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Indicators:
Fourth Expert Group Meeting, 23-24 October 1997

Fourth Expert Group Meeting on Indicators of Sustainable Development

Report of the meeting

I. OPENING OF THE MEETING

  1. The Chair of the meeting, Ms. Joke Waller-Hunter, Director of the Division for Sustainable Development (DSD), welcomed the participants of the Fourth Expert Group Meeting on Indicators of Sustainable Development, and informed participants of the major outcome of the Earth Summit+5 in relation to indicators, which strongly supported the development of indicators of sustainable development, as well as aggregation and linkages.
  2. The Agenda, as suggested by DSD, was adopted by the Expert Group.
  3. The List of Participants is attached in Annex III.

II. STATUS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CSD WORK PROGRAMME ON INDICATORS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

  1. The Division for Sustainable Development, gave a brief overview of the development of methodology sheets, which still leaves 9 sheets to be completed. DSD noted the successful completion of three regional briefing and training workshops for Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa regions. It was emphasized that implementation and testing of indicators is underway in all regions of the world, although some countries are more advanced than others. In general, the process is seen to be somewhat slower than anticipated. Of the 21 countries who confirmed their participation in the process, half have submitted reports containing their initial proposals of how to organize the testing procedure within their countries.

III. STATUS OF NATIONAL/REGIONAL INDICATOR INITIATIVES AND TESTING

  1. In order to inform the Expert Group on the status of national and regional activities undertaken in the context of the CSD programme, regional representatives were invited to present initiatives, results, experiences and problems encountered to date. Conclusions and recommendations are contained in Item 7 of the report.
  2. The representative of the Development Observatory in Costa Rica presented to the Expert Group, the Latin America and Caribbean Regional Workshop hosted by the Government of Costa Rica, from 10-12 March 1997, in connection with a national conference under the National System for Sustainable Development (SINADES) framework. The national conference had the objective to include a broad audience of national decision-makers and to discuss and compare different conceptual and practical approaches for SD assessment, stressing the development of SD indicators and the adjustments of national accounts. The workshop had the overall objective to brief participants from National Councils for Sustainable Development, ministries of planning or the ministry responsible for environment and sustainable development, on the CSD Work Programme, and provide in-depth training in the use of indicators as tools to support national planning and decision making. Participants included representatives from 15 countries, UN organizations, and government experts in indicator use. A series of conclusions and recommendations were highlighted, including that such workshops were needed to provide a better appreciation of the relationship between priority setting and measurement and the methodological issues related to SD indicators. The CSD publication Indicators of Sustainable Development: Framework and Methodologies has been recognized as a good point of departure for a national indicators program, but developing and applying indicators takes time, effort, and commitment over the long term, and must be pragmatic, flexible, and build on national strengths. Information sharing and capacity-building among nations and organizations was mentioned as important. While a wide variety of stakeholders should be involved, one centre of integration/coordination at the highest political level should be established to ensure focus. It was emphasized that the National Councils of Sustainable Development should be used as a means to guarantee continuity in time.
  3. The ESCAP representative presented the work ongoing in the Asian and Pacific region. ESCAP has initiated a regional approach to the CSD Indicators of Sustainable Development for the Asian and Pacific region. This includes preparation of Terms of Reference for National Testing and other training materials and workshops at the regional and national levels. ESCAP hosted, in cooperation with the Government of the Netherlands and DPCSD, a regional workshop, from 26-29 November 1996. Participants included representatives from the Ministries of Environment and the Ministries of Planning which provided an interface between environment and development representatives/experts during the meeting deliberations. The workshop was found to be extremely useful for understanding the relationship between priority setting and measurement in charting a course to sustainable development. Main conclusions and recommendations from the workshop included recognizing that the development of indicators of sustainable development would take time, and the multi-dimensional process would have to be designed in a pragmatic and flexible way building on existing strengths in countries. At the national level, the structure of the Coordination Mechanism would have to be country specific, due to the variety in governmental structures. However, the idea of a national inter-agency coordination mechanism was strongly endorsed, emphasizing the essential need to include the Planning Ministry, to ensure implementation. Finally, it was recommended that testing countries prepare a national action plan to cover the indicators programme, and engage in twinning arrangements to promote exchange of information, expertise and capacity building. Regional follow-up includes provision of small seed funds to testing countries, to enable them to organize national workshops and promote case studies. In conclusion, reflecting first observations of problems encountered, and the strong need for follow-up support by UN agencies and donor countries for capacity building was emphasized.
