The description of considered criteria.

The Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), a major 21st-century initiative, aims to revive the historic Silk Road by connecting Asia, Europe, and Africa through a network of trade and cultural exchange routes. This study aims to assess sustainable development across sixteen countries situated in South Asia, West Asia, and Africa—regions that are central to the SREB but face diverse environmental and socio-economic challenges. To achieve this, a novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach is proposed, combining the Method based on the Removal Effects of Criteria (MEREC) and Operational Competitiveness Ratings Analysis (OCRA). The MEREC method is used to determine objective weights for sustainability indicators by evaluating the impact of each criterion’s exclusion, while OCRA is employed to evaluate and rank countries based on both beneficial and non-beneficial indicators. The findings reveal significant disparities in sustainability performance across the studied countries. Israel ranked highest in sustainability, followed by Sri Lanka and Nepal, while India showed the lowest performance. These results provide valuable benchmarks and strategic insights for regional policy planning and sustainable development efforts within the SREB framework.丝绸之路经济带（Silk Road Economic Belt，SREB）是21世纪的一项重大倡议，旨在通过搭建贸易与文化交流网络，连通亚洲、欧洲与非洲，复兴历史上的丝绸之路。本研究旨在评估分布于南亚、西亚与非洲的16个国家的可持续发展水平——这些区域既是SREB的核心地带，同时也面临着多样的环境与社会经济挑战。为此，本研究提出一种新颖的混合多准则决策方法，融合准则移除影响法（Method based on the Removal Effects of Criteria，MEREC）与运营竞争力评级分析（Operational Competitiveness Ratings Analysis，OCRA）。其中，MEREC方法通过评估剔除每项准则所带来的影响，为可持续发展指标确定客观权重；OCRA方法则基于有益指标与非有益指标，对各国进行评估与排序。研究结果显示，受访各国的可持续发展表现存在显著差异：以色列的可持续发展排名最高，其次为斯里兰卡与尼泊尔，而印度的表现最差。上述结果可为SREB框架下的区域政策规划与可持续发展实践提供极具价值的基准参考与战略启示。