EARTH SUMMIT+5 Special Session of the General Assembly to Review and Appraise the Implementation of Agenda 21 New York, 23-27 June 1997 PROGRAMME FACT SHEETS

	Work Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development of the Commission on Sustainable Development
	Responsible Organization(s)	UN-DPCSD/Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) in collaboration with UN system agencies as well as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations
	Description	Indicators help to illustrate priority sustainable development issues, problems and trends, to simplify and to improve communication and to guide national sustainable development policy formulation and action. The Work Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development provides information about indicators of sustainable development and their methodologies and tries to interest governments to apply them as a tool to facilitate national decision-making. The Work Programme contains a menu of 134 indicators covering social, economic, environmental and institutional aspects of sustainable development. They are placed within a Driving-Force-State-Response-Framework. A pilot testing phase is proposed to monitor and evaluate the use of the CSD indicators at the national level. The Work Programme provides the basis for the further identification and development of other sectoral and cross-sectoral indicators and interlinkages between various indicators and highly aggregated indicators and indices.
	Issues addressed	Indicators are essential to decision-making aiming at sustainable development. Indicators can be used to identify and monitor progress towards meeting sustainable development targets and goals.
	Objectives	The objective of the Work Programme is to make the indicators of sustainable development available to decision makers at the national level. The overall aim is to arrive at a workable and agreed set of indicators for each purpose by the year 2000. Indicators, as used in national policies, may also be used for the national reports to the Commission on Sustainable Development and other intergovernmental bodies.
	Results achieved	Through a great deal of cooperation among DPCSD/DSD and more than 25 different organizations of the United Nations, other international organizations (like the World Bank), intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and private organizations (like the World Resources Institute), private experts and scientists and some governments a menu or Working List of 134 indicators of sustainable development has been agreed upon. To facilitate the understanding and use of these indicators methodology sheets have been prepared for each indicator giving their definition, meaning and applicability. The methodology sheets were recently published by the United Nations as: "Indicators of Sustainable Development: Framework and Methodologies". In the next stage countries will voluntarily begin to test the indicators in relation to their own national priorities and interests. Twelve countries from all regions in the world confirmed their interest to test the indicators and their methodology sheets over the next three years. Guidelines for the National Testing will help to build the basis for a common understan-ding of the testing exercise and to obtain comparable results from the evaluation of the pilot testing phase. Regional meetings to provide training of the testing countries in the use of the methodology sheets and the Guidelines have also begun. Parallel processes are also underway to define additional sectoral and cross-sectoral indicators for instance in forestry, land management, biodiversity and changing consumption and production patterns, that could be included among the indicators at a later stage. More work is needed to understand the interlinkages between indicators and to integrate their economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions in more aggregated measures.
	Lessons learned	The implementation of the Work Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development demonstrates that: (1) A pragmatic consensus-building approach is necessary to develop an acceptable set of indicators. (2) The consensus-building approach worked because of the cooperation and support of many stakeholders. (3) Emphasis from the very beginning needs to be put on a country approach to help governments set up an indicators programme and provide them with a starting point for selecting indicators according to their own needs and priorities. (4) The main work of indicator development has to be done by countries themselves in accordance with their own priorities.
	Financing	Extrabudgetary contributions.
	Contact	Ms.Birgitte Bryld/Ms. Monika Luxem UN DPCSD/DSD/HDIT 2 UN Plaza, DC2 2256 New York , NY 10017 Tel. (212) 963 8805/963 8400, Fax (212) 963 1267.