  4. The representative of the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology of Ghana presented the African Regional Capacity 21/DPCSD Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development, hosted by the Government of Ghana, in Accra from 3-6 June 1996. Part I of the workshop dealt with the indicators programme, Part II, which will not be reflected here, dealt with the Capacity 21 Programme. The workshop concentrated on discussing priorities and the related indicators of sustainable development, specific for the region. Key priorities were reported to include among others poverty, access to services, natural resource degradation, desertification, high population growth rates and capacity building. In the discussion of the indicators and methodology sheets presented in the "Blue Book", it was concluded that the book provided a comprehensive information tool and starting point, but did not include accurately indicators for governance, competition for natural resources and policy and strategy formulation. It was emphasized that the present list of indicators be complemented with sectoral indicators such as the FAO agricultural indicators and Habitat indicators on housing and urban development. Main conclusions and recommendations of the workshop included the strong need for financial and human resource support at the national level, based on the fact that one major problem facing most countries was the availability and reliability of data, including the institutional framework for data collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination. It was emphasized that the workshop had created awareness among participants of the CSD indicator approach and usefulness to monitor national decision making. However, countries should take on the responsibility of identifying priorities related to national needs and take ownership when initiating the national indicators programme. National implementation should ensure that all identifiable stakeholders be included and that testing should be incorporated into the national development process. The Coordinating Mechanism placed at a high political level, was seen as essential in linking institutions and integrating sectors. Finally, it was urged that documentation, such as the Blue Book, be made available in French for French speaking African countries.
  5. Furthermore, he informed the Expert Group of Ghana's participation in the CSD indicator testing, as a result of the regional workshop, and based on the current use of indicators in the country. A National Committee on Indicators of Sustainable Development is being formed functioning under the National Committee for the Implementation of Agenda 21 to coordinate the testing programme. Focus will be around two UNDP sponsored programmes characterized by activity at the lowest level of political authority in the country. In conclusion, it was highlighted that Ghana currently is exploring the possibilities of twinning with the United Kingdom, in the development of the indicators programme.
  6. The representative of the Mediterranean Action Plan/Blue Plan presented the activities undertaken in the Mediterranean context. The Blue Plan, as a component of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) launched by UNEP, is charged with studies of the interaction between population, human activities, development and the environment by elaborating a series of trends and alternative scenarios, strengthened by the establishment of a Mediterranean Environment and Development Observatory function, including the development of indicators. The Mediterranean countries and MAP have taken considerable action in follow-up to the Rio process, including the preparation of an Agenda 21 for the Mediterranean Region, MED 21, and the establishment of a Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development/MCSD. This commission, composed of 36 members from Mediterranean countries and major groups, is working on 8 priority issues among which the sustainable development indicators for the Mediterranean region; related working group intends to undertake a Mediterranean reading and interpretation of the CSD indicators with more in-depth analysis for some issues of major concern for the region, as tourism, transport and water. Furthermore, a twinning arrangement between France and Tunisia has been established with the support of the Blue Plan. A first meeting of the twinning countries will take place by the early December this year. Some elements that were highlighted as priorities for the further work on indicators for the region, included the need for data-comparability, relativity of norms for performance, indicators for un-sustainable development and a multi partner approach. The selection of indicators will be based on existing concepts, topologies and forms adapted to the region all to be discussed at a series of indicator related meetings between now and 1999.
  7. The representative of EUROSTAT presented their work in relation to the CSD indicators programme. EUROSTAT undertook a pilot study following the CSD methodology using statistics from European Union Member States. The compilation has been made available in the publication "Indicators of Sustainable Development" in July 1997, and presents 46 indicators from the CSD list, illustrating trends over time, and comments on trends observed, where relevant. 9 economic, 14 social, 21 environmental and 2 institutional indicators were selected. It was noted that even for the European countries, comparability and uniformity of statistical data, as well as accessibility and availability had been an obstacle in the selection process. In particular, the many data gaps for the environmental indicators were clearly identified. Future activities of EUROSTAT include comparison of experiences with the European testing countries and feedback of results for the revision of the CSD indicators and methodology sheets, improvements of data availability and quality of environmental indicators, cooperation with other international organisations and a possible follow-up indicator publication. Finally, the ongoing work of EUROSTAT on environmental pressure indices was briefly introduced, which is using expert panels to identify the relevant pressure indicators. A first set of 60 indicators for 10 policy fields will be published at the end of 1998 and these indicators will later be aggregated to indices by means of the expert panels.

IV. STATUS OF RELATED INDICATOR INITIATIVES

  1. In order to take stock of activities related to the CSD indicators work programme identified as less developed, selected representatives were invited to present recent developments in their areas, and how these may contribute to achieving the goals of the CSD indicators programme. Conclusions and recommendations for this section are contained in Item 7 of the report.
  2. The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) presented the progress of work in the area of compilation of environmental indicators from national statistical services based on a core set of indicators, as approved by the Statistical Commission at its twenty-eighth session. UNSD is currently developing a questionnaire on selected environmental indicators which is intended to be circulated to all national statistical services in 1998. The core set of indicators is compatible with those in the CSD list. To date, the pilot questionnaire has been completed and will be circulated before the end of 1997. The questionnaire will be modified according to the results of this test. It was noted that consultations have been held with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on a joint work programme. It has been informally agreed that UNSD's indicator compilation should not duplicate OECD's efforts. OECD would thus continue to collect indicators from its member States, while UNSD would obtain indicators from non-OECD countries only. Similar arrangements, in order to avoid duplication, will be made with the specialized agencies, Secretariats of international Conventions and other international organizations for incorporating pertinent indicators into UNSD's data base. The UNSD questionnaire is a modified version of OECD's questionnaire made jointly with EUROSTAT. It is reduced both in length and capacity, and complexity, as it is adapted to the needs and statistical capacities of developing countries and economies in transition.
  3. As part of the methodological work of UNSD in this field, a "Manual on Environmental Statistics and Indicators" is being prepared by a consultant. The manual will contain concepts, definitions, classifications, and descriptions of data sources, tabulations and data uses for the environmental indicators specified by the Inter-governmental Working Group on the Advancement of Environment Statistics. It is expected to be completed by the end of 1998.
  4. UNSD also informed the meeting of their work on follow-up on the social development themes of recent major United Nations conferences. The United Nations Statistical Commission, at its twenty-ninth session in 1997, endorsed a Minimum National Social Data Set (MNSDS), emphasizing that it should be considered as a minimum list which users can build on to meet national needs and circumstances. This set of fifteen basic indicators represents the broad areas of social concern based on the five policy themes of three conferences: The International Conference for Population and Development, the World Summit for Social Development, and the Fourth World Conference on Women. The policy themes include: population and development, eradication of poverty, expansion of productive employment and reduction of unemployment, social integration and status of women and men.
  5. The FAO representative briefed the meeting on the considerable progress made by FAO in the development and use of indicators, which includes activities in the areas of agriculture, forests, fisheries, and a recent programme on Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS). FAO recently published, in collaboration with UNEP, UNDP and the World Bank, a document on land quality indicators and their use in sustainable agriculture and rural development. It was mentioned that FAO's Statistics Division publishes many of the global datasets necessary to build indicators of sustainable development, one example being the World Census of Agriculture for the year 2000, currently underway. However, a need has been identified for a manual on agri-environmental statistics and indicators to guide national statistical offices and assist them in compiling, interpreting and presenting indicators in the area of sustainable agriculture, which could be an area of possible cooperation with UNSD. Efforts have also begun to develop a framework for rural development indicators. These have so far received little attention when compared to bio-physical and economic ones. This work will examine ways of using population density, crop production potential and the level of technology applied as the foundation for deriving a range of social, environmental and economic indicators. In addition, FAO's Forestry Department is supporting the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Forests in issues related to criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. Work has also started, in collaboration with other organizations, to develop global information on forest area, protected forest area and harvesting intensity. Finally, the GTOS programme was presented, which has the objective of "hardening" datasets focusing on changes in land quality, availability of freshwater resources, loss of biodiversity, climate change and pollution and toxicity, and warn of changes in the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to support sustainable development.
  6. The representative from UNDP/UNSO informed the meeting of the status of indicator development for the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD). CCD calls for indicators grouped into two categories: "implementation indicators" which inform on the process of implementation of the National Action Programme (NAP), are institutional in nature and serve to report progress to the Conference of Parties; and, "impact indicators" which refer to the improvement in the livelihood of affected populations and in their natural surroundings, resulting from programmes/projects arising from the NAP. Examples of implementation indicators include the multi-sectoral nature of the National Coordinating Body, the amount of information exchange relating to desertification, the level of resources raised, the effective participation of various stakeholders, etc. The set of impact indicators has not been proposed as yet. On the other hand, a methodology to develop impact indicators has been proposed. In summary, the methodology begins with a statement of the objective(s), a definition of the spatial levels and the actors at each level, and the identification of the key issues to be addressed. Indicators retained should be measured and mapped, for example within a GIS. Finally, indicators are combined to address the sets of specific issues raised, which are in turn aggregated to address the overall objective. Parties to the Convention have been requested to begin testing the implementation indicators, and to provide comment to the Permanent Secretariat on the proposed methodology for the impact indicators by end 1997. Lessons learned from the above developments processes include first, that the development, testing and application of indicators should not be hurried. The nature of the inter-institutional discussions and actions for implementing the Convention to Combat Desertification requires time, yet is fundamental to planning sustainable development in the drylands. Second, even a list of indicators for use in monitoring and evaluation is defined, it is not yet clear how these indicators may relate to each other due to the complex nature of desertification and our lack of understanding of its causes. Another important finding is that indicator development and application cannot be isolated from the environmental information system that underpins the indicator.
  7. With regard to harmonization between the ISD initiative for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the Convention to Combat Desertification indicator set, there has been information exchange between DESA and the Permanent Secretariat regarding activities and findings. Further collaboration between the CCD's Committee on Science and Technology and DESA should minimize overlap.
  8. The representative of the Development Observatory in Costa Rica presented the status of the work on biodiversity indicators under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which requires the development of indicators to monitor the status and trends of biological diversity and, in turn, the implementation of the Convention. The Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) recommended that the Executive Secretary produces, in consultation with a liaison group, recommendations for a preliminary core set of indicators of biological diversity, particularly those related to threats. The liaison group considered recommendations for developing a globally applicable core set of quantitative indicators to allow the aggregation of local and national information into a global database. This would provide information to help Parties make key policy and management decisions relating to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. It was stressed by the SBSTTA that, in the future, the development of regional and global indicators will be necessary to assess specific aspects of the world's biological diversity. All work undertaken by the secretariat and any liaison group on indicators should be integrated with any work on indicator development undertaken within thematic areas under the Convention, for example with regard to forests, inland water ecosystems and agricultural biological diversity. Finally, it was recommended that countries and relevant organizations be invited to forward case studies to the secretariat, which will be used to provide a menu of possible approaches and a synthesis of best practice and lessons, to provide further advice to Parties on identification and monitoring. At the Fourth Conference of the Parties, the adoption of a work programme on indicators will be considered.
  9. The New Economics Foundation (NEF) presented its views on the development of institutional indicators. It was stressed that the quality of institutional arrangements has a profound effect on economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainable development. Institutional indicators therefore play an important part in identifying and improving the processes and outcomes of sustainable development. Institutional indicators can signal the extent to which sustainable development is integrated into decision-making and show how informed that decision-making is. They can also tell us how groups within society participate in the process of sustainable development. Despite, or because of their potential usefulness, institutional aspects have been the most difficult of all the themes of sustainable development to grasp, and a broader understanding of the institutional field is needed in order to understand how decision-making works and to measure it.
  10. One approach presented by the representative from NEF for making progress in developing institutional indicators, is to examine the groups in civil society and their role in sustainable development. Important to this process is collaboration between organisations who are working on institutionally related issues. Interesting avenues might include the social capital work of the World Bank and the strategy indicators of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Similarly, the country testing will help to develop this thinking. Another approach presented by the NEF representative focuses on NGO participation, e.g., through the market. It was stressed that institutional indicators need to develop from current input measures to capture impact. One way of measuring the contribution of NGOs and others would be to look at market data as an indicator of the effectiveness of this process of participation. A series of examples were given, leading to the conclusion that considerable work needs to be done to develop a useful set of institutional indicators. This would involve developing more credible indicators on the who, what, where and when of decision-making as well as looking at the substantive sustainable development issues and better understanding the institutional activity that is shaping them.
  11. The Division for Sustainable Development presented its current work on indicators for changing consumption and production patterns in the context of Chapter 4 of Agenda 21. The need for such a core set was stressed at the Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development from 6-8 February 1996 in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York and the Earth Summit +5 from 23-27 June 1997 in UN Headquarters. Workshop on the topic will be held in New York on 2-3 March 1998. A background paper for the workshop, which is based on earlier consultations with experts in the field of changing consumption and production patterns will be sent out in January 1998. The paper includes a discussion of policies and strategies for changing consumption and production patterns, and covers key resources and consumption clusters covered by Chapter 4. It also includes a preliminary core set of about 20 indicators, which will be discussed further in the context of the Workshop. This need was stressed at the Earth Summit+5, and in response hereto, a draft paper is under preparation, based on a background paper circulated to selected experts in the field, earlier this year. The intention is to convene an expert group meeting in March 1998 to determine a list of 10-15 indicators to measure consumption and production issues.
  12. The representative of SCOPE presented the outcome of the SCOPE Project, which was published in June 1997, and distributed during the Earth Summit +5 to all delegations. It contains over 50 contributions providing a comprehensive overview of the "state of the art" of the development of indicators of sustainable development and addresses the question of how to shape the future course of work in an international context. The conclusions were distributed to all participants at the Fourth Expert Group Meeting in order to provide an input for the further discussion of aggregation and linkages. It was noted with the publication of the final volume that the project was terminated, though informal follow-ups are envisaged both within the SCOPE framework, and in the context of GEO II, and within individual national and international SCOPE inspired projects on different aspects of sustainable development.
  13. During the discussion that followed, the IAEA representative informed the group of the Agency's work on developing indicators for radioactive waste management, which will finally feed into the revision of the indicators currently in the CSD list as part of Chapter 22 of Agenda 21. It was mentioned that a new Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management had been formed for which IAEA will act as the secretariat, and that the Agency's work on indicators would be linked hereto.
  14. The Wuppertal Institute representative updated the group on their current work on environmental performance indicators at the enterprise level, particularly in the context of ISO 14001.

V. CURRENT STATUS AND APPROACHES TO AGGREGATION AND LINKAGES

  1. The World Resources Institute representative opened this session of the meeting by presenting an overview of current activities on aggregation which can be classified as either technical or high-level aggregation. Current aggregation activities were seen not to be clearly consensus driven and all imply more and different data needed to gauge progress towards sustainability. Technical aggregation was seen to be science or expert driven, whereas activities categorised as high-level aggregation could be described as uni-dimensional, multi-dimensional or digital based. Uni-dimensional based aggregation was characterized by non-established linkages if only by intercomparison, mostly use of PSR framework and often rapidly changing and policy relevant. One example was the Dutch aggregated pollution index. Multi-dimensional indicators are characterized by built-in linkages and often slow changes that are strategic rather than policy relevant. Examples include, among others, the UNDP Human Development Index, the World Bank's wealth measures, the IUCN Barometer of Sustainability and WRI's work on Total Material Requirements (TMR) and Total Pollutant Outputs (TPO). Digital aggregation efforts are characterized by built-in linkages, the requirement for spatially-referenced data that may be changing slowly and that can be used directly as planning tools implying direct policy relevance. Graphic maps additionally often facilitate the communication process. Among the examples mentioned were the UNDP/WRI work on social/demographic and environmental indicators, the WRI work on ecosystem risk and the CIAT work on environmental, demographic, infrastructure and land use indicators. It should be noted that digital aggregation efforts are just entering field testing. It was suggested in conclusion that a sustainable development index should include GDP, genuine savings and wealth measures, TMR, for indicating (i) natural resource inputs into the economy, (ii) composite pollution index and (iii) ecosystem risk index, and finally a social cluster to be further elaborated.
  2. The representative of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), continued this section of the meeting by presenting the initiative of the Consultative Group on Sustainable Development Indicators working on a sustainability index. The work of the group which is still in its initial phase, focuses on the mission to promote cooperation and coordination in the field of developing a highly aggregated measure of sustainable development. The group's activities include shifting the emphasis from one index to a set of highly aggregated indices and exploring an appropriate framework for defining clusters to integrate indicators. Suggesting new aggregate indices and new normalisers that indicate sustainability levels, and discussing the role and use of normalisers are also on the Agenda. Furthermore, activities will include identification of the need for developing welfare related indicators, discussing empirical and technical difficulties of the suggested approaches, referring to cultural-political impediments of proposed measures and finally, design a process for establishing indices. The tasks of the group include defining a set of new indices, finding a powerful index to mobilize decision-makers, finding a powerful methodology to overcome gaps in existing evaluations and making comparisons to desirable or targeted levels.
  3. The World Bank representative presented the work of the Bank involving wealth measures, genuine savings measures, green accounting and indicators for resource sustainability in cooperation, among others with CIAT, FAO and UNEP. The work on wealth measures is needed for developing indicators of sustainable development and includes building linkages between finance, natural resources, environment and human resource ministries in setting priorities for environment and new paradigms of development. The Bank is furthermore working with several organizations presented at the meeting, in the selection of indicators for monitoring development goals in OECD/DACs Shaping the 21st Century. A series of wealth and genuine savings calculations were shown and it was noted that wealth components include natural capital forms, produced assets and human resources, that consist of human and social capital.
  4. The IUCN representative presented its work on the Barometer of Sustainability, which monitors human and eco-system well-being using a performance scale that charts eco-system performance from good to acceptable. The presentation included the areas of performance, standards and targets, the background and objectives.
  5. The representative of WHO represented their work on aggregated health indicators, where consensus is still limited but progress is underway. It was noted that apart from utilizing the PSR framework, WHO takes into account exposure, effect and action indicators, and that action can be taken at each of the levels. The framework was used in describing and analysing the global situation concerning development, environment and health relationships in a report prepared for the Earth Summit+5 entitled "Health and Environment in Sustainable Development".
