REPORT OF THE MEETING
10 - 12 March 1997,  San José, Costa Rica

I. Foreword by the Government of Costa Rica as Host for the National Conference and the Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development

1. The current national policies of the Government of Costa Rica are guided by the concept of sustainable development, following the general principles of Agenda 21. To promote such a development strategy, the Government of Costa Rica, through the coordination of the Ministry of National Planning (MIDEPLAN) has promoted creation of a National System for Sustainable Development.

2. The National System for Sustainable Development (SINADES) is a mechanism to articulate strategies, policies and actions of the public sector oriented to the promotion of sustainable development. SINADES is in the process of implementation with the support of a technical cooperation project funded by a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (ATN/SF/4717-CR). The project includes training activities intended to promote changes in attitudes, through workshops, courses and conferences. These activities are oriented to public servants and civil society leaders holding positions at the decision-making level.

3. In this context, the National Conference on Indicators of Sustainable Development was included within the framework of the Regional Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The purpose of the National Conference was to include a broader audience of national decision-makers and to discuss and compare different conceptual and practical approaches for the assessment of sustainable development, stressing the relevance of sustainable development indicators and the adjustment of national accounts.

II. Opening Session

4. The Meeting with nearly 100 participants was opened by the Vice-Minister of National Planning of Costa Rica, followed by welcome addresses of the Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Office of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Assistant Director of the Human Development, Institutions and Technology Branch on behalf of Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD).

The Government of Costa Rica

5. H.E. the Vice-Minister of National Planning, Sr. Mario Mora, warmly welcomed the participants of the Workshop and a large invited audience including representatives from diverse sectors of the Costa Rican Society attending the National Conference on Indicators of Sustainable Development. The Vice-Minister noted that the Government face three basic challenges, including (1) to achieve equity in its social programmes, particularly in education and health as fundamental mechanisms for social mobility, (2) to achieve economic growth based on an intelligent integration with the rest of the world, including rational utilization of the natural resource base and properly valued human resources, and (3) to strengthen the participation of society in the national development process. He said that the country has understood that these three challenges must be met in a holistic way to achieve the desired national goals. This is one of the pillars of sustainable development for Costa Rica. It is within this framework that sustainable development indicators acquire a high degree of relevance. The Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy has developed concrete actions in this regard and supports all efforts such as the present National Conference and Workshop.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP)

6. Sr. Fernando Zumbado, the Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Office of UNDP said that Agenda 21, Chapter 40, establishes very clearly the need for developing sustainable development indicators. This task has to be undertaken by national governments as well as by governmental and non governmental international organizations. However, it is until now, and after many initiatives of the Commission of Sustainable Development, that light is starting to shine on the horizon for SD indicators.

7. Indicators of national development are urgently needed as such societies start to take their own destiny in their hands. In this sense, relevant and pertinent information for the decision making process is fundamental, not only for appropriate policy making, but also, to strengthen democratic participation of people in national affairs, and for supporting accountability.

8. This Regional Workshop on SD indicators that starts today represents a hope for the Region because, in the near future, we might have a concrete and pragmatic recommendation from the Commission on Sustainable Development on indicators of sustainable development to be implemented at the national level. It also gives me satisfaction to inaugurate this type of workshop in my home country, Costa Rica, because it is a recognition of the efforts that the Government of Costa Rica and public national universities, with the support of UNDP, have shown towards the development of sustainable development indicators at the national level.

The UN Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD)

9. Mr. Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development sent a statement to the meeting which was read by Mr. Lowell Flanders, Assistant Director, Division for Sustainable Development, DPCSD. In his statement, Mr. Desai expressed his sincere appreciation and gratitude to the Government of Costa Rica for sponsoring the regional workshop on indicators of sustainable development. He stressed the importance of the forthcoming Special Session of the UN General Assembly which will review and appraise the progress achieved in the five years since UNCED. He noted that one of the areas where considerable progress has been made by the Commission on Sustainable Development is in its Work Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development. The Latin American and Caribbean region has played a critical role in the UNCED process and has contributed substantially to the progress made since the Earth Summit, hence the initiative taken by the Government of Costa Rica in hosting the regional workshop was yet another example of the leadership role played by Latin American countries in realizing the objectives of Agenda 21.

III. Organization of the Meeting:

10. The Regional Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean was organized by the Government of Costa Rica at San Jose, in cooperation with the United Nations Department of Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, from 10 to 12 March 1997.

11. The Meeting started with a National Conference on Indicators of Sustainable Development.

A. Attendance:

12. The meeting was attended by representatives from the host country Costa Rica as well as Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and the United States.

13. The United Nations bodies and other international institutions represented included the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD), the Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis (DESIPA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Costa Rica Office, the International Labour Organization (ILO) Panama Office and the International Center of Economic Policy for Sustainable Development in Costa Rica.

14. Leading representatives from Costa Rica had been invited to attend the National Conference on Indicators of Sustainable Development, including senior officials, policy and decision-makers, congressmen, local authorities, the academic and business communities, politicians, labour leaders and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

B. Election of Officers:

15. The Workshop elected H.E. Vice Minister, Mario Mora as Chairperson, and Dr. Edgar E. Gutierrez-Espeleta as Vice-Chairperson and Sr. Oscar Lücke as Rapporteur.

C. Adoption of the Agenda:

16. The Workshop adopted the following agenda:

1. Opening of the Meeting.

2. Adoption of the Agenda.

3. National Conference on Indicators of Sustainable Development:

1. The Canadian Experience in the Use of Environment-Related Indicators.
2. Indicators of Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: from Concept to Use Information for Policy-Making.
3. The Indicators of Sustainable Development in Costa Rica - the pioneering experience of Costa Rica.
4. The CSD's Indicators of Sustainable Development.

4. Experiences of Countries and Agencies in Indicator Development.

5. Small Group Sessions:

1. The Selection of Priority Indicators of Sustainable Development.
2. The Indicator Methodology Sheets.
3. The Guidelines for National Testing of Indicators of Sustainable Development.

6. Other Matters.

IV. The National Conference on Indicators of Sustainable Development

(Item 3 of the Agenda)

17. The need to measure progress towards sustainable development was recognized in Agenda 21, and a wide range of efforts have been made at the national and international level to develop commonly accepted criteria, framework and methods for measurement. The goal of measurement is complicated by the fact that it has been difficult to arrive at an operational definition of sustainable development that sets the specific targets against which national efforts could be measured. The purpose of the Conference was to familiarize national level decision-makers with efforts underway at the international level and in various countries to address these problems. The presentations made at the Conference shared the experiences of Canada and Costa Rica in their respective national experience. The other presentation examined the issues from a regional perspective and the fourth covered international efforts to implement a work programme on indicators of sustainable development as approved by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. Item 3 (a) of the agenda: Ms. Anne Kerr (Canada)

18. Ms. Kerr stated that Canada already reports on many of the economic and social indicators in the CSD list of indicators of sustainable development. Over the past seven years they have been concentrating efforts on developing environmental indicators through the National Environmental Indicators Program. The objective of this program is to provide a profile of the state of the environment and a means of tracking progress towards sustainable development. Key elements of their approach are: goals/themes for environmentally sustainable development; issue selection; a stress-condition-societal response and ecosystem model; indicator selection criteria; consultations and partnerships; and indicator bulletins. Issues of national significance are categorized under three themes for environmentally sustainable development. Over the years, they have been modifying and improving their indicator development framework. The traditional stress-condition-societal response matrix has evolved to a cyclical model that is more illustrative of ecosystem linkages and interactions. This conceptual modification has allowed them to incorporate more economic and social/health links. Examples include presenting gross domestic product (GDP) trends with the indicators of new supplies of ozone-depleting substances and carbon dioxide emissions respectively. Graphed together one can judge whether, over time, there is a decoupling in the rate and direction of change in emissions (CO2) or supplies (ozone-depleting substances) and economic activity. Three key challenges of indicator development are: data availability and accessibility; balancing scientific detail with the need for indicators to be understandable to non-specialists; and limiting the number of indicators to a small set. Recent institutional developments include: the legislative requirement for federal departments to produce sustainable development strategies and measures of progress, and the creation of a Government-wide Performance Indicators Project coordinated by the Treasury Board which may eventually lead to government-wide indicators of sustainable development.

Item 3 (b) of the agenda: Mr. Manuel Winograd

(International Center for Tropical Agriculture)

19. Mr. Winograd said that the concept of sustainable development implies, at minimum, the consideration of the economic, social and environmental components and their interlinkages In practice it is needed to produce and use 3 types of indicators:

1. economic, social and environmental indicators,
2. socio-economic, socio-ecological and ecological-economical indicators,
3. sustainability indicators.

20. At the same time, the information needed to monitor the development process and progress toward sustainability should be produced as a function of the different steps of the policy-making cycle. In practice, to produce and use information for policy making in the context of the sustainable development it is necessary to identify driving forces in order to measure and monitor the state and impact on the system and generate responses. Nevertheless the use of indicators depends on different scales (temporal and spatial). In practice the production of information and the use of indicators to measure and monitor the development process are more than simple menus, listing or summation of indicators. The important question is to obtain a perspective of the whole pattern of the development process. In order to do this it is necessary to produce information at different scales (global, regional, national and local) and levels (administrative and ecological) allow us to obtain and use indicators in different formats (i.e., tabulated data, maps).

Item 3 (c) of the agenda: Mr. Pablo Sauma (Costa Rica)

21. Mr. Sauma reported that in Costa Rica quantitative information is abundant as a result of the development models adopted. Today, Costa Rica has a reliable and continuous economic indicator series.

22. Costa Rica developed its economic model with the creation of socially oriented institutions like the Ministry of Education, the Social Security System and others. These institutions also generated an important information base expressed in social indicators. A strong need for developing environmental indicators became evident by the seventies with the implementation of the Protected Area System and the birth of a strong environmental movement. At present environmental information is dispersed, is not continuous over time and has problems of availability and consistency.

23. The Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy has been working for about two years in developing and stabilizing a National Sustainable Development System based on two key elements: One a data base and the other institutional links with information users and producers.

24. The data base includes more than five hundred indicators in three areas: The socio-demographic, the economic and the environmental area.

25. This Sustainable Development System is going to be the basic instrument of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy to prepare and to follow up to the National Development Plan.

Finally, it is important to visualize what still has to be done with regard to the National Sustainable Development System.

26. These tasks could be listed as follows:

• To secure the continuity of the National Sustainable Development System based on information demand.
• To develop and implement the National Institute of Statistics. This institute will be responsible of the National Sustainable Development Management System.
• To set policies to continue the integrative process of the social, economic and environmental dimension of sustainable development.
• To involve local organizations in regionalizing the system.
• To guarantee free access to the data base through Internet.

Item 3 (d) of the agenda: Mr. Lowell Flanders (DSD/DPCSD)

27. Mr. Flanders, in his statement, gave a brief description of the activities leading up to the 1997 Special Session of the General Assembly which will review the progress since UNCED. He then provided an overview of the CSD Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development, its origin and evolution. He made reference to the previous presentations which provided a context for understanding how indicators can be used and be useful in charting a course towards sustainable development, emphasizing that indicators are not an end in themselves, but only a tool to help measure progress or give a picture of where things stand at a particular moment in time. Note was made of the gradual realization among countries that traditional economic measures of progress such as GDP do not provide a complete picture of societal well-being and that in recent years much more emphasis has been given to finding other ways to measure development that take into account the social, economic and environmental dimensions.

28. The importance of having good information available for decision-makers was stressed while noting the paradoxical situation that although information and information sources are proliferating at an astounding rate, decision-makers often find it difficult to find the right kind of information that aids in decision-making. Indicators provide a means to help bridge the information gap. Although indicators have many advantages in terms of providing concise and aggregated information, they also have various pitfalls that need to be kept in mind when using them.

29. It was noted that while environmental indicators are relatively new, the idea of sustainable development indicators is even newer. Mr. Flanders reviewed the criteria used in selecting the core set of CSD indicators and the process of consensus building that was used in selecting them. The Driving Force/State/Response (DSR) framework was explained as a means of organizing the indicators and providing an appropriate analytical framework. The CSD Work Programme on indicators was reviewed, pointing to the current status of work, including completion of the methodology sheets for each indicator that is contained in the "Blue Book." The various elements of the methodology sheets were briefly reviewed.

30. The efforts of countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region and the interest of the participants in the work programme on indicators was greatly appreciated by DPCSD, because only through efforts at the country level would it be possible to implement the programme and see the wider use of sustainable development indicators.

V. Experiences of Countries and Agencies in Indicator Development

(Item 4 of the Agenda)

31. Under this agenda item, the representatives of participating countries provided a brief review of their efforts and experience related to indicators of sustainable development. These reports are presented in abbreviated form in Annex III of the Report. In addition, participating agencies of the UN system were invited to make brief presentations.

32. The representative of the UN Statistical Division, UNSD, Ms. Reena Shah, provided the workshop with an overview of the work being done in the fields of environmental statistics, indicators and accounting. This included a description of the Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES) which was endorsed by the Statistical Commission in 1984, and of related technical reports on human settlements statistics and natural environment statistics. In response to UNCED, FDES was combined with the clusters of Agenda 21 to produce a Framework for Indicators of Sustainable Development (FISD). The similarities and differences of the FDES and FISD to other indicator frameworks were noted, and it was emphasized that frameworks were an organizing tool and that one should not get confused by these slightly different approaches but focus on the indicators themselves and their policy use and analysis. The list of environmental indicators, approved by the Statistical Commission at its twenty-eighth session for international data compilation by UNSD, was presented. The main methodological work in the area of integrated environmental and economic accounting was also introduced.

33. More generally, it was noted that UNSD obtains official data from national statistical services where they have undergone rigorous statistical procedures to ensure validity and reliability and have been compiled according to common definitions, standards and classifications set by the Statistical Commission. The meeting was also informed that in response to the recent major United Nations conferences in the social field two significant achievements had taken place: the endorsement of a minimum national social data set (MNSDS) by the Statistical Commission and the output by the Population Division of DESIPA of a Wall Chart on Basic Social Services for All (BSSA), consisting of 12 BSSA indicators.

VI. Small Group Sessions:

(a) The Selection of Priority Indicators of Sustainable Development.

(Item 5 (a) of the Agenda)

34. The First Small Working Group Session had before it the CSD Preliminary Working List as contained in the Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development (September 1996) and the UN publication "Indicators of Sustainable Development: Framework and Methodologies." Delegates discussed and determined their priority issues and selected those indicators most appropriate to measure sustainable development in their country.

35. The main purpose of this exercise was to have a clear idea of the process of selection and prioritization of sustainable development indicators based on the CSD list. The CSD List of indicators facilitates the process of indicator selection by offering a common base or platform for national indicator selection and prioritization. Participants recognized that the selection of priorities and related indicators can be a complex process, particularly at the national level where many stakeholders have to be involved. Simulation of this process during the workshop helped participants gave insight into the possible difficulties to be encountered.

(b) The Indicator Methodology Sheets.

(Item 5 (b) of the Agenda)

36. The purpose of the second small group discussion was to allow participants to become familiar with the methodology sheets contained in the UN publication Indicators of Sustainable Development: Framework and Methodologies. Participants were requested to review a sampling of the methodology sheets for some of the priority indicators identified in the first small group session. Groups were asked to comment on the adequacy of the methodology sheets, to discuss current use of the indicator, and to reflect on data availability.

37. Despite the general unfamiliarity with the collection of methodology sheets, participants felt that they represent an effective and concrete tool for countries to select and develop priority indicators relevant to national priorities and programs. The translation of the methodology sheets is considered crucial and a strategic issue for developing indicators in Latin American countries. Within countries, participants recognized the need to engage a wide diversity of interests to assist with the evaluation and application of the methodology sheets. For many methodology sheets, groups reported that the indicators were already developed. Data availability, however represents a constraint for other methodology sheets. Participants emphasized the need to strengthen the use of indicators in country decision-making processes.

(c) The Guidelines for National Testing of Indicators of Sustainable Development.

(Item 5 (c) of the Agenda)

38. The Third Small Group Session had before it the Guidelines for National Testing. The representative of DPCSD pointed out that the testing phase is voluntary and that testing arrangements may vary from country to country. The Guidelines for National Testing as possible procedures would help to obtain a common understanding of the testing and comparable results from the evaluation. The idea of working in partnership through twinning arrangements during the testing phase was stressed. Since the testing process is a resource-intensive process, a pragmatic approach would be necessary.

39. The establishment of a national coordinating mechanism and the appointment of a focal point in the country were recommended. Whereas existing institutional arrangements and experience should be used, wherever feasible, the widest possible participation among all stakeholders involved including the National Commission for Sustainable Development, relevant ministries as well as statistical offices, non-governmental organizations and the scientific community should be considered.

VII. Conclusions and Recommendations

40. The participants found the Workshop on Indicators of Sustainable Development to be very useful for better appreciation of the relationship between priority setting and measurement and the methodological issues related to sustainable development indicators. The background information, provided, particularly the UN publication: "Indicators of Sustainable Development: Framework and Methodologies" was acknowledged as a useful starting point for developing a national indicator programme, however, the translation of the methodology sheets into Spanish is considered a crucial and strategic step for developing indicators in Latin American countries.

41. The small group discussions were seen as useful way to introduce countries to the process of indicator development and testing and problems of selecting indicators in relation to national priorities and developing related methodologies.

42. Participants recognized that developing and applying indicators would take time, effort, resources and commitment over the long term. The Workshop agreed that it was necessary to be practical, pragmatic and flexible, building on strengths on individual countries.

43. It was noted that, in many cases, information and data are already being collected for several indicators at the national level, but many gaps still exist. It was agreed that, wherever possible and appropriate, existing data and indicators should be used as the basis for indicator development. The development of composite indices for each category of indicators would be useful, and should be submitted for testing in groups of countries. Sectoral indicators are lacking and could be developed at a national level based on the specific needs of the country.

44. Sharing of information, capacity building, and initiation of activities to exchange experiences among the testing countries and other countries interested in the process were identified as particularly important. At the national level, it is essential to develop a network of people working on this topic and the idea of a national focal point, where appropriate, was endorsed.

45. With regard to the testing at the national level, participants felt that mechanisms for coordination should be country specific given the variety of different governmental structures. The proposal of having an inter-agency coordination mechanism at the national level to bring various stakeholders together was endorsed. Such a mechanism should include key decision making bodies such as finance, planning, national councils of sustainable development, statistical offices, environmental and sectoral ministries, where appropriate. It would be important to link the effort to the highest political levels to ensure full support for the process. A wide variety of stakeholders should be involved and participate in the process of indicator development.

46. Further discussion and work is needed on how to get decision-makers to use indicators of sustainable development. The link between indicators and decision-makers should be based on a communications strategy. Very professional presentations would need to be developed to present information to decision-makers.

47. While participants felt that resources would be required to initiate a national programme on indicators, the need for capacity building efforts at the country level to get the process started was particularly mentioned. Country workshops to brief working level staff on indicators could be helpful. It was felt important to mobilize technical and other forms of assistance from UNDP, the World Bank and regional institutions, such as the IDB and the OAS, in addition to national resources.

48. Twinning arrangements were seen as useful to support the testing process. Such arrangements need not necessarily involve a developed and a developing country, but might include countries at different levels of indicators use and development.

VIII. Other Matters (Item 7 of the Agenda)

49. The participants expressed their sincere gratitude to the Government of Costa Rica for hosting this very useful regional workshop and complementing the Workshop with the National Conference on Indicators of Sustainable Development. The Workshop noted in this context the continuous commitment of the Government of Costa Rica to promoting the development and use of indicators of sustainable development. The participants commended the sponsors for the excellent organization of the meeting and, in particular thanked Costa Rica for the generous hospitality extended to them.

Annexes:
 I.    Workshop Programme
 II.   List of Participants
III.  Country Reports

ANNEX I:  Workshop Programme

Monday, 10 March 1997:

Tuesday, 11 March 1997:

Wednesday, 12 March 1997:

ANNEX II:  LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

1. Dr. Arturo Martinez
Asesor Dirección General de Asuntos Ambientales,
Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Reconquista 1088,
1006 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tel.: (54-1) 310-8280
Fax: (54-1) 311-4529
E-mail: amartinez@overnet.com.ar

Barbados:

2. Mr. Derrick Frederick Peter Oderson
Environmental Officer
Environmental Division
Ministry of Health & the Environment
4th Floor, Sir Frank Walcott Building
Culloden Road, St. Michael, Barbados
Tel.: (24-6) 431-7638
Fax: (24-6) 437-8859
E-mail: envdivn@mail.caribsurf.com

3. Mr. Mark Eugene Cummins
Deputy Chief Town Planner
Town and Country Planning Department
Block B, The Garrison, St. Michael
Barbados, W.I.
Tel.: (24-6) 426-0540
Fax: (24-6) 430-9392

Bolivia:

4. Dr. Alejandro P. Mercado
Director and Coordinator
Capacity 21 Project
Ministry of Sustainable Development and Environment
Av. Arce No. 2147
La Paz, Bolivia
Tel. and Fax: (591-2) 361-855
E-mail: CAP21@cap21.rds.org.bo

5. Lic. Ronald Bedregal
Ministry of Sustainable Development and Environment
Av. Arce No. 2147
La Paz, Bolivia
Tel. (591-2) 318395
Fax (591-2) 391805
E-mail: snpde@snpde.rds.org.bo

Brazil:

6. Mr. Fernando Vasconcelos de Araujo
Manager of the Environmental Indicators' Project
Ministerio do Meio Ambiente, dos Recursos Hidricos e da Amazonia Legal
Esplanada dos Ministerios, bloco "B", Sala 838
Brasilia, CEP 70068.900, Brazil
Tel.: (55-61) 317-1275/1244
Fax: (55-61) 317-1352/226-8050
E-mail: mmcerqueira@mma.gov.hgrizzo@mma.gov.br

7. Mr. Mauricio Galinkin
Consultant to Ministry of Planning and Budget and UNDP-Brazil
SCLN 112, Bloco "B" Loja 10
CEP 70.762-520 Brasilia-DF-Brazil
Tel.: (55-61) 340-1020
Fax: (55-61) 340-1318
E-mail:fcebrac@nutec.net.com.br

Canada:

8. Ms. Anne Kerr
Manager, Indicators and Assessment Office
Ecosystem Science Directorate
Environmental Conservation Service
Environment Canada
9th Floor, Place Vincent Massey
351 St. Joseph Boulevard, Hull
Quebec K1A 0H3 Canada
Tel.: (819) 994-9570
Fax: (819) 994-5738
E-mail: anne.kerr@ec.gc.ca

Chile:

9. Mr. Jose Leal
Chief, Environmental Economics Unit
Comision Nacional del Medio Ambiente (CONAMA)
Obispo Canoso 6, Providencia
Santiago, Chile
Tel.: (56-2) 240-5702
Fax: (56-2) 244-3436
E-mail: jleal@conama.cl

10. Mr. Carlos Noton
Jefe de la Unidad de Medio Ambiente
Corporacion Nacional Forestal
Av. Bulmes No 259 Of. 606
Santiago, Chile
Tel.: (56-2) 696-6677
Fax: (56-2) 671-5881

Colombia:

11. Ms. Olga Beatriz Fonseca Navarro
Consultant to the Unit of Environmental Policy for Project
"Indicators System for Environmental Planning and Action"
National Planning Department
Calle 26 No. 13-19, 19th Floor
Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia
Tel.: (57-1) 336-1600, ext. 2792
Fax: (57-1) 284-5842
E-mail: ofonseca@dnp.gov.co

12. Mr. Thomas Black-Arbelaez
Chief of the Office of Economic Analysis
Ministry of Environment
Calle 16 No. 6-66, Piso 31, Edificio de Avianca
Santafé de Bogotáá D.C., Colombia
Tel.: (57-1) 336-1166, ext. 227
Fax: (57-1) 336-0980
E-mail: oaevice@colombsat.net.co

El Salvador:

13. Ms. Veronica Siman de Betancourt
Director for the Social Unit
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
San Salvador, El Salvador
Tel.: (50-3) 271-1335
Fax: (50-3) 281-0621

14. Mr. Jose Roberto Lopez
National Expert in Environment
National Secretary of Environment
San Salvador, El Salvador
Tel.: (50-3) 226-0802
Fax: (50-3) 226-0723
E-mail:sema@gbm.net

15. Mr. Harold Robinson
Advisores
United Nations Development Programme
P.O. Box 1114
San Salvador, El Salvador
Tel.: (50-3) 279-0514
Fax: (50-3) 279-1929
E-mail:harold.robinson@undp.org

16. Mr. Alvaro Galvez
Advisores
United Nations Development Programme
P.O. Box 1114
San Salvador, El Salvador
Tel.: (50-3) 279-0514
Fax: (50-3) 279-1929
E-mail:agalvez@gbm.net

Guatemala:

17. Ms. Carolina Salazar
Consultant
Dirección de Politica Económica y Social Secretaria General de Planificación
9a. calle 10-44 zona 1
Guatemala, Guatemala
Tel.: (502-2) 326-212/513790
Fax: (502-2) 380-153
E-mail: mrayo@ns.concyt.gob.gt

18. Ms. Carmen Scarleth Gomar Samayoa
Consultant
Secretaria General del Consejo Nacional de Planificación
9a. calle 10-44 zona 1
Guatemala, Guatemala
Tel.: (502-2) 326-212/513-790
Fax: (502-2) 533-127/513-923
E-mail:mrayo@ns.cocyt.gob.gt

Jamaica:

19. Dr. Neville Duncan
Acting Director
Institute of Social & Economic Research
University of the West Indies
Mona Campus, Kingston 7, Jamaica
Tel.: (80-9) 927-1020
Fax: (80-9) 927-2409

Mexico:

20. Mr. Roberto López Pérez
Deputy Director of Environmental Statistics
National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI)
Héroe de Nacozari 2301, puerta 11, primer nivel
Aguascalientes, Ags, México, CP 20270
Tel.: (52-49) 181-169
Fax: (52-49) 182-650
E-mail:RLOPEZ@cnes.inegi.gob.mx

21. Ms. Luz Maria Gonzaléz
Deputy Director of Environmental Indicators
National Institute of Ecology
México City, México
Tel.: (52-5) 624-3454/55
Fax: (52-5) 624-3584

Panamá:

22. Ms. Kira Sandoval
Forest Engineer
Department of Forest Industries and Wood Tecnologia
National Institute of Renewable Natural Resources
Apartado Postal 2016, Paraiso, Ancon, Panamá
Tel.: (50-7) 232-6619, 232-6637, 232-5853
Fax: (50-7) 232-5751

23. Ms. Coralia Bishop
Direccion de Planificacion
INRENARE
Panama Apartado Postal 2016
Paraiso, Ancon, Panamá
Tel.: (50-7) 232-4104
Fax: (50-7) 232-4975

Venezuela:

24. Ms. Maria Legorburu
Directora
Ministerio del Ambiente y de los Recursos Naturales Renovables
Centro de Information y Estadisticas Ambientales
Esquina y Edif. Camejo, Mezzanina Este
Caracas 1010, Venezuela
Tel.: (58-2) 541-4364
Fax: (58-2) 545-0607/541-3820
E-mail:mlegorburu@marnr.gov.ve

United States:

25. Mr. David Berry
Executive Director
Interagency Working Group on Sustainable Development Indicators
Executive Office of the President
722 Jackson Place N.W.
Washington, D.C. 22503
Tel.: (202) 208-4839
Fax: (202) 208-5602
E-mail:david_berry@ios.doi.gov

Host Country:

26. H.E. Mr. Mario MoraM
Vice-Minister of National Planning
Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Poblica Económica
Depascho del Ministro
San José, Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 221-9524
Fax: (50-6) 221-3282

27. Dr. Adrian Rodriguez
General Coordinator
National System for Sustainable Development
Advisor to the Minister of National Planning
Oficina de Asesores
P.O. Box 10127-1000, San José, Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 221-9524
Fax: (50-6) 221-3282
E-mail:adrian@ns.mideplan.go.cr

28. Mr. Pablo Sauma
Advisor to the Minister on Social Policy
Advisor to the Team in charge of the National System of Indicators of
Sustainable Development at the Ministry of Planning
Apdo. Postal 920-2050 San Pedro, Costa Rica
Tel. and Fax: (50-6) 283-6740
E-mail:jsauma@cariari.ucr.ac.cr

29. Mr. Luis Fallas Calderón
Head, Unit of Environmental Analysis
Ministry of Planning
San José, Costa Rica
Apdo. Postal 2530-1000 San José, Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 233-1292/221-9524
Fax. (5-06) 221-3282
E-mail:fallas@ns.mideplan.go.cr

30. Mr. Oscar Luecke
National Sustainable Development Support Project
Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy of Costa Rica
San José, Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 233-3543/256-3340
Fax: (50-6) 258-1868

31. Mr. Walter Robinson
Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía
P.O.Box 10104-1000
San José, Costa Rica
Tel.: (506) 280-9433
Fax: (50-6) 280-6575

National Commission of Information for Sustainable Development (INFODES) San José, Costa Rica:

32. Mr. Warren Ortega
Technical Secretary
INFODES
Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Política Económica (MIDEPLAN)
Apdo. Postal 10127-1000 San José, Costa Rica
Fax: (50-6) 221-3282
E-mail: wortega@ms.mideplan.go.cr

33. Mr. Eloy Carvajal
Central Bank of Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 243-3217
E-mail:carvajalce@bccr.fi.cr

34. Mr. Luis Mendez Molina
Ministry of the Environment and Energy

35. Ms Lyana Alvarado V.
Head of the Sustainable Development Unit
Union of Chambers/KPMG
Apartado 10208 San José, Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 220-1366
Fax: (50-6) 296-0269/220-2611

36. Ms. Arlette Pichardo
Representative of the Academic Community
Director of the International Center of Economic Policy for Sustainable
Development of the National University
Tel.: (506) 260-1600
Fax.: (506) 237-6868
E-mail:cinterpe@irazu.una.ac.cr

37. Mr. Walter Robinson Davis
Ministry of Education

38. Dr. Edgar Fuerst
UNA-CINPE (International Center of Economic Policy for Sustanable Development)
Apdo. 555-3000
Heredia, Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 277-3486
Fax: (50-6) 237-6868
E-mail:efurst@sol.racsa.co.cr

United Nations:

39. Mr. Lowell Flanders
Assistant Director
Human Development, Institutions and Technology Branch
Division for Sustainable Development
Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development
United Nations
2 UN Plaza, Room DC2-2242, New York, N.Y. 10017
Tel.: (212) 963-8792
Fax: (212) 963-1267
E-mail:flanders@un.org

40. Ms. Monika Luxem
Economic Affairs Officer
Human Development, Institutions and Technology Branch
Division for Sustainable Development
Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development
United Nations
2 UN Plaza, Room DC2-2256, New York, N.Y. 10017
Tel.: (212) 963-8805
Fax: (212) 963-1267
E-mail:luxem@un.org

41. Ms. Birgitte Bryld
Associate Expert
Human Development, Institutions and Technology Branch
Division for Sustainable Development
Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development
United Nations
2 UN Plaza, Room DC2-2256, New York, N.Y. 10017
Tel.: (212) 963-8400
Fax: (212) 963-1267
E-mail:bryld@un.org

Facilitators:

42. Mr. Paul Rump
Consultant
Environmental Information and Policy
129 Keefer Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1M 1T7
Tel.: (613) 741-7358
Fax: (613) 741-2003
E-mail:rumpp@cyberus.ca

43. Dr. Manuel Winograd
Coordinator CIAT/UNEP Project on Environmental and Sustanability Indicators
International Center for Tropical Agriculture
CIAT, A.A. 6713
Cali, Colombia
Tel.: (57-2) 4450-000
Fax: (57-2) 4450-073
E-mail:m.winograd@cgnet.com

44. Dr. Edgar E. Gutiérrez Espeleta
Development Observatory
University of Costa Rica
Apdo. Postal 2060 Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 207-4336
Fax: (50-6) 207-5692
E-mail:egutierr@cariari.ucr.ac.cr

Supporting Institutions:

UNDP:

45. Mr. Fernando Zumbado
Assistant Administrator and Regional Director
Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean
United Nations Development Programme
1 UN Plaza, Room DC1-2218
New York, N.Y. 10017
Tel.: (212) 906-5400
Fax: (212) 906-6017

46. Ms. Consuelo Vidal
Deputy Resident Representative
United Nations Development Programme
Apdo. Postal 4540-1000
San José, Costa Rica
Tel.: (50-6) 296-1269
Fax: (50-6) 296-1545/296-2652

ILO Panama:

47. Mr. Bolivar Pino
OIT (SIAL-PANAMA)
Apdo. 6314 Panama5, Panama
Tel.: (50-7) 264-5833/5911
Fax: (50-7) 223-5902
E-mail:oitpan@pananet.com

DESIPA:

48. Ms. Reena Mahendra Shah
Associate Statistician
Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis (DESIPA)
United Nations
2 UN Plaza, Room DC2-1656
New York, N.Y. 10017
Tel.: (212) 963-4586
Fax: (212) 963-0623
E-mail:shahr@un.org

IDB:

49. Mr. Isaac Perez

International Center of Economic Policy for Sustainable Development:

50. Mr. Alvaro Fernandez
CINPE
Apdo. 555-3000 Heredia, Costa Rica
Tel. and Fax: (50-6) 260-1270/260-1600
E-mail:afernand@irazu.una.ac.cr

Academic Community:

51. Mr. Klaus Lindegaard
Director, Center for Environment and Development
Aalborg University
DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Tel.: (45-98) 158-522
Fax: (45-98) 153-788
E-mail:klciu.avc.de

ANNEX III:  COUNTRY REPORTS

BARBADOS

Sustainable Development Issues

1. The sustainable development process in Barbados is fraught with the same problems common to Small Island Developing States. Barbados has a small land area of 430 sq km and a resident population of 260,000 people and an annual visitor (stay-over) of approximately 500,000. This makes Barbados one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

2. In addition, Barbados has jurisdiction over an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of approximately 167,000 sq km which is almost 400 times larger than its land area. In Barbados almost 60% of the people live within the coastal zone.

3. Given this background the main sustainable development issues in Barbados include:

(1) Fragile National Resource Base:

• limited groundwater supply and agricultural land;
• threat of flooding and natural disasters as a result of global climate change and sea level rise;
• coastal/marine zone issues;
• solid and liquid waste (including toxic/hazardous waste);
• urban issues;
• energy conservation issues.

(2) Institutional

• fragmented legislation framework;
• overlap, duplication and gaps in decision-making process;
• limited capacity (human resource, technological);
• lack of public involvement and awareness;
• lack of financial resources.

4. In 1994 the Programme of Action for Small Island States called on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to continue to work in cooperation with national, regional and international organizations, on the development of vulnerability indices. It is felt that vulnerability indices better reflect the unique states of SIDS.

5. In direct response to these calls the Government of Barbados through the Environment Division, Ministry of Health and the Environment formulated a national programme aimed at developing National Indicators of Sustainable Development. The objectives of this programme are:

• to develop a broader framework for collating and providing information about progress towards sustainable development;
• to provide quantitative information for measuring environmental trends, formulating policy targets, and evaluating targets;
• to provide an environmental information system that is useful to policy makers, technicians and the public at large, and to regional and international agencies.

Institutional Arrangements

6. In 1994, the Government of Barbados established a National Commission on Sustainable Development (NCSD) which has overall responsibility for guiding government's sustainable development programme. The NCSD was set up to:

1. Advise Government on measures required to integrate environmental and economic considerations in the decision making process and on global issues of sustainable development;
2. Facilitate national level coordination mechanisms on sustainable development;
3. Promote greater understanding and public awareness of the cultural, social, economic and policy approaches to attaining sustainable development in Barbados;
4. Receive and review the annual report of actions taken in pursuit of Sustainable Development, prior to its submission to Cabinet and to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

7. The NCSD comprises members of the public sector, private sector, NGO's and Trade Unions. One of the constraints to Barbados' thrust in the area of Sustainable Development has been the inactivity of the NCSD. This will be addressed shortly with the revitalisation of the Commission. The Environment Division functions as secretariat of the NCSD.

Status of Indicators Programme

8. The Government of Barbados is committed to the development of sustainable development indicators. It is felt that traditional indicators such as GDP which are used at national, regional and international level are flawed. These traditional indicators do not sufficiently capture the impacts (negative or positive) in the bio-physical environment. Indeed these traditional indicators are often a disadvantage to Small Island Developing States, such as Barbados which loses financial assistance because of high GDP. These traditional indicators ignore positive contributions made in the area of environmental conservation.

9. On November 4, 1996 the Government of Barbados through a national consultation, launched its Sustainable Development Programme. Its main aims is to translate the global concept of Sustainable Development into the local context. As evidence of Government's interest in indicators for Sustainable Development, one of the four themes of the one day consultation addressed the area of "Monitoring and Performance Indicators for Sustainable Development". However various factors have since delayed the continuation of the sub-programme dealing with indicators.

10. Generally in Barbados there is access to high quality data relating to socio-economic activities. The weakness lies in the area of bio-physical and environmental data which are sporadic and disperse. This is one of the problems the national programme will seek to remedy. Data collection compilation and analysis is dispersed among various ministries and departments.

11. There is also the need to build local capacity particularly as it relates to human resource development, technology, and financial resources. In order to overcome these constraints it is desirable that regional and international agencies work in collaboration with national agencies in developing and executing a programme for indicators of Sustainable Development.

BRAZIL

12. The commitment to prepare progress reports an the achievement of sustainable development was assumed by all participant countries at the United Nations Conference for Environment and Development - UNCED, in 1992.

13. To carry out this task, the UNDPCSD is discussing with the United Nations system the methodology sheets with the aim of assisting all participant countries to develop their own group of indicators with a common methodology and to enable data comparisons and information exchange among all involved actors.

International Workshop: strategies and priorities

14. Since then, the Brazilian Government has been working on this issue, and in 1994, promoted an International Workshop to discuss and select indicators of sustainable development. This Workshop was held by the Ministry of Environment, Water Resources and the Legal Amazon (MMA). The main directives resulting from the Workshop were

• Definition of guidelines to formulate indicators, considering local and regional cultural and physical landscape characteristics;
• Use of already existing information sources, before seeking new ones;
• Agreement on a study process, using as reference the Pressure-State-Response OECD s, methodology for the developing of sustainability indicators, distinguished regionally.

The Framework to Develop Indicators and the MONITORE Program

15. During the year of

1995 the MMA, working on results of this International Workshop defined the most suitable framework to be used in the process of selecting and setting up indicators for Brazil. The chosen framework was the Pressure-State-Response proposed by OECD, and after updating with some conceptual inputs, the Driving Force-State-Response framework (DSR).

16. These activities were carried out with the aim of producing and supporting the development of variables and indicators that will allow environmental monitoring. This urgent initiative is needed not only because of the lack of existing environmental data, but also due to the awareness that indicators are a useful tool for public administrations and can surely contribute to the revision of policies and Government programs. The existing environmental gap at the global level is also known by CSD.

17. However, the availability of data, variables and environmental indicators is precarious, which makes a clear view of the country s environmental situation impossible, obstructing the construction of sustainable development indexes, obtained from the main axes of sustainability:

• Gather reliable data and information on the environmental quality of the country and make them available
• Coordinate, promote and disseminate environmental monitoring practices and procedures
• Build capacity of institutions in order to carry out environmental monitoring
• Develop methodological standards for gathering and analysis of environmental monitoring data
• Develop statistical and sampling standards for significant research on environmental quality at regional and national levels
• Promote the exchange of information on environmental quality
• Allow an integrated analysis of the environmental situation of Brazil

18. What must be emphasized is that the proposed indicators, following the conceptual framework, are closely related to Driving Force identified elements. Further more, they reveal the achievement of the public policies to all involved social actors affected by economic development.

