter-Agency Expert Group.
- Many indicators moved from experimental to established status via inclusive, deliberative work — for example, the gender-equality legal protections indicator.
- Nature urges the Beyond GDP advisers to build on existing SDG methodologies and institutional learning rather than starting from scratch.
- Leveraging the SDG monitoring framework would preserve rigour, transparency and the global reporting infrastructure already in place.
Context and relevance
Globally, governments and international bodies are rethinking how to measure prosperity and progress beyond GDP — factoring in wellbeing, equity and planetary limits. The SDGs represent the largest, most widely adopted framework for tracking those broader aims. If new measures ignore that work, there is a risk of fragmenting monitoring efforts, wasting institutional knowledge and slowing international agreement on what counts as progress. For policymakers, statisticians, NGOs and researchers, the editorial is a reminder that continuity and inclusivity in indicator design matter for policy uptake and for credible, comparable global reporting.
Why should I read this?
Quick and honest: if you care about how ‘progress’ gets defined (and who decides), this editorial saves you the legwork. The UN is retooling its scoreboard — and Nature says don’t throw away ten years of solid indicator-building. Read it to avoid surprises when new measures start shaping funding, policy and international priorities.