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First Progress Report of Finland on Testing of the CSD
Indicators of Sustainable Development

The Finnish Government has agreed to follow the decisions made in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio in 1992. Finland has also made a commitment to test CSD indicators of sustainable development and the following is a brief description of the testing procedures planned and carried out in Finland.

National coordinating mechanism:

The Government of Finland established the Finnish National Commission on Sustainable Development in June 1993. The Commission is chaired by the Prime Minister. Other members of the high level Commission represent ministries, central governmental institutions, regional and local authorities, the scientific community, interest organizations, voluntary organizations, the media and the education sector. The work of the Commission aims at promoting the implementation of sustainable development in Finland, in accordance with the decisions made in Rio in 1992.

In order to develop and test the indicators of sustainable development successfully, wide cooperation between different organizations is crucial. The National Commission on Sustainable Development set up a network of different ministries and organizations in October 1996 to coordinate the development and testing of indicators.

The following organizations have been included in this network:

  • Ministry of the Environment
  • Ministry of Trade and Industry
  • Ministry of Transport and Communications
  • Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
  • Ministry of the Interior
  • Ministry of Social Affairs and Health
  • Ministry of the Foreign Affairs
  • Government Institute for Economic Research
  • Statistics Finland
  • Finnish Environmental Institute

Mandate:

The Interministerial Network on Developing and Testing Indicators of Sustainable Development shall test the indicators (ISD) developed by the Commission on Sustainable Development in close cooperation with South Africa, and furthermore, the Interministerial Network shall prepare a proposal to Finnish national indicators of sustainable development.

The current situation:

The work was started with data compilation. The indicator methodology sheets were distributed in the beginning of January. During this data collection phase , the methodology sheets will be tested thoroughly. Social and economic indicator data is collected at Statistical Finland. These indicators were appropriately divided to a total of four experts who took the responsibility. The data for environmental and institutional indicators are gathered in the Finnish Environment Institute.

At this point, most of the indicators have been preliminarily studied. Few discrepancies have been found in the methodology sheets, and some indicators are simply not suitable to Finland and we have no data for them. Generally, the methodology sheets have given sufficient information for the collection of the data.

Working programme:

An assessment of technical, decision-making, institutional support, and capacity building issues will be made in separate workshops, each treating one category of indicators. These workshops will begin 11.2 and be finished 3.4. Later on, the results will be presented to the National Commission on Sustainable Development and collected into a report that will be ready by November 1997.

Timetable for the workshops:

Tue. 11.2. Environmental indicators
Wed. 26.2 Social indicators
Fri. 7.3 Economic indicators
Thu. 3.4 Institutional indicators

A small delegation from Finland will visit South Africa (twinning partner) in mid-February to share the experiences with the testing process.

Contact people in Finland:

Coordinating organization:

Environmental Policy Department
Ministry of the Environment
P.O. Box 399
FIN-00121 Helsinki
Finland
Contact: Mr. Jarmo Muurman, Senior Adviser

National Focal Point:

Ms. Ulla Rosenstrom
Research Scientist
Monitoring and Assessment Division
Finnish Environment Institute
P.O. Box 140
FIN-00251 Helsinski, Finland
Tel. no.: (358-9) 40-300-329
Fax no.: (358-9) 40-300-391
E-mail: ulla.rosenstrom@vyh.fi

Additional Reports