- English
From the outset of the National Performance Assessment and a Strategic Environmental Framework for the Greater Mekong Subregion (SEF II) in 2003 the selection of the right set of indicators was seen as the key step in the conduct of an environmental performance assessment (EPA) as shown below.
Step One: Selecting policy concerns
Step Two: Adapting priority concerns to GMS conditions and quantifying policy targets
Step Three: Selecting indicators and matching them to priorities
Step Four: Selection of core and headline indicators
Step Five: Preparation of indicator "fact sheets"
Step Six: The conduct of EPA
In providing guidance to the national teams, SEF II reviewed global experience in developing environmental indicators and that overview is repeated here as Appendix 1. Four broad categories of environmental performance were identified (i) evaluation of environmental performance by enterprises built around the ISO 14000 series; (ii) assessments of the performance of governments and public bodies in general (i.e. not primarily environment-related); (iii) environmental performance assessment (EPA) by (or of) individual countries; and (iv) environmental performance by (or of) supra-national entities. SEF II focused on environmental performance of Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries at the national level and, to a lesser extent, environmental performance at the subregional level.
In starting this work for Component 3 of the Core Environment Programme (CEP) several key decisions need to be made in relation to the choice of indicators. The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore how others have dealt with the choice of environmental indicators, to draw out the lessons learned, and to provide guidance to GMS countries as they grapple with the answers to the difficult questions outlined above.
Remarks:
This component was completed as part of ADB RETA 6289 in a collaboration effort between Greater Mekong Subregion Environmental Operations Center: Asian Development Bank, United Nations Environment Programme and IGES.
This paper is compiled in a book titled "Environmental Performance Assessment and Sustainable Development Planning in the Greater Mekong Subregion"
http://pub.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/view.php?docid=1043
- English
