The Sustainable Cities Index, a pioneer study worldwide, measures the progress of Mexico's metropolitan areas towards reaching the SDG targets. It systematizes, through an index and traffic light, information available on the municipalities and metropolitan areas to monitor challenges and accomplishments at the metropolitan level. The Index covers 57% of the Mexican population living in one of the 59 metropolitan areas delimited by the National Population Council, accounting for approximately 76.4% of Mexico's GDP.

Citibanamex has developed the fourth edition of the Sustainable Cities Index. Previous editions have focused only on the economic and environmental aspects of cities. This year, the Index incorporates social data, making the approach a three-tier measurement for metropolitan areas. Together with this addition, it was possible to incorporate the SDGs in the evaluation of progress; monitoring the 2030 Agenda from the standpoint of the metropolitan areas is important for understanding how much we as a society have progressed in attaining sustainable human development. To assess the overall performance of the metropolitan areas of Mexico in attaining the SDGs, a general index is calculated based on the average results obtained by each metropolitan area in the 16 sub-indexes associated with the 16 goals covered in this study. The index represents the most recent performance of the areas in the three dimensions of sustainable development economic development, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability with respect to the full set of targets that should be attained by 2030. In this case, all the metropolitan areas are scored based on their distance from a set of targets or optimal values that should be attained by 2030. The values are not assigned to the relative position of the metropolitan areas for each goal, but to their distance from a standard.

Together with our partners in Academia and NGOs, we will develop workshops directed to those in decision-making positions to help construct roadmaps for implementation and provide support in adopting the Index as a guide to apply recommendations helping them align their municipal objectives to SDGs objectives. During workshops, members of the national media and press will also be invited to participate with the objective of broadening their understanding of how to read and understand the results of the index.

This initiative has been developed in conjunction with Academia, the private sector and non-governmental organizations (National Laboratory of Public Policies - Centre for Academic Research and Teaching (LNPP-CIDE), Mario Molina Centre, Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) in order to have a holistic approach for the development of the Index. After the development and publication of the Sustainable Cities Index, the initiative will be available online for public access. On this website, citizens will have access to useful data, comparing information of different SDGs and metropolitan areas. The initiative is evaluated through a traffic light. For each metropolitan area, one of the five colours is assigned to each goal, based on the colour repeated the most times in the traffic light of the indicators corresponding to each goal. In the cases in which two or three colours of the traffic light are repeated the same number of times, the colour corresponding to the less favourable result is assigned. The traffic light allows one to see the colour or level of progress in relation to the majority of the indicators that correspond to the same goal in each metropolitan area, at the same time as it brings to light those cases in which major challenges need to be addressed. The Index includes a cluster analysis, a technique used to group the metropolitan areas based on their progress in attaining the 16 SDGs analysed. The affinity propagation algorithm was used for the cluster analysis; making it possible to identify metropolitan areas that operate as centroids, i.e. that are connected with other areas with a similar performance. Profiles were identified for each cluster taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of their performance by sub-index, determining, at the same time, comparative advantages and disadvantages with respect to the other clusters. The comparative advantages were defined as those aspects for which one cluster has better results than others, whereas the comparative disadvantages correspond to obtaining less favourable results than the other clusters. Based on this information, decision-makers and public policy analysts will be able to identify problems common to two or more metropolitan areas and, in some cases, seek common solutions applicable to similar contexts. The index and traffic light are based on the methodology developed in the SDG Index and Dashboard report 2017, elaborated by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation.

Citibanamex, National Laboratory of Public Policies - Centre for Academic Research and Teaching (LNPP CIDE), Mario Molina Centre, Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO)