Economic and Social Council

 Distr. GENERAL
7 April 1995
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

COMMISSION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Third session
11-28 April 1995
Item 3 of the provisional agenda*

     *  E/CN.17/1995/1.


             GENERAL DISCUSSION ON PROGRESS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF
             AGENDA 21, FOCUSING ON THE CROSS-SECTORAL COMPONENTS OF
              AGENDA 21 AND THE CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF SUSTAINABILITY

          Letter dated 18 March 1995 from the Permanent Representatives
          of Belgium and Costa Rica to the United Nations addressed to
                      the Secretary-General


    We have the honour to transmit to you a brief summary report of the
Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development for Decision-Making held in
Ghent, Belgium, from 9 to 11 January 1995 (see annex).

    This report seeks to sum up the main findings and conclusions reached by
the participants at this Workshop, which was organized by the Belgian and
Costa Rican Governments, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), and included
in the list of meetings relevant to the programme of work of the Commission on
Sustainable Development in 1994-1995.  We would be grateful if this letter
together with its annex could be made available to the Commission as an
official document.

    The record of the Workshop, including the debate with non-governmental
organizations and the compilation of full texts provided for the Workshop,
will be presented at the third session of the Commission on Sustainable
Development (11-28 April 1995).


(Signed)  M. Alex REYN                            (Signed)  Fernando BERROCAL
        Ambassador and                                        Ambassador and
   Permanent Representative                           Permanent Representative
          (Belgium)                                            (Costa Rica)


                              ANNEX

        Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development
                       for Decision-Making

                   (Ghent, 9-11 January 1995)


I  MAIN FINDINGS OF THE WORKSHOP


The Belgian and Costa Rican Governments, UNEP (United Nations Environment
Programme), and SCOPE (the Scientific Committee on Problems of the
Environment) have decided to organise this Workshop in the recognition that
there is a need to develop commonly accepted indicators of sustainable
development to provide solid bases for decision-making at all levels and to
contribute to a self-regulating sustainability of integrated environment and
socio-economic systems. What is lacking is a global process to arrive at a
common approach and consensus on the technical validity, comparability and
Political acceptability of indicator use. 

This growing need for sustainable development indicators has been widely
expressed by policy and decision-makers in national governments, business and
industry, and by NGOs. Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 recognizes this need, stating
that commonly used indicator such as GNP and measures of resource and
pollution flows do not provide adequate indications of sustainability.
Non-governmental organizations are called upon to develop the concept of
indicators (Ch. 40.6), to cooperate with UN bodies in using a suitable set of
sustainable development indicator and in harmonizing ie development of
indicators at all levels (Ch.40.7). 

In its first session after the UNCED Conference, the UN Commission on
Sustainable Development (CSD) called for indicators that would provide a basis
for meaningful assessment of progress towards sustainable development, for
possible integration into its national reporting and analytical processes (CSD
Reports, 1993, 1994). 

Responding to this high demand, governmental and non-governmental
organizations on all levels have begun using, developing or planning to
develop indicators of sustainable development. Many organizations work in this
area as part of national sustainability plans and programs or respond to their
own needs in policy and decision-making, while other organizations,
particularly UNSTAT and UNEP, respond to their mandates or specific UN
requests. A great deal of significant work in this area has been undertaken by
national and international organizations, and by governments. 

The purpose of the Workshop was to contribute to the development of
environmental, social and economic indicators for the implementation of Agenda
21 as a larger process. It will thus review indicators on the three principal
aspects of sustainability and discuss the link between them. In order to
enlighten the discussions, the first paper of this brochure, entitled "The
Role of Indicators in Decision-Making was jointly prepared by UNEP and the UN
Division for Sustainable Development, Department for Policy Coordination and
Sustainable Development (DPCSD). 

Environmental components of sustainable development are among the most
difficult to adequately reflect in national level indicators and,
consequently, the area of greatest need. Therefore, a second discussion paper
focused on environmental indicators, entitled "Environmental Indicators: A
Systematic Approach to Measuring and Reporting on the Environment in the
Context of Sustainable Development", was prepared for this Workshop by the
ProJect on Indicators of Sustainable Development of the Scientific Committee
on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE). SCOPE dims to contribute to the
implementation of Agenda 21 by developing recommendations for highly
aggregated indicators on the macro-level that are policy relevant,
scientifically valid, and technically achievable. 


