The Arab region continues to face monumental developmental challenges on numerous fronts. The ongoing “Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals” effectively started with a socioeconomic shock triggered by a global pandemic. This further disrupted developmental trajectories in several countries in the Arab region, many of which were already going through violent conflicts or internal political turbulence. Today, accelerating efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is more pressing than ever.

ountries in the Arab region stand to gain—individually and collectively—if they manage to overcome the growing developmental challenges and accelerate efforts to achieve the SDGs. However, for these efforts to generate value and create impact through the many developmental pathways, there are several prerequisites. Among others, these include making available accurate and representative evidence for the many stakeholders, that first, enables an objective localized assessment of the current state of development, and second, empowers all stakeholders with the data that can inform policy options and chart the way forward towards achieving the SDGs. In essence, understanding the current state and changing trends through a data-driven lens should provide clarity on how to overcome the many obstacles highlighted.

At this crucial point in time, the objective of the Arab Region SDG Index and Dashboard is to provide a data-driven practical tool for governments, policymakers and other stakeholders to measure progress on the SDGs, and to highlight implementation challenges and data gaps. The 2022 Arab Region SDG Index and Dashboard comprises 110 indicators covering the 17 SDGs, each of which have an assigned score (0–100) and a traffic light color (green, yellow, orange, or red) to indicate performance. In addition, arrows visually indicate trends in progress towards achieving the goals for those indicators where data for multiple years are available.

Among the indicators, the 2022 Arab Region Index and Dashboard has 29 unique indicators that specifically reflect regional priorities and challenges. The selection of these indicators, along with related thresholds, was informed by regional expert consultations which took place to inform the 2019 edition. Compared to the global Sustainable Development Report 2021, and to reduce potential bias, the Arab Region Index also removes indicators where data coverage is currently insufficient. Additionally, the Arab Region Index increases country coverage by including Palestine, which has so far not been included in the global reports. It also provides total SDG scores for two Arab countries (Libya and Comoros) that did not receive one in the global report due to low data availability.