19. During the execution of the ongoing MONITORE Program, six thematic meetings were held, on selected topics related to the following environments: continental waters, coastal zone and marine; land (fauna, flora/vegetation, soil/subsoil) and atmosphere. The participants of the meetings were governmental and non-governmental representatives, researchers and representatives of the scientific community. The main objective was to identify the representative variables and indicators, and procedures for obtaining this data.

Selection of Indicators

20. As a goal for 1997, based on the work already carried out, and considering the results of the thematic meetings mentioned above, we expect to obtain a set of indicators that will be used to describe the state of the environment as well as the structure of the monitoring system at national level.

21. While dealing essentially with the sustainable use of natural resources and pollution prevention and control, the MONITORE Program will, necessarily, deal with a large spectrum of sustainability indicators, since the constitutional concept of environmental management implies the improvement of living standards and equal access to natural resources for present and future generations; therefore, those indicators for social aspects of sustainable development related to the sustainable use of natural resources and quality of life, proposed by the CSD, are to be considered in the MONITORE s framework design.

22. Actually, some CSD indicators are already in use or proposed by the major State Agencies and will be tested, at a national level, within the MONITORE Program.

23. The feasibility of systematic data collection for these indicators and the generation of a database for environmental monitoring will be tested in a MONITORE pilot-project in 1997; however the regional disparities within the State Agencies are considered to be an important obstacle; to help the State Agencies overcome the technical deficit, the Ministry will promote the cooperation between Agencies and Universities, non-governmental organizations and the private sector. It is noteworthy that the Ministry expects that the cooperation process will do more than just improve the process of getting and analyzing information, it will help to promote the partnership between the different social actors and facilitate the access to environmental data.

CHILE

24. In Chile the sustainable development theme has been explicitly incorporated into Government statements. It is frequently used by public authorities to express concern about natural resource management and the environment, with implications of intra generational equity and inter generational justice. But what really has been done on the subject?

25. There are many well known achievements of Chilean economic policy, mainly in reference to market openness, management of macro economic variables, recovery of confidence for foreign investment, incentives to private initiative and free trade. A controlled inflation, (single digit from 1994 onwards), a sustained growth of GNP (6.7% yearly average in between 1990 and 1995; 6.5% in 1996), some betterment in income distribution, a reasonable rate of unemployment (From 10.5% in between 1984 and 1989, 5.6% in between 1990 and 1995, with a rise to 7.2% in 1996), and decent values for other traditional indicators (balance of payments, capital markets, consumption), are all facts that permit to assess the Chilean economy as relatively sound and stable, with good perspectives into the future.

26. Chilean economic growth has had a strong centralization component, favoring mainly the capital and a few regions outstanding for their participation in the export oriented dynamic. The problem lies on what Chile exports, which has traditionally been mining products, mainly copper, which is the base for sustaining the economy. In the past years other goods have diversified this mono export pattern, namely timber and paper, agricultural goods (mainly fruit), and agricultural products.

27. Chile is a country that rests especially on its natural resources as key elements for its development. New investment in copper mining will further intensify the dependency upon mining resources, and upon natural resources as a whole if we consider the projected growth of the agriculture and fishing sectors. This has led many to wonder about the environmental sustainability of the Chilean development model.

28. On the public level the task of bringing answers to this problem is only just being tackled. Some studies made by the Central Bank have shown preliminary results which doubt the sustainability of the current development process, at least in three sectors : native woods, fisheries and mining. These results have however been questioned by sectorial and firm organizations, originating a still ongoing debate.

Academic Inputs

29. The most significant work done on the matter, is presented in a book called Sustentabilidad Ambiental del Crecimiento Económico en Chile (Environmental Sustainability of Economic Growth in Chile),is a research work carried out by the "Programa de Desarrollo Sustentable" (Sustainable Development Program) of the Public Policy Analysis Center of the University of Chile, in which several faculties are striving to co-operate.

30. In the introduction it is maintained that, "According to the requirements of sustainable development, the relative achievements on the economic, political and social levels are not enough to secure the country's future development. There arises the need for a forth pillar, whose stronghold is the identification and achievement of the sustainable environmental conditions necessary for economic growth with equity and in democracy."

31. Environmental indicators, however inaccurate, do not show any improvement , but rather a continuous process of decline. This translates into the following challenge. " One would therefore expect that unless significant action on the policy making level is taken... the environmental situation could worsen.... Chile would have to double the value of it's exports, an aim which must be thought about from the environmental point of view, considering that this implies mainly a further strain upon natural resources."

32. The main conclusion of the study is that "the present tendency to the growth of demand cannot be maintained without compromising in a non reversible manner the quality of life of the Chilean population, especially in big urban centers. The development level of the country already presents a certain rigidity in the supply of environmental goods and services , such as drinking water resource and land resource, be it for vehicle circulation, the installment of dumping sites, or recreational activities."

Sustainable Development Indicators

33. The University of Chile research includes a chapter on sustainability indicators, which we shall overview.

34. The starting point is the conception that sustainable development indicators are a source of information about the "future of sustainability" confronted to particular social an economic aims. In other words, they are part of a data base relevant for decision making. In this setting the indicators which should be developed must reflect actual sustainability problems, their consequences, and the activities that have brought them about.

35. For these authors, indicators must be a synthesis of the problem and the solution. This is the point at which traditional socio-economic indicators cease to be useful, since they do not consider resource depletion and environmental degradation. One example of this is the "Sistema de Cuentas Nacionales (National accounting system), which has the following important shortcomings:

1. It does not consider natural resource depletion as a decrease in value.
2. It does not consider fully the costs of environmental protection and recovery.
3. It does not consider environmental degradation

36. Therefore the National Accounts System indicators cannot orient development towards sustainability. The only way to obtain useful tools for decision making would be to reach a macro economical adjustment, sort of GNP, that would account properly for the use of natural resources in a country whose economy rests so fundamentally upon them, not only for their productive uses, but also for other activities such as infra-structure, tourism and recreation.

37. Another point that is not considered by the system of national accounts is the degradation of natural assets, be it by over exploitation or waste generation. This is yet another shortcoming for decision making, since the future outcome of particular activities cannot be foreseen.

Lines of Action

38. These are the lines upon which current work is being done in order to obtain a set of macro economic indicators based on information generated by National Accounts (including Environmental Accounts). These would allow for the direction of political economy towards a sustainable use of natural resources.

39. It would furthermore enable the elaboration of environmental statistics in order to cope with present needs and overcome the major shortcomings of this matter. For this reason CONAMA is pushing for the development of a National Environmental Information System (SINIA) which uses and completes the actual data networks. In a still unofficial proposition the SINIA also considers the selection of a set of environmental indicators that would allow for the expression of the collected information in synthetic tools.

40. The new environmental legislation also considers the development of indicators on a regional level, setting a further challenge for the Environmental Authority. On the face of this CONAMA jointly with academic circles have this year engaged on a project for the development of Sustainability Indicators at regional and sectorial levels, for selected regions and economic activities. It is expected that the said project will be the continuation of what has been done until now to analyze critically the environmental sustainability of the Chilean growth pattern, and furnish environmental authorities with a first set of sustainability indicators useful for decision making.

COLOMBIA

41. The National Planning Department (DNP), is one of the most important entities of the Colombian Government. As an executive body at the most strategic level, DNP has the responsibility of giving advice to the President and Ministries in the decision making process for the design and implementation of Investment Policies, Plans and Programs at the national level. As a Planning Institution DNP has to foresee and guarantee, as far as possible, the viability of such Policies, Plans, and Programs, and after a period of time, to evaluate them as well.

42. Among the main actions that the DNP has to achieve in order to reach such strategic performance, are:

• To coordinate the design and implementation of the National Planning System.
• To set macro economic and financial goals according to Government s policies, plans and programs.
• To manage the National Investment Budget.
• To act as the Executive Secretariat of the National Council for Economic and Social Policy.
• To assess and advise public entities in the formulation of social, economic and environmental Programs.
• To analyze and evaluate these entities performance.

A brief Institutional Diagnostic

43. Through the implementation of Law 99 of 1993, Colombian government did create the Ministry of Environment and designed the National Environmental System which is the global framework that governs environmental management in Colombia.

Colombia is involved in a decentralization process since 1986; however the recent re-organization of the institutional context for environmental management includes the creation of the Ministry of Environment and which replaces a National Level Institute called INDERENA which was responsible for the management of Natural Resources, without any responsibility related to the environmental policy design at the National Level.

44. Besides the creation of Ministry of Environment, 99 Law reformulated the functions of Regional Corporations and created 16 more (there were 18 but those did not cover all the country); this Law also created 4 Urban Environmental Units (each one for the 4 most important cities). The last two kind of Institutions are responsible for the execution of Investment Programs and Projects at regional and local levels, and can be considered the most important authorities at regional and local levels.

45. The implicit objective of the Environmental National System Structure is to make a change in the traditional policy making in Colombia. The main idea is that other organizations and institutions besides Government s ones can share the control and implementation phases of environmental management, as well as in policy making and projects formulation.

46. For this change to happen, it is necessary to have an inter-institutional coordination which although is formally established, requires an effort of each one of the entities involved to become reality. The effectiveness of decisions at national, regional and local levels depends on the availability and quality of environmental information.

47. Because of that, DNP is leading a Coordination Process with the institutions that might be involved in the Project. In the first stage of this process must be a close relationship with the "Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies Institute" (IDEAM) which belongs to the Ministry of the Environment, the National Statistics Department (DANE) , the Geographical Studies Institute (IGAC), the Contraloria and in a second stage with the Regional Corporations (CARs), in order to cross information at the detail of a regional level.

48. The DNP project "Environmental Indicators System for Monitoring Natural Resources and its Management", is the first official effort to formulate environmental indicators in Colombia. In addition, if the process works, it will provide a productive exchange between national information institutes, and the actors involved.

Available Information

49. Various organizations in Colombia are responsible for providing environmental information; the data making, statistical analysis, and development of economic indicators are done by different institutions. The production of that information does not use the same methodologies, which makes it difficult to build indicators. Besides, according to the Information Pyramid (Hammond et al, 1995), in Colombia there are different levels of state of information, depending on the way each institution handles the information making process, from simple data to an index. Therefore, to build the environmental indicators proposed by DNP, information from many sources will be required.