  6. There was extensive discussion of the issues on aggregation and linkages and the conclusions and recommendations are contained in Item 7 of the report.
  7. Some of the broader possibilities for indicators use in global reporting were discussed as follows.
  8. The UNEP representative presented the GEO process which includes the production of a first Global Environmental Outlook (GEO); in 1997, and a second planned for 1999. It was noted that the regional trends and projections presented in GEO were based on collaboration between UNEP and 20 research centres around the world, using a number of models and scenarios. Consultations were held with policy-makers to identify priority concerns. It was emphasized that the GEO analysis was based largely on global data sets provided by the World Bank and the World Resources Institute (WRI). Such global data sets are often outdated as compared to national and regional data sets and sometimes contain quite different data. UNEP is working, through the collaborating centres, with national focal points to try to reconcile and integrate the national, regional and global data sets and is trying to promote national use of the global data sets. UNEP is also considering publishing national data sets as a separate companion publication to the GEO. The 1999 GEO will have, in addition to the basic indicators, 6 to 8 aggregate indicators of environmental conditions, with boxes to discuss alternative indicators.
  9. UNEP proposes that a forum be established on integrated environmental assessment. The purposes of the forum would be to promote regional centres of excellence, to promote the use of common data sets, and to support capacity-building in developing countries and countries in transition. There should also be close collaboration between the different groups preparing reports on sustainable development trends and projections, with a strengthened modeling forum, a scenario working group, and a data working group.
  10. DSD informed the meeting that as part of the five-year review of the Rio process in 1997, the Division for Sustainable Development had prepared a report on Critical Trends: Global Change and Sustainable Development, examining historical changes and future projections in a number of critical indicators of sustainable development. A similar report will be prepared for the ten-year review in 2002, with more selective studies of trends and projections in particular sectors to be undertaken in the intervening years. The Division's future work on trends and modeling will use a reference scenario of trends in economic, social and environmental indicators, assuming a continuation of current policies. Existing quantitative global models developed by a number of research institutes will be used to make projections by region to 2015 and 2025. To examine the impact of alternative policies, one or more policy variants will be used in the models. The modeling work is coordinated through the Global Modeling Forum. As a modest contribution to the global modeling work, the Division will be doing some sectoral analysis using an input/output model to study possible trends in such areas as energy and material efficiency. The Division will also be examining the use of aggregate indicators for monitoring sustainable development.
  11. The representative of the Dutch ICIS informed the meeting of the work of the Global Modeling Forum which was established in 1996 with a steering committee including the Division for Sustainable Development, UNEP, UNU, the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM, Netherlands) and the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES, Japan). The purpose of the Forum is to support studies on long-term environmental trends, to improve the compatibility and comparability of computer models and trends analysis work, to provide guidance for policy-makers, and to promote modeling work in developing countries. The goal of the Forum is to promote a coordinated "cascade" of models with a global "macro" model at the top with perhaps 15 regions, linked to more detailed regional, national and sectoral models, and to thematic models on such issues as climate change, land use and biodiversity. Such quantitative computer models can analyze much more complex relationships than qualitative or mental models and require the specification of assumptions and uncertainties. The models make use of existing indicators and may suggest the need for new indicators. The Global Modeling Forum has organized a model inter comparison round in which 10 modeling groups around the world use an agreed baseline scenario as a basis for projections. A preliminary report on that round is available, and a more complete report is to be prepared soon. Another round is planned for 1998, including one or two scenario variants to examine the impact of policy options such as environmental taxes, research and development spending, family planning programmes, or strengthened environmental regulations.
  12. It was recommended that the modeling work be closely coordinated with efforts to define a set of sustainable development indicators. Model development should take into account the indicators in the agreed set, and the set of indicators should take account of the needs of models and the results of modeling.

