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Workshop
on Sustainable Development Indicators
Chung-Li,
Taiwan, 17-19 November 2001
Sustainable
Development Indicators for Taiwan
Jiunn-Rong
Yeh1, Shang-Lien Lo2, Ling-Ling Lee3, Jin-Tan Liu4,
Juju Chin-Shou Wang5, and Shu-Li Huang6
8.
Research Achievements and Prospects
8.1
Research Achievements
1.
Completion of Sustainable Development Indicators for Taiwan
and preliminary analysis
This
research has completed the final version of Sustainable
Development Indicators for Taiwan. Among the set of Island
Taiwan indicators, there are five dimensions (environmental
pollution, ecological resource, social, economic and institutional
response), 18 categories, and totally 83 indicators. And
the set of Urban Taiwan indicators contains 28 indicators.
A preliminary analysis based on the collected data has been
made with respect to main indicators, categories and dimensions.
It helps us understand the development history in Taiwan
and can be used as a regular mechanism for future sustainability
evaluation.
2.
Developing sustainability indicators in compliance with
the United Nations Mandate
The
Sustainable Development Committee of United Nations urges
its members establish national sustainability indicators
to better present their domestic development status and
many have started the task already. This NSC research project
has showed our emphasis on sustainable movement as well
as the international trend in this regard.
3.
Characterization of sustainable development movement in
Taiwan
In
the process of developing sustainable development indicators,
international trends and salient features of individual
states must all be considered. This research identifies
Taiwan's as an island economy under profound transition,
and based on which the indicators were selected and rationales
were articulte.
4.
For a Basis for National Initiative
The
Council of Sustainable Development under the Premier has
designated a task force co-chaired by the Administrator
of EPA and the Chief Commissioner of NSC to speed up the
establishment of national sustainable development indicators
for Taiwan. For that purpose, a working group led by professor
Jiunn-Rong Yeh, member of the Sustainable Development Committee,
was vested with the mandate to further this objective. The
result of the NSC research will serve as basis for this
effort.
5.
Part of the analysis could contribute to public policy formation
The
preliminary analysis of this indicator system could have
impacts on development policies in Taiwan, among with water
resource policy, energy policies bears more application.
Policy makers of many areas regarding national development
will find this indicator system useful in locating root
causes and resolving alternatives.
6.
Enhancement of academic researches and international collaboration
in sustainable development movement
The
results of this research not only can form the basis of
public policies but also be able to be used to produce many
academically valuable works, linking to relevant research
initiatives all over the world.
7.
Concrete example of integration between technological and
humanity disciplines
The
integration of technology and humanity is important in sustainable
development. This NSC project has provided a good example
for interdisciplinary integration.
8.
Publications promoting sustainable development concepts
The
result of the NSC project is to be published in plain language
for general public. The publication will be able to promote
popular science as well as the concept of sustainable development.
8.2
Prospects
Based
on the past three years' experiences, we have identified
four areas for future work:
1.
Internationalization
As
globalization deepens and the international enterprises
expand, environmental issues are no longer regional ones.
Global environmental issues, such as greenhouse effect,
ozone depletion, cross border pollution, and biodiversity,
are all important global issues. Cultural and ideal interactions
among different countries have been facilitated by the advanced
information technologies. Similarly, the sustainable development
in Taiwan will surely not be confined within this island,
and an aggressive participation in international sustainable
development issues becomes a must.
Besides the participation in global issues, the NSC research
keeps its eyes on the sustainability indicator system in
other countries during its developing process. Sustainable
development and sustainability indicators are all issues
in development. For the sustainability indicators, even
those official systems in the developed countries like US,
UK and Canada are mostly in the preliminary or research
stages, not to mention those in Asia areas. Many of the
findings from the NSC project could be of great implication
to other neighboring Southeast Asia countries.
Consequently,
we have the following two main tasks:
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Indicator
design pertaining to relevant international sustainable
development issues |
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Sustainability
indicator system experience exchange with other countries |
2.
Localization
The
NSC project has been carried out in national level. As a
result, localities in environmental, social and economic
issues are easily neglected when taking a national or overall
point of view. However, in Taiwan, the differences between
urban and rural areas are quite obvious. Hence, to achieve
regional balance, local sustainable development indicators
are needed for evaluating regional development.
Local
indicators must be constructed by a localized method to
best serve the needs of specific areas. Instead of developing
indicators for localities, this NSC project would help motivated
ones develop their indicator systems.
Meanwhile,
the linkage between indicators in national and local levels
must be enhanced to bring all information into the overall
structure. Otherwise, many locally unsustainable events
may aggregate to be nationally sustainable. This would be
a serious contradiction.
Two
main tasks for localization are:
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Establish
a set of guiding procedures and rules for local indicator
construction and promote it |
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Enhance
the linkage between indicators in national and local
levels |
3.
Institutionalization
Although
our past research had considered many possible difficulties
lie in the execution phase, the indicator formation and
data collection were still confined within theoretical discussions.
Often, we had great design ideas for indicators, but the
lack of data or the difficulty of obtaining data with limited
manpower forced us to give up those ideas.
Sustainable
development is a dynamic process pertinent to a variety
of issues: environmental, biological, social, economic and
institutional ones. A system qualified for long run use
must be updated from time to time to adapt itself to changing
background. A good enforcement mechanism must include principles
for adding, removing and modifying indicators, steady data
sources, criteria for information or indicator announcement.
Then this idealistic system will be able to reflect sustainable
development status in nearly real time, and policy warning
in advance and policy guidance can be achieved.
Three
main tasks for institutionalization are:
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Developing
review mechanism for indicator status: principles for
adding, removing and modifying indicators |
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Enhancement
of data accessibility |
4. Policy Inputs
The
aim of the NSC project is to achieve functions of "policy
warning in advance", "policy review" and
"policy guidance" and to link to practical sustainable
development. As a result, this indicator system not only
indicates a general sustainability status in Taiwan but
also reflect unsustainable policies or practices.
How
can the indicators be combined with policies and how to
reflect policy problems in the indicator structure? This
system adopts institutional capacity building and a PSR
system as theoretical basis, so that it can better reflect
problems in institutional or policy levels. However, to
come up with a more detailed investigation, we need to refer
to relevant indicators on policy areas under properly defined
visions and goals for sustainable development.
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