COSTA RICA

50. Costa Rica s current National Development Plan (Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 1994-1998) is based on the concept of sustainable development, following the general principles of Agenda 21. It is a development strategy intended to promote the transition to a first stage in the road toward sustainability, providing the initial "push" required to foster further achievements.

51. The Government of Costa Rica, under the coordination of the Ministry of National Planning (MIDEPLAN),) has promoted two initiatives to push such development strategy, with implications for the implementation of indicators or sustainable development. First, the creation of a National System for Sustainable Development (SINADES), and second, the elaboration of indicators that can be used for monitoring progress in each of the different dimensions of sustainable development. The second initiative has led to the implementation of a System of Indicators of Sustainable Development (SIDeS- Sistema de Indicadores sobre Desarrollo Sostenible), an effort supported initially as part a Capacity 21 project aimed at promoting implementation of Agenda 21.

52. The System of Indicators of Sustainable Development (SIDeS) is the program of the Government of Costa Rica on indicators of sustainable development. It has two main objectives. First, to have an instrument to follow-up and evaluate the national development process from a sustainability perspective, and to guide public policies and decision making-processes in the private and public sectors. And second, to make available to the civil society relevant information on the main variables and indicators that illuminate on Costa Rica s sustainable development progress, thus contributing to democratize information, as called in Chapter 40 of Agenda 21. SIDeS is part of the National System for Sustainable Development (SINADES).

53. Indicators are currently separated in three components: (1) social and demographic indicators (v.g. social public expenditures, poverty and income distribution, wages and employment, education, health, and housing); (2) economic indicators (short term and long term indicators, including areas like production, investment, savings and consumption, prices, employment conditions, international trade, public finance and external debt), and (3) environmental indicators (vg. land use, urbanization, biodiversity and protected areas, forest resources, water resources, coastal and marine resources, pollution, solid waste management, and energy). Currently there is information for about 500 variables and indicators. The system was called initially "System of Socio-Demographic, Economic and Environmental Indicators".

54. The implementation of the system has been facilitated by the relatively good data available in the country, specially economic and social. Economic data, as in most countries, is the most reliable and validated data, with good time series dating back to the 1950s. Social data has been consolidating, especially over the last twenty five years, as a result of a public policy agenda pushed during the 1970s, which put social policy at the center of government policies. Current efforts are been concentrated on strengthening the environmental component of the system, given the shortcoming of this type of data, which has been characterized as:

1. scarce, relative to the availability of social and economic data;
2. scattered, both in time (point estimations for only one or a few years) and in space (point estimations for very specific locations);
3. very aggregated, in many cases only available at the national level;
4. unreliable; when there is more than one measure there are problems of comparability because the lack of standardized criteria for data collection and processing; and
5. disperse, in many institutions and government agencies and usually it is not shared.

55. It is important to point that since MIDEPLAN is not a producer of primary data, current work is focusing on the strengthening of the relationships between MIDEPLAN and the institutions providers of information. Also important are efforts devoted to facilitate electronic access to the data and to divulge information about the system.

56. A first compilation of indicators was published by MIDEPLAN in the first quarter of 1995, with data for the period 1980-1994 (Costa Rica: Tendencias Sociodemográficas, Económicas y Ambientales 1980-1994). In the near future other three publications are planned, which will include separately the environmental, economic, and socio-demographic information included in the data base. The environmental issue will be the first to be printed, under the name of "Principales Variables e Indicadores Ambientales de Costa Rica" (Main Variables and Environmental Indicators of Costa Rica). The environmental data is currently available at the Home Page of the Ministry of Planning (http://www.mideplan.go.cr).

57. The environmental publication is based on a compilation of environmental statistics and indicators available in Costa Rica, contracted by The Ministry of Planning (MIDEPLAN) to the State of the Nation Project (see below), with resources from a World Bank Grant for strengthening of Institutional Environmental Planning.

58. The next stage after the consolidation of the data base will be the development of summary indicators of sustainable development, combining social, economic and environmental information.

59. The creation of the National coordination mechanism for the testing and evaluation of indicators, has been accomplished with the appointment of The National Commission on Information for Sustainable Development (INFODES), in which there is participation of representatives from the government (Ministry of Planning, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, General Direction of Statistics and Censuses, and the Central Bank of Costa Rica), the academic sector (appointed by the public universities), the business community, and NGOs. (both appointed through the National Council of Sustainable Development).

60. As already indicated, the objectives and work program of this commission are consistent with the activities foreseen for the testing phase, in terms of promoting the production and use of information on sustainable development; promoting the establishment of coordination mechanisms between producers and users of information on sustainable development; promoting access to sustainable development information to all sector of society; and promoting the use of methodological sheets developed following CSR guidelines.

61. The INFODES commission has already started promoting activities involving assessment of the use of indicators in the country, and selecting those indicators based on national priorities and strategies. This has been the case with the workshops on environmental statistics celebrated in February and October of 1996.

62. During the first workshop two main results where reached. The first result was the distribution of information about the most relevant environmental statistics available in the country. For that purpose an inventory of the environmental information produced in the country was elaborated, through a consulting process with public and private institutions that produce such information. Also, a working draft of the document on environmental variables and indicators was distributed among participants for review and comments.

63. The second result was the elaboration of a list of prioritized environmental variables, with priorities based on the following criteria: national relevance, as defined in the National Environmental Policy Plan; existence of related data, operational feasibility for obtaining the data; quality of the data; political acceptability; relevance for decision-making; urgency of the data; and international comparability.

64. The work plan under consideration for the INFODES commission (see section III-D above), tough focusing on environmental information, considers many of the recommendations raised in the guidelines, regarding assessment of: (1) technical issues (elaboration, discussion, and proposition of methodological sheets, following CSR guidelines); (2) decision-making issues (regular technical meetings to involve producers and users of environmental information; follow-up of the production of environmental information using the methodological sheets), and (iii) institutional support and capacity building issues (strengthening the capacity to produce environmental information).

65. In addition, during the first workshop on environmental information (see section IV-B) the activities related to the elaboration of the inventory of environmental information produced in the country involved collecting methodological information about the most important providers of information. Such information included:

66. basic characteristics of each variable produced, such a the type of measurement (whether it is continuous or not); periodicity; time span of the data available and level of aggregation (national, regional, etc.);

67. Collection and registry, such as the type of producer (primary or secondary), procedures used to collect information, aggregation of data (national, regional, etc), methodological guidelines to produce information, the data product (paper, electronic, etc); and use of the information, such as the main internal use, the main external users, external accessibility, and services provided to external users.

68. The proceedings of the First Workshop on Environmental Statistics have been published and distributed among the participants in the event and other interested parties. This publication can be considered a reporting activity in line with the objectives of the testing phase.

EL SALVADOR

Organization:

69. Following Agenda 21 provisions, the Central American countries subscribed to the Alianza Centroamericana para el Desarrollo Sostenible (ALIDES), This Alliance is the vehicle to materialize the Agenda 21 mandates relevant to sustainable development in the Central american region.

70. At the country level, ALIDES envisages the constitution of national entities for Sustainable Development. In el Salvador, approval of Executive Decree Nº 38 dated 13 May 1996, established the Consejo Nacional para el Desarrollo Sostenible (CNDS). Currently, this decree is under revision in order to make the Consejo more responsive to the evolving policy demands of sustainable development at the national, departmental and local levels.

71. The Consejo Nacional para el Desarrollo Sostenible is a high level entity headed by the Vice President of the Republic. Its membership comprises most sectoral ministries, private sector institutions and NGO's related to Sustainable Development operating in the country.

72. It is expected that forthcoming revisions of this institutional framework, will lead among other things, to the apppointment of a focal point for the testing and evaluation of relevant sustainable development indicators.

Implementation:

73. Due to the current preliminary status of organization at the national level in relation to sustainable development Indicators Coordinating Mechanisms, only an introductory review of indicators has been conducted. Therefore, no testing is in progress at this juncture, as yet.

74. Preliminary relationship between national priorities and strategies and indicators to be selected for testing in El Salvador

1. Social Aspects of Sustainable Development

National priorities:

• Poverty alleviation, and increase access to public services.
• Generation of Productive Employment.

Matching Indicators:

• Combating poverty
• Promoting education, public awareness and training
• Protecting and promoting human health.

Data availability and quality:  From medium to high. However, the main problem is te lack of uniformity in some of the indicators in this area.

2. Economic Aspects of Sustainable Development

National priorities:

• Translate economic growth into sustainable development.
• Attract foreign investment linked to the demands of a globalized economy.
• Promote local socio-economic development.

Matching Indicators: Transfer of environmentally sound technology, cooperation and capacity building.

Data availability and quality: From medium to high. The Central Reserve Bank provides official data on the country's economic indicators.

3. Environmental Aspects of Sustainable Development

National Priorities:

• Watershed management and soil conservation
• Combat Deforestation and Forest Protection
• Biodiversity.
• Climate.

Matching Indicators:

• Protection of the quality and supply of freshwater resources.
• Combating deforestation.
• Conservation of biological diversity.
• Protection of the atmosphere.
• Promoting sustainable agricultural and rural development.

Data availability and quality:  Minimum to none. It is not until very recently, that efforts have started in order to gather indicators on development and environmentally related issues.

4. Institutional Aspects of Development

National priorities:

• Strengthening institutional capacity of public and private entities
• Participation of civil society in decision making.

Matching Indicators:

• Strengthening the role of major groups.
• Information for decision making.

Data availability and quality: Medium to fair. More reliable data could be refined if so desired.

Some Key National Efforts On Selected Aspects On Sustainable Development.

(A) Human Sustainable Development Program(PDHS)

75. According to national priorities, this program consists in the strenghtening of local capacities for planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of sustainable human development. The first satge of this projecet will cover four out of the 14 departamanets of the country. Its four main areas are: Poverty alleviation, Governability, Diversification of Productive Activities and Reversal of Environmental Deterioration.

76. This programe will be monitored and evaluated through a Geographic Information System (GIS) combined with selected human development indicators focused mostly in the local level. The user friendly design of this system will, in turn, be utilized by all interested users through a Web Page for PDHS in the Internet.