VI. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR PHASE III OF THE CSD WORK PROGRAMME

  1. The DSD presented the draft outline for an implementation plan for phase III, for consideration by the Expert Group. Based on the previous discussions and comments and proposals received, a revised draft (as contained in Annex I) will be circulated for final comments before adoption. It was agreed that stock should be taken of the current work on aggregation and linkages, as a first step to promote cooperation, coordination and partnership among key individuals and institutions and to develop consensus on methods and methodologies for deriving indices of sustainable development. Stock should be taken of results of the further applications and development of the various approaches (including comparisons) by the end of 1999/early 2000. An expert group meeting should be dedicated to this purpose to discuss conclusions resulting from the analysis that could be reported to the CSD in 2001. A draft request for submission to involved experts and lead organizations is included in Annex II, for final comments by participants.

VII. CONCLUSIONS and RECOMMENDATIONS

Re: Opening of the Meeting and Adoption of the Agenda

  1. The meeting adopted the Agenda and Organization of Work as proposed by the CSD Secretariat.

Re: Status of Implementation of the CSD Work Programme on Indicators

  1. Implementation and testing of indicators is underway in all regions of the world, although some countries are more advanced than others. In general, the process is somewhat slower than anticipated. The testing is seen as part of a continuing process that requires a solid institutional basis and commitment.

Re: Status of National/Regional Indicator Initiatives and Testing

  1. It was found that "info-literacy", teaching citizens, and even officials, how to use information is an essential prerequisite to an effective data collection and indicators programme. When people understand how to use information, they will demand more and better information relevant to their needs.
  2. Data availability continues to be a problem at various levels, and is most particularly true for the environmental indicators which in all countries are much less developed than the economic and social indicators. In addition, the comparability and compatibility of methods of data compilation are as important as the availability of the data itself. The use of the methodology sheets for the indicators of sustainable development may help to identify and fill national data gaps, and contribute to capacity building in these countries, which are participating in the testing phase and where indicator development is in its initial stages.
  3. The lack of methodology sheets in the main working languages has been a limiting factor in the full development of the testing programme.
  4. To be most effective, indicator based information should be communicated and presented to decision-makers in a simplified and easily understandable form.
  5. It was recommended that institutional arrangements for an indicators programme should ensure continuity and follow through once the programme is started. The mechanism for implementation of the programme should capitalize on the interest of civil society groups and non-governmental actors to help reinforce the implementation and continuity of the indicators programme. This could be done through the National Councils of Sustainable Development, or through other appropriate national arrangements. At the same time, the indicators programme can provide a strong rationale and focus for the work programmes of National Councils and can help to mobilize civil society.
  6. Active involvement and participation of the national planning or finance offices and an effective national action plan was seen as driving mechanism for implementation and crucial to ensure the success of the indicators development effort.
  7. There is a need for coordination and integration at the national level to better link sectoral work being done on indicators. National coordination mechanisms which bring together various stakeholders could be instrumental in this regard.
  8. Stronger collaborative partnerships are needed between countries and institutions, to promote consensus building and better sharing of information and to generate greater support, understanding and political momentum for indicator efforts.
  9. Funding and capacity building still needs to be strengthened in developing countries if the testing and use of indicators is to gain momentum.
  10. To promote capacity building and understanding at the national level, the holding of national workshops and training exercises among all interested stakeholders and participants was strongly recommended.
  11. A second round of regional consultative workshops should be convened toward the end of phase III as a way to share and assess results and contribute to the revision of the methodology sheets, the core set of indicators and the conceptual framework.

Re: Status of Related Indicator Initiatives

  1. Land and Biodiversity: A great deal of progress has been made on the development of indicators for land management, desertification and biodiversity, although more exchange of information and interaction among different organizations working on land quality issues could be useful, particularly between FAO and the Convention Secretariat related to the biodiversity of managed lands.
  2. Institutional Indicators: Although important for assessing progress towards sustainable development, institutional indicators remain largely undeveloped. A mechanism is needed to build a set of institutional indicators while recognizing that this work is difficult and complicated as well as politically sensitive. In this context criteria for the assessment of the effectiveness of institutions and institutional arrangements and policy instruments should be further developed.
  3. Work on institutional indicators could take into account the current efforts of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in developing institutional indicators for economies in transition.
  4. Changing Consumption and Production Patterns: In the work done on identifying a core set of indicators for consumption and production patterns, it was recommended that more consideration be given to indicators that reflect the depletion of renewable resources in poor countries and to equity and distributional issues in the patterns of consumption.
  5. Links with the Conventions: It was recommended that closer links should be forged between the CSD work programme on indicators, other international work programmes on indicators and the work of the international environmental convention secretariats.
  6. Radio Active Wastes: Considerable progress has been made on the further development and elaboration of indicators covering the safe management of radioactive wastes. The testing and eventual incorporation of these indicators and revised methodologies for Chapter 22 of Agenda 21, into the CSD work programme is recommended.
  7. Links with Environmental Performance Indicators: Work is underway on the use of environmental performance indicators at the enterprise level, e.g., in the context of programmes like ISO 14001 and further examination may be given to the linkages between more general sustainable development indicators used by business in reporting to governments and other interested parties and performance indicators used by governments.