The Workshop brought together about 50 participants, aiming at a balanced
representation among countries and among information producers and users of
national level sustainability indicators (particularly high-level
policy-makers in national governments). The Workshop did not target
environmental policy makers alone, but also, and perhaps more importantly,
those in the field of social and economic development. Twenty representatives
of the 13 Governments invited by Belgium have taken part in the discussions,
13 of them being from non-OECD countries and 7 from OECD countries. Eleven
representatives from eight intergovernmental organizations also participated.
The scientific community was represented by eight members of SCOPE and the NGO
community by the New Economics Foundation and the IUCN Eastern African
Regional Office. Belgium, as a host country, was represented by delegates from
its National and Regional Commissions on Sustainable Development. This diverse
combination of participants allowed a stimulating exchange between a sample of
decision-makers from national governments who will be the ultimate users of
indicators, experts who are designing indicators, and the organisations who
will need to implement work programmes in this area. 


II CONCLUSIONS

The Workshop reaches the following conclusions: 

1. The usefulness of Indicators of Sustainable Development (ISDs) as mentioned
in Agenda 21 has been confirmed by the Workshop. The potential uses of ISDs
include alerting decision-makers to priority issues, guiding policy
formulation, simplifying and improving communication, and fostering a common
understanding of key trends with a view to initiating necessary national
action. The primary focus and purpose of ISDs as discussed in this Workshop is
to facilitate decision-making at the national level. They should be considered
as useful tools that countries can decide to use (or not) as sources of
information on progress towards their own targets for sustainable
development. 

2. The economic, social, environmental and institutional aspects of
sustainable development should be equally emphasized in the framework for
indicators of sustainable development and the development of a core set of
indicators be a balanced and truly global effort.

3. Conceptual frameworks, such as the pressure-state-response framework, are
recognized as potentially useful to organize and guide ISD development.
However, the Workshop also found a need to try out such frameworks so as to
gain greater experience with them, and to emphasize that nations may interpret
them flexibly and take into account the different development levels of
individual  nations.

4. Similarly, the need for aggregation has been recognized in order to avoid
being lost in a sea of information. More experience, and extensive
international consultation to share that experience, are needed . 

5. The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) should consider making
available to Governments the methodology for a core set of indicators in the
form of a set of methodology sheets. Such a core set would constitute a menu
from which countries could select the indicators that they may use in their
national policies, according to their own problems, priorities and targets.
Use of a common methodology will facilitate international compilation. It will
also guide data collection. Practice (e.g., in the European Union) has shown
that harmonization of methodology at a later stage is a very time-consuming
and cumbersome activity. 

6. More experience should be gained with the use of the indicators included
in the core set. It was recommended that they be tested in some countries or
regions on a voluntary basis and, where necessary, adjusted.

7. It is evident that the core set must be seen as a flexible, evolving tool.
It may change according to further experience gained. The selection of
indicators of the core set may vary from country to country and from region to
region. Besides, new indicators may need to be included, e.g., following
implementation of international agreements and based on countries'
experiences.

8. Indicators, as used in national policies, may be used in national reports
to the CSD and other intergovernmental bodies. This may simplify the reporting
burden that is perceived as heavy and sometimes duplicative. The progress made
towards national targets is what should receive attention. 

9. The Workshop stressed the importance of and need for capacity-building
programmes related to the introduction of indicators, covering the whole field
from data collection to use in policy process". 

10. National statistical services and other appropriate institutions and the
UN Statistical Division (UNSTAT) should in routine data collection begin to
include data series needed to calculate ISDs and contribute to research,
development and harmonization of appropriate indicators. It was recognised
that some indicators will require new data. The Statistical Commission of the
UN is urged to support this work by approving a first international survey of
environmental indicators at its forthcoming session in February/March 1995. 

11. The workshop urged the participating UN Agencies (DPCSD, UNEP, UNDP,
UNSTAT) to continue their cooperative and synergistic work in support- of the
development and use of lSDs. 

12.  Participants at the Workshop recognized that the indicators proposed so
far are not yet adequate measures of long-term sustainability. The scientific
community, including the SCOPE project on ISDs, should focus their efforts on
improved indicators of sustainability which include the integration of and
linkages among economic, social, environmental and cultural dimensions of
sustainability, and the approaches to aggregation of indicator into policy
relevant indices. 

13. The Workshop participants invited the Governments of Belgium and Costa
Rica to present the results of the Workshop to the Third Session of the CSD
and to disseminate them widely. 

14. The participants thanked the Governments of Belgium and Costa Rica, the
United Nations Environment Programme and SCOPE for the excellent arrangements
made for the conference and the warm hospitality extended to them. 

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Date last posted: 2 December 1999 13:24:30
Comments and suggestions: DESA/DSD