(B) Release of periodic Human Development Reports(HDR) at the national, departmental and local levels.

77. In order to facilitate planning of development projects and disemination of information on human development in the country and among the international organizations and NGOs, some key information and key indicators are expected to be released periodically.

78. To this end, the UNDP Office in El Salvador, hired a team of consultants, so that in coordination with the National Statistics Office will be in charge of producing the updated HDI for the national and departamental level. The first reports are expected to be released in June 1997.

(C) Capacity building in sustainable development to all governmental ranks dealing with sustainable development indicators.

79. The National Environmental Secretariat has arranged , with support from the WB and USAID, the provision of courses and training in order to increase awareness and debate leading to the incorporation of sustainability in development . This includes the establishment of "green accounts" and sdi at the national level.

(D) Establishment of a Unit within the National Environment Secretariat on Environmental Indicators.

80. With the support of UNDP for an initial trial period of two years, this unit will be the basis for calculation and use of environmental indicators I for policy development at the national level in the long run.

GUATEMALA

General Objectives Regarding Environmental Protection and Improvement

• Modernize environmental legislation and specification of environmental offenses.
• Reduce air, water and soil pollution.
• Investigate, utilize and rescue biodiversity through the promotion of - among others - the development of protected areas.
• Promote the inclusion of environmental aspects in educational programs.
• Reduce the speed of deforestation and promote reforestation as well as productive forestry activities at the regional level.
• Appropriately manage water basins in order to guarantee the utilization of water resources as regards quantity and quality

Principal Problems Related To Sustainable Development

81. During the last three decades, the environmental situation in Guatemala has been deteriorating rapidly due to the interaction of various factors: the level of poverty resulting from the lack of opportunities which causes a large part of the population to exploit the environment in order to satisfy its basic needs; the use of production processes highly detrimental to the natural environment; the limited impact of public policies and institutions related to the environment; the absence of environmental considerations in the formulation of economic and social policies as well as productive investment; and the general lack of environmental education and consciousness. This has caused an environmental situation of alarming proportions, in the context of which the main problems are: deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and air, water and soil pollution.

82. Deforestation: The soils suitable for forestry comprise 51.1% of the national territory while the actual deforestation indicator is 34%. The annual deforestation rate is estimated at 90,000 ha. The principal causes of deforestation are the substitution of forests for agriculture and livestock production, the felling of trees for firewood and industrial uses as well as forest fires. Some 97% of the wood cut is being burnt in the field or used as fuel; 17 million cubic meters of wood are used as firewood annually and only 2% is utilized in industrial processes.

83. Soil Erosion: The main erosion occurs on over utilized land, i.e. steeply inclined areas on which plants of low economic and ecological value are grown. Some 68,000 km2 are highly susceptible to erosion where an estimated soil loss of between 36 to 122 tons is observed every year while in certain areas of the country erosion reaches 1,100 tons p.a.

84. Loss of Biodiversity: There are no precise indicators regarding the loss of biodiversity, but it is known that the degree of extinction of animal and plant species - and, therefore, of genetic material - is considerable.

85. Pollution: The inappropriate use of agro-chemicals as well as industrial and domestic waste cause serious water pollution to which one needs to add the deterioration of air quality due to gas and particle emission from industry and vehicles which poses a growing problem in urban areas.

National Coordination Mechanisms for Environmentally Sustainable Development

86. A large number of institutions exists in Guatemala which directly or indirectly relate to environmentally sustainable development. Especially the National System of Rural and Urban Development Councils is promoting the sustainable development strategy at the national and local level in which the Planning Secretariat (SEGEPLAN) is responsible for the formulation, coordination, implementation and revision of sustainable development plans. Other institutions involved in that area are:

• the Environmental Cabinet;
• the National Environmental Commission (CONAMA);
• the Environmental Policy Committee; and
• the Guatemalan Environmental Fund (FOGUAMA).

87. The National System of Rural and Urban Development Councils was installed in order to organize and coordinate public administration through the formulation of development policies and to promote the organization and participation of the population in the country s integrated development. This System consists of the national (one council), regional (8 councils), departmental (20 councils) and municipal (330 councils) levels.

88. The National Council consists of the President of the Republic who is chairing it, the line ministries, the Planning Secretariat, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, universities and civil society. This Council is responsible for the organization and coordination of public administration and the formulation of development and zoning policies.

89. The Environmental Cabinet is being coordinated by the Vice-president of the Republic and consists of the National Environmental Commission, the Planning Secretariat and the sector ministries. In addition, this Cabinet receives technical advice from specialized agencies. Its prime objective is the institutional coordination necessary to establish a uniform, precise and coherent course of action between the entities involved in the problems and requirements related to environmentally sustainable development.

90. The National Environmental Commission (CONAMA) depends directly on the Presidency of the Republic and its function is to advise on and coordinate all measures related to the formulation and implementation of the national environmental protection and improvement policy. It has at its disposal a Technical Advisory Council which up to now has been supervising environmental impact assessments (EIAs) in order to determine the best option to achieve sustainable development. The formulation of a draft "General Law for the Environment and Natural Resources" is one of CONAMA s recent achievements. This draft law proposes the creation of an Environment and Natural Resources Ministry which should replace CONAMA and comprise other institutions related to the subject.

The Integrated and Sustainable Development Strategy of Government

91. The current administration s development strategy has been established in the Government Program 1996-2000 which provides for three main areas of action, called commitments, namely:

92. Political commitment to liberty to construct peace, democracy and justice: Its fundamental elements are democratic coexistence, strengthening the state of law and judicial security; unity in cultural diversity; and modernization, decentralization and deconcentration of the public sector. Within this commitment, a Peace Program has been established, named "Guatemala s opportunity investing in national reconciliation, democracy and sustainable development".

93. Economic commitment to productive investment: It calls for investment to improve production and standards of living; infrastructure improvement at the national level; local development; and the establishment of general, positive, clear and stable economic rules.

94. Social commitment to integrated human development: Its main components are improvements in education and culture oriented towards work, coexistence and peace; a healthy population; environmental protection and improvement; and the establishment of a country of proprietors.

Profile of the Information and Sustainable Development Indicator in Guatemala

95. Up to now, only development indicators - instead of sustainable development indicators - have been used in Guatemala. The most important indicators are the following:

Social

96. A National System of Social Indicators has been developed which aims at the generation of information required for the evaluation of the impact of the Poverty Alleviation Program and other Government plans and programs. For example, the following indicators may be mentioned:

97. In education: illiteracy rate, enrollment according to area, ethnic group, sex and age, repetition rate, student-teacher ratio at the pre-school, primary and secondary levels, education budget in relation to the GDP, public education expenditure etc.

98. In health: infant mortality, life expectancy, fertility, maternal mortality, low birth weight, mortality due to diarrhea, respiratory infections etc. There are also health indicators according to ethnic groups, such as medical child-delivery services, midwife services, breast-feeding periods, knowledge and use of birth control methods, vaccination, etc.

99. Indicators related to drinking water and waste water disposal, housing, rural development, culture and cultural heritage are also available.

Economic

100. There are indicators on economic growth, GDP, bank deposits, money in circulation, consumer price indices, interest rates etc. Furthermore, regarding productive activities, the following examples may be mentioned:

101. Agriculture: shares in GDP, total employment, exports, public investment, imports of agricultural inputs etc.

102. Industry: industrial activity index, electric energy consumption in industry, raw material imports, credit to industry etc.

103. Commerce: imports of goods, credit to commerce, credit card transactions etc.

104. Tourism: tourist arrivals according to origin, foreign exchange earnings, average expenditure per tourist, hotel capacity, hotel occupancy rates etc.

Environment and Natural Resources

105. Basically, the following indicators are in use: deforestation rate; use of wood for firewood; forest areas; soil suitability, utilization and productive capacity; actual and potential land use; erosion susceptibility; rainfall; temperatures; mineral resources; protected areas etc.

MEXICO

Status of indicator development and use in Mexico

106. Mexico has achieved considerable progress in developing environmental information. For instance, in 1995 the first compendium on environment statistics was published and actually the second compendium is being prepared which will be printed by middle of present year. In 1996 an exercise on the System of Economic and Environmental Accounts was also published, and every two years, since 1986, the bi-annual environment state report is published. It is also very important mention that in 1996 the first assessment of environmental performance was initiated by OECD (and it will conclude by early 1998), which has implicated for Mexico an enormous challenge in order to compile and/or produce the most of environment indicators required.

107. It may be said that at the present, the exercises on environmental and sustainability indicators are trying to link environment information with other demographic, economic and social data. It is necessary to incorporate and/or specify into these indicators, as the Methodological Sheets point out: objectives, national strategies, targets and priorities, among others issues.

108. Several institutions are designing environmental digital information systems. Nevertheless, they are still isolated and disperse exercises, they are elaborated following genuine methodological or procedures frames, and it need to be integrated into a national network.

109. In Mexico there are a great number of non-governmental organizations, with a high potential of activities and mobilization, but the information about them and their activities related to sustainable development is insufficient. Their role is very important and it has a significative impact at the level local, but such activities are do not known and recognized by public opinion.

110. According to the OECD preliminary environmental performance assessment report on Mexico (October, 1996) the present environmental information does not sufficiently support the sustainable development policy directions adopted by Mexico, and it is therefore important to adapt the Mexican Environmental Information System to support progress towards national and international objectives of sustainable development.

111. In order to generate environmental information according to international standards and parameters, it is required to promote the methodological sheets frame at the national level and among the different institutions. In the short term, to review and/or adapt the current environment statistics into the requirements of indicators of sustainable development will be necessary.

112. There are certain conditions to progress in that respect: the commitment of Mexico for Agenda 1, which is incorporated into the National Plan of Development, 1995-2000; the compendium and reports mentioned at the beginning; a lot quantity of available basic statistics; a greater contact and interchange between data producers and users; Mexico participates in regional and bilateral co-operation schemes, which requires to monitor some environmental aspects; and finally, the environmental performance assessment carried out by OECD has encouraged to reinforce and/or generate information not only within administration public but also in the private sector, as well as the NGO, research centers, universities, etcetera.

