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Czech Republic
SUMMARY REPORT ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
INDICATORS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
The international process of testing the
sustainability indicators is seen as a part of a broader process of
building up a national comprehensive information system on sustainable
development. This process is lead by environmental institutions as the
Ministry of Environment (MoE), Charles University Environmental Center
and the Czech Ecological Institute (CEI); a small expert Working
Group on Sustainability Indicators was established at the onset of the
project. A designated Focal Point - currently at the Charles University
Environmental Center - has been working in close cooperation with other
institutions, namely the Czech Statistical Office. In order to get a
political mandate for the forthcoming phases of the project, the Focal
Point might be transferred to the MoE.
The Working Group has worked and submitted to the MoE
a draft list of sustainability indicators including the reference to the
basic CSD indicators, information on the applicability of proposed
indicators, relevance to the Czech Republic context, and data
availability. A debate on the sustainability indicators has not received
broader attention so far - it remains a domain of the experts from
various mostly environmental organizations. More activities and broader
interest can be observed at a local level - a few municipalities have
launched their strategic planning efforts that include sustainability
indicators in some cases.
Achievements
1. The Working Group on Indicators created at the
beginning of the project has been serving as an expert base for the
work;
2. A draft proposal of sustainability indicators for
the Czech Republic based on the CSD list has been worked out;
3. Data needed for counting the indicators are mostly
available and their quality has been significantly improved since 1990;
4. MoE has recently granted the IBM Company to build
up a comprehensive information system using the sustainability
indicators that will be operated by the MoE and widely accessible via
the Internet; the debate on the contents, formats of outputs, users,
etc., is under way.
Bottlenecks
1. The debate on the sustainability indicators has
not reached other important sectors (transportation, industry,
agriculture, etc.); there is no multisectoral body that would coordinate
and make decisions at the top political level;
2. The testing process has not made a great deal of
progress yet - an evaluation of usefulness of the indicators, assessment
of the aggregation and linkages between different aspects of
sustainability, etc., are the most pressing topics to be done;
3. Any effective work to involve as many stakeholders
as possible in the process has not been done;
4. The entire testing process is still driven more by
the international commitments of the Czech Republic than by the real
effort of the Czech citizens (both the politicians and the public) to
measure and embark on the sustainable development path.
For more information, please contact:
Mrs. Tereza Votockova
Czech Environmental Institute
Vrsovicka 65, 100 10 Praha 10
Czech Republic
Tel. no.: (42-02) 6712-2678
Fax no.: (42-02) 7173-7721
E-mail: tereza.votockova@ceu.cz
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