 The objective is to develop a regional approach to indicators and
information, which would allow integration and harmonization with global and international
initiatives, and to make those indicators accessible to decision makers at national and
regional levels. The project will be harmonised with and supportive of the environmental
indicator activities coordinated by the United Nations Department for Policy Coordination
and Sustainable Development, UNDPCSD; with UNEP's Global Environmental Outlook Project,
GEO; with the SCOPE "Indicators of Sustainable Development Project"; and others.
To ensure that regional requirements are effectively met, the views and needs of
Governments will be taken as the directive force guiding the overall approach and
activities. This will ensure relevance of the project to the regional discourse on
sustainable development. Major regional institutions (amongst them, CIAT, ECLAC and IICA) will be involved from the
beginning to develop and use information tools, frameworks and data, and to benefit from
existing capabilities and expertise in the region. Relevant national institutions and
centres will also be consulted and involved from the outset.
By the early 1990s, a global consensus had formed around the conviction
that economic growth must be made more socially equitable and more compatible with
preserving the natural resource base - a goal commonly referred to as 'sustainable
development'.
One key condition for making and measuring progress toward sustainability
is that people whose decisions shape the course of development gain better access to
relevant data. This is turn requires that we devise 'indicators'. These are tools for
simplifying, quantifying, and analysing technical information and for communicating it to
various groups of users.
Indicators of the economic and social dimensions of development have
already been developed and widely adopted. But comparable tools for dealing with
environmental issues are still lacking.
There is also an urgent need for broader sustainability indicators that
bring economic and social as well as environmental concerns into the policy-making
process. Such indicators must be scientifically valid, economically feasible and
politically acceptable.
Provided they meet these conditions, indicators can give decision makers a
better basis for monitoring trends in development and the environment, for drawing up and
implementing appropriate policies and action plans, and for evaluating their
effectiveness.
The project uses the following methodology:
Regional bodies (ECLAC, IICA, TCA and CATIE) were contacted to determine and
accurately reflect regional concerns and views regarding environmental indicators for
sustainable development.
The principle international and regional institutions working in
indicators were visited (UNEP Nariobi
and Mexico, RIVM, WRI, World Bank, UNSTAT) or contacted (FAO, SEI, IICA, ECLAC). This was in
order to assess the status of availability of appropriate and relevant data and databases
and institutional capacities, to gather and analyze new and existing environmental, social
and economic data and to start networking activities.
A set of 100 environmental and sustainability indicators were selected
and elaborated for countries and life zones in the Latin America and Caribbean Region.
A regional workshop, held in February 14-16, 1996 in UNEP-ROLAC (Mexico) with representatives from
international, regional and national institutions (users and producers of indicators) to
discuss and harmonize the general framework for the project. Also the uses and usefulness
of indicators were defined, data availability and tools were discussed.
An inventory has been produced of all spatial datasets at continental,
regional, national and local level for Latin America and the Caribbean currently held in
the GIS unit at CIAT.
A list of institutions holding spatial datasets for Latin America and
the Caribbean, which are accessible via the WWW, has been produced.
The indicators were processed and organised in a GIS (ArcView). The GIS
software was customised to provide a Graphical User Interface for accessing and querying
the spatial and attribute indicator data.
Land Use simulation models were created to give users a look into the
future. On-line help was developed containing a user guide for Atlas CD as well as an
introduction to the project and perspectives on each indicator variable.
Atlas CD was released.
1996-1998
From CIAT:
Manuel Winograd - Project Coordinator
Jeremy Eade - GIS and modelling
Andrew Farrow - GIS and modelling
From UNEP - Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean:
Norberto Fernandez - Regional Coordinator Environmental Information, Assessment and
Early Warning
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