Environmental Data Availability

113. Based on the findings of Survey of the Present State of Environment Information in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1996, conducted by ECLAC and INEGI, the overall level of regional availability comes to 77 percent. The remaining 23 percent represents variables for which information is either not available, not applicable, or not known whether it is available in the countries. Inter-institutional availability of environment statistics for the region countries is as follow: the availability of environment statistics for the region countries is as follow: 51.1 percent of all variables generated in the ten environmental categories are produced by the organization responsible for the environment; other entities such as ministries, secretariats, autonomous and/or decentralized institutions are responsible for 24 percent;18 percent of the information is in charge of, among others, non-governmental organizations, universities and research institutes; and the National Statistical Offices participation in the generation of information is equal to 6.5 percent. In the case of Mexico, the percentages are, respectively: 57, 26, 6 and 11 percent.

114. In Mexico, responsibility for generating environment and sustainability information and for data collection, compilation and analysis resides in several institutions, although there are two national agencies direct and mainly involved: the Secretariat of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries (SEMARNAP) and the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI).

115. The first is in charge of prescribing, conducting and assessing the general environmental policy and therefore it is responsible for all environmental information. In addition, the National Institute of Ecology (INE), a body dependent on SEMARNAP, has already some environment indicators related to air pollution, wastes, climate change, ozone layer, wildlife, among others. This indicators are structured according to Driving Force-State-Response Frame.

116. The second institution INEGI plays an important role because has an explicit legal mandate to produce and collect all the statistic and geographic information, which is gathered from population censuses, surveys on establishments and households and on economic performance, as well as administrative records. It also uses satellite images and aerial photo to produce maps. Briefly, INEGI generates mostly the basic information which is used by all of the institutions involving in the generation of environment and sustainability indicators, and actually it has plans for elaborating indicators on sustainable development.

117. In 1995 both institutions signed an arrangement of co-operation, which is operating for elaborating the compendium on environment statistics and also to prepare the Environment State Report. Therefore, it is needed to establish a national inter-agencies mechanism (committee) which does have a specific mandate to co-ordinate the handling and processing of environmental information.

118. Responsibility for producing environment and sustainability indicators is shared by governmental and non-governmental institutions and it is supported by national initiatives, such us the INEGI-SEMARNAP Agreement of Collaboration, as well as bilateral and international programmes and activities. For instance, Mexico is member of the Commission for Environment Cooperation as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement; it carries out the Border XXI co-operative programme with the United States to monitor the environmental protection activities on the border area.

119. In addition, the new 1996 General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection include a comprehensive view of environmental problems, recognizes the people s right to environment information, provides a sound legislative basis for protecting the environment, and include the concepts of sustainable development and efficient use of natural resources. It is expected that this law will contribute to develop more information.

120. The institutional work above mentioned is a platform for the testing phase to develop indicators in Mexico. It is sure that the use of Methodology Sheets will increase the quantity and will better the quality of the available environment statistics and indicators.

Key national sustainable development issues

121. Considering the current state of indicators (generally focused to environmental impact), as well as the environmental problems and the priorities for sustainable development of Mexico, it would be possible to develop and strengthen a priority set of indicators of sustainable on the following topics:

• Biodiversity
• Air pollution of cities
• River water quality
• Energy uses and production
• Implement a system of coastal water quality
• Implement a hazardous waste inventory
• Environment expenditures focusing on sustainability and environment-economy linkages
• Poverty and issues on equity in the use of resources.

PANAMA

122. Panama does not have a program on indicators of sustainable development, as such, but compiles statistical information which is managed by the Controller General of Panama. This compiled information covers:

• Physical aspects - climate
• Demographic conditions - population, vital statistics, migration
• Economic situation - agriculture, livestock, fishing, industrial structure, manufacturing production, construction, electricity and gas, domestic trade, transportation, communication, balance of trade, national account, public finance, bank, insurance, mercantile registration, prices, consumption, production and marketing of water.
• Social situation - housing, social security, health services,job, salaries, traffic accidents.
• Cultural conditions - education
• Justice - justice

123. To incorporate environmental statistics into the system, the Government created the National Commission of Statistics of the Environment (CONEMA) in July 1996, which includes the Controller General of Panama, the Ministry of Planning and Economical Policy (MIPPE), the National Institute of Natural Renewable Resources (INRENARE) and the Inter-Oceanic Regional Authority of the Panama Canal (ARI).

124. The objectives of this Commission are:

• to implement a series of environmental statistics into the National Statistical Environment System;
• to establish the basis to create national environmental accounts and to incorporate them to the National Accounting System, in accordance with the United Nations standards

125. This Commission made an inquiry based on the recommendation of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to update the status of environmental information in 1996. The research determined that there is an important volume of information which needs to be reclassified, compiled, managed and stored.

126. The recently created National Statistical Environment System integrated 11 governmental organizations, one non-governmental institution and the Panama Canal Commission. The objective of this system is to collaborate with the Department of Statistics and Census and CONEMA to reach their objectives and to implement the proposed plan of work.

127. With all this information, the country is establishing the basis of having indicators that could aid in the sustainable development of the country.

128. Regarding the specific topic of "Sustainable Forest Development," Panama participated in regional meetings organized by The Central American Commission of Environmental Development (CCAD) where criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management were established. In this context, Panama is working with the following indicators:

• Control and evaluation of forest management plans;
• Quantity of remaining trees for seeds per hectare managed;
• Quantity of extracted trees per hectare;
• Delimitation of forest managed areas;
• Annual extraction of trees by species;
• Surface and percentage of the total protected areas of natural forest;
• Measurement to prevent and to control forest fires;
• Control and conservation of watersheads.

VENEZUELA

129. Venezuela institutionalized its environmental management with the creation of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Renewable Resources in 1977. In this respect it is a pioneering country in Latin America. More recently, however, when asked to identify its main achievements at international fora, only general figures could be provided, despite the numerous environmental control programmes that had been undertaken.

130. Towards 1992, the environmental authorities became increasingly concerned by this fact, and began to show interest in obtaining information about what other countries were doing in this respect. Consequently,in 1993 the decision was made to develop an Environmental Statistics Programme, leading to the creation of a Centre for Environmental Statistics.

131. The development of the environmental statistics programme was based on two fundamental facts: (i) the acknowledgment of the existence of environmental problems; and (ii) the existence of an institution responsible for their solution. That is to say, environmental problems were studied as well as the measures implemented to solve them, which are basically executed through the Ministry of the Environment. The actual causes of the environmental problems. were not explicitly included in the analysis.

132. In addition to these basic aspects, other factors of a procedural nature were considered, such as sources of information, information gathering mechanisms; norms for the revision, analysis and processing of environmental data. With these elements in mind as an initial step, the Centre's structure would be outlined, and the necessary investment for its development be estimated. adopted: (a) historical-documentary, and (b) testimonial, through the opinion of sectoral and thematic experts. The sectors considered were: oil, petrochemical and coal; iron and aluminium, hydro-electricity, forestry, fisheries, mining, agricultural, industrial and urban.

133. The environmental issues were initially grouped into: (i) urban, (ii) demographic, (iii) educational, (iv) exploitation of natural resources, (v) institutional capacities. This initial grouping revealed the awareness of analysts about the causes and problems alike. However, the need to stick to the Ministry's competences dominated, and the focus remained on the solution of the problems.

134. The identification of the Ministry's responsibilities, was made according to the mandates established in the existing legislation. The consideration of that legislation allowed the identification of other responsibilities outside the competence of the Ministry of the Environment. The analysis of responsibilities covered the competences on a nation-wide, regional and descentralized basis.

135. To establish environmental indicators, an analysis was made of each issue, which covered causes, effects, and its sequencial breakdown. With these elements an initial series of indicators obtained from various sources was proposed, and presented and discussed in a workshop.

136. The resulting series was submitted to a meticulous examination to evaluate the possibility of their development (analysis of data sources) and their ability to measure and communicate: (a) the degree of environmental degradation and (b) the effectiveness of the responses. The result was a group of environmental indicators which were used as a basis for the preparation of the Venezuelan State of the Environment Report.

137. This brief synthesis of the process followed shows that the indicators developed then respond basically to environmental criteria, thus they are not directed to measure the progress towards sustainable development.

138. As previously indicated, the identification of the environmental issues and the establishment of environmental indicators was made through the participation of all sectors involved by means of interviews and workshops, in order to reflect their opinion.

139. Despite this fact that the Venezuelan SOE report has been published as a document that is intentionally open to a wide national debate, to be improved upon and adapted to the needs of decision makers and public interests, including politicians, the media, academics, etc.

140. Environmental matters, including the orientation of the investments and the development of the norms and regulations, and the legal system.  Additionally, they will consider the aspects to be dealt with at national, regional or local level.

141. Therefore it is necessary that the indicators developed are understandable for the decision makers, and at the same time they are able to measure the degree of natural resources depletion, or changes in the quality of the environment.

142. One of the most important considerations was the financing of the programme. The solution adopted was to contract a consultancy firm to do the initial work of the formulation of the SOE report, and subsequently to set up the Centre with a minimum staff at first, with the responsibility of creating the framework and process for an integrated environmental system to be developed upon the existing systems operating within the Ministry of the Environment.

143. Ultimately the Centre will be expected to provide information access and interpretation, including regular "State of the Environment" reports and special bulletins on key environmental issues.

144. A second stage includes the possibility of obtaining funds from international cooperation and/or financing, to enable the Centre to provide improved and integrated information so that decisions can be made taking all key environmental factors into account, as well as to continue to publish and improve the successive SOE reports.

145. During the process of preparation of the Balance Ambiental de Venezuela, we had access to the existing published information mainly from developed countries and international agencies. We also had the opportunity to visit the United Kingdom and France, which allowed us to come into direct contact and learn from the experiences of the various organizations responsible for the preparation of State of the Environment reports both at national and global level.

146. Political leverage was basic for the establishment of the Environmental Statistics and Information Centre, in this sense is has been important for Venezuela to participate actively in international events, as well as a continued communication with multilateral organizations.

147. The institutional response was planned according to the resources available and its future will depend on the benefit it represents to the social actors.