SEDA: An Interactive Guide

  • View Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA) Scores and Rankings. Click on a country in the table or on the map to explore BCG’s annual rankings of national well-being.
  • See SEDA Dimensions and SEDA over Time. Click on a tab to view scores for the ten dimensions of SEDA, the change in SEDA scores over a time period, and our metric for measuring a country’s ability to convert wealth into well-being.
  • Compare Countries. Use the pulldown menu to compare the performance of all or a select group of countries on any of the metrics. Or use the map to select countries to compare: click on a country then select the others using shift+click or command+click.

Defining and Measuring Well-Being

In 2012, The Boston Consulting Group proposed the SEDA as a new way to measure well-being. SEDA is primarily an objective measure (combining data on outcomes, such as in health and education, with quasi-objective data, such as governance assessments). It is also a relative measure that assesses how a country performs in comparison to either the entire universe of countries or to individual peers or groups. SEDA offers a current snapshot as well as a measure of progress over time, and it complements purely economic indicators like GDP. 




1. SEDA Score

We aggregate the scores for the ten SEDA dimensions to provide an overall score for each country. This score can be used to compare a country with any other country or group of countries. In general, wealthier countries tend to have higher scores than less wealthy countries. SEDA’s ten dimensions also provide an organizing structure for reviewing priorities for remedial action, since a country’s performance relative to the rest of the world or a group of peers can highlight critical strengths and weaknesses. Armed with such insights, governments can begin to identify strategies for addressing the most pressing issues.

2. Change in SEDA Score


3. Wealth to Well-Being Coefficient



More details about SEDA can be found in Measure Well-Being to Improve It: The 2019 Sustainable Economic Development Assessment, BCG report, July 2019.

Indicators used to calculate scores for SEDA’s ten dimensions come from these sources: DataBank and Worldwide Governance Indicators (The World Bank); Environmental Performance Index (Yale University and Columbia University in collaboration with the World Economic Forum); Global Competitiveness reports (World Economic Forum); Global Health Observatory (World Health Organization); Index of Economic Freedom (Heritage Foundation); Indices of Social Development (International Institute of Social Studies); Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD); United Nations; World Economic Outlook database (International Monetary Fund).

SEDA: An Interactive Guide