Re: Current Status and Approaches to Aggregation and Linkages

  1. Several approaches to aggregation have been developed and are in different stages of application. Some examples include inter alia: (1) The World Bank work on Wealth Measures and Genuine Savings, (2) The IUCN Barometer of Sustainability, (3) UNDP's Human Development Index, (4) UN work on integrated environmental and economic accounting, (5) The joint effort of the Wuppertal Institute and the WRI to develop among many flows an index of total material requirements (TMR). The WRI is also developing a strategic approach that would lead to a limited number of indices in the environmental field, (6) Work by EUROSTAT on pressure indices, (7) Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project (GECHS), and (8) Asian Development Bank's Regional Technical Assistance Project on Environmental Indices.
  2. Further work towards aggregation should reflect the various steps that are needed to build indices, including: (1) selection (2) scaling (3) weighting (4) aggregation and (5) visualization.
  3. Identification and comparison of the data elements for each of the approaches and the data requirements for the non-aggregated indicators should allow for priority setting in the work of data collection.
  4. Stronger collaborative partnerships and twinning arrangements between countries including between developing countries, and institutions, are needed to promote consensus building and better sharing of information at all levels, and promote national policies on data access, availability, and comparability. It is particularly important that these efforts contribute to gap capacity building in testing countries, where indicator development is still in its initial stage.
  5. In this respect, a compilation of activities to enhance data availability at the national level, should be included in the activities of the CSD Work Programme.

Re: Implementation Plan for Phase III of the CSD Work Programme

  1. Improvement of the conceptual framework for the CSD indicators should be based on the practical work of implementation and testing with the idea that these parallel streams would eventually merge into one end product. The testing results would contribute to the improvement of the conceptual framework while further discussions of conceptual issues could be useful for the testing process. Exchange of information throughout this process is crucial for success.
  2. It was felt that the main objectives of the work programme for Phase III with respect to linkages and aggregation should be to promote cooperation, coordination and partnership among key individuals and institutions and to develop consensus on methods and methodologies for deriving indices of sustainable development.
  3. The agenda for work aggregation and linkages includes four broad issues: (1) definition of new or appropriate indices, (2) identification of indices that are powerful enough to mobilize decision-makers, (3) identification of methodologies which can overcome gaps in existing evaluation techniques, and (4) identification of indices that permit testing and comparison with desirable or targeted goals.
  4. Models, and in particular integrated models, play an important role in the process of interlinking and aggregating indicators, and yield insight into the dynamic behaviour of indicators. They should therefore be included in the further development and refinement of indicators.
  5. Enhancement of cooperation and coordination among various national and international institutions and organizations is highly recommended and it was noted that IUCN, WRI and the World Bank were already engaged in cooperative and comparative testing of their respective programmes.
  6. It was recommended that the results and experience of national testing should feed into the work on aggregation.
  7. It was recommended that more systematic "issues analysis" could provide a better basis for indicator selection in countries.
  8. Stock should be taken of the results of the further applications and development of the various approaches (including comparisons) by the end of 1999/early 2000. An expert group meeting should be dedicated to this purpose to discuss conclusions resulting from the analysis that could be reported to the CSD in 2001.
  9. A draft implementation plan for phase III (separately attached), taking into account conclusions and recommendations of the Fourth Expert Group Meeting, should be circulated for final comments by participants, before adoption.

Re: Conclusions and Recommendations

  1. The conclusions and recommendations as contained in the draft report will be circulated to all participants for final comments/suggestions before finalization of the report.

VIII. OTHER BUSINESS (FUTURE MEETINGS)

  1. The representative of SCOPE announced that an international workshop on testing of indicators, to be hosted by the Czech Republic, would take place in Prague from 19-21 January 1998. The invitation was extended to all participants at the Fourth Expert Group Meeting on Indicators of Sustainable Development.