UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA (UNECA)

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS FRAMEWORK FOR AFRICA AND INITIAL COMPENDIUM OF INDICATORS

First Draft

Mersie EjiguNovember 2010

Table of Contentspage

Acronyms and Abbreviations ………………………………………. 31. Purpose and Study Methodology ……………………………………….. 5

2. Background and Context ………………………………………………… 7

3. The Conceptual Underpinning of Sustainable Development Indicators …… 11

4. Assessing and Measuring Sustainable Development ………….. 16

5. Building on Existing Sustainable Development Indicators Knowledge and Practices …………………………………………………… 18

6. Identifying, Selecting, Organizing, and Using Indicators ……………….. 26

7. Core SD Indicators for Africa …………………………………………… 43

8. Monitoring and Evaluating Sustainable Development Indicators………….. 57

9. The Way Forward ………………………………………………………. 58

10. Conclusion

Annex: Initial Compendium of Sustainable Development Indicators for Africa

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

ACCNNR African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources ACGS African Centre for Gender and Social DevelopmentACNNR African Convention on Nature and Natural ResourcesACS African Centre for StatisticsAEO Africa Environment OutlookAfDB African Development BankAMCEN African Ministerial Conference on the EnvironmentAPCI Africa Productive Capacity InitiativeAPRM African Peer Review MechanismAU African UnionAUC Africa Union CommissionCAADP Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development ProgrammeCBD Convention on Biological DiversityCSD Commission on Sustainable DevelopmentCSO Civil Society OrganizationECOLFOOT Ecological Footprint EIA Environmental Impact AssessmentERA Environmental Risk AssessmentESA Environmental Security AssessmentESIA Environmental and Social Impact AssessmentESI Environmental Sustainability IndexEVI Environmental Vulnerability Index EU European UnionGDP Gross Domestic ProductGDS Genuine Domestic SavingsGEF Global Environment FacilityGEO Global Environment Outlook GNP Gross National ProductGPI Genuine Progress IndicatorGRICS Governance Research Indicator Country Snapshot HDI Human Development IndexHDR Human Development ReportICPD International Conference on Population and DevelopmentIDRC International Development Research CenterIEPI International. Environmental Performance IndexIISD International Institute for Sustainable Development IUCN The World Conservation UnionJPOI Johannesburg Plan of Implementation MDGs Millennium Development GoalsNAPAs National Adaptation Programmes of ActionNEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s DevelopmentNGO Non-Governmental OrganizationNPCA NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency of the AU OAU Organization of African Unity OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and DevelopmentPAES Partnership for African Environmental Sustainability (PAES)PRSPs Poverty Reduction Strategy PapersSC Sustainable Consumption

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SD Sustainable DevelopmentSDIFA Sustainable Development Indicators Framework for Africa SDRA Sustainable Development Report on AfricaSEA Strategic Environmental AssessmentSEEA System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting SLM Sustainable Land ManagementSNA System of National AccountsSP Sustainable ProductionUNCBD United Nations Convention on Biological DiversityUNCCD United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification UNCSD United Nations Commission on Sustainable DevelopmentUNDESA-DSD United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs- Division for

Sustainable DevelopmentUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa UNEP United Nations Environment ProgrammeUNFAO United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization UNFCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development OrganizationUNICEF United Nations Children FundUNSC United Nations Statistical CommissionWFP World Food ProgrammeWI Wellness Index WRI World Resources Institute WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development WWF World Wide FundWWI World Watch Institute

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1. Purpose and Methodology

1.1 Purpose

This work on Sustainable Development Indicators Framework (SDIF) for Africa Study was launched by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in response to a mandate of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) “to foster sustainable development through promoting the balanced integration of the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainable development.” It is also a response to the request of the UN General Assembly “to take action to ensure the effective implementation of, and follow-up to the outcomes of the WSSD” and to Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 that “calls on countries, international, governmental and non-governmental organizations to develop indicators of sustainable development and also harmonize efforts to develop them to provide a solid basis for decision-making at all levels.” Accordingly, UNECA published in 2008, the Sustainable Development Report on Africa (SDRA): Managing Land-Based Resources for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Report on Africa (SDRA): Five Year Review of the Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development Outcomes in Africa (WSSD+5).

As provided in the Terms of Reference (TOR), the primary objective of the assignment is Study is to “develop a sustainable development indicators framework for Africa and produce a compendium of indicators” covering all dimensions (economic, social, environmental, and institutional) of sustainable development with the view to: • Contributing to the effective assessment of the status of sustainable development in

Africa and thereby raise public awareness on trends and inform policy and management actions aimed at promoting and enhancing sustainable development in the region;

• Serving as a tool for “systematically measuring and tracking progress on sustainable development at the regional level” and more specifically “for conducting the assessment of Part I of SDRA-IV and subsequent ones, which aim to provide a holistic assessment of the status of sustainable development in the region and a critical analysis of, and show case the contribution of forests, biodiversity, biotechnology, tourism and mountains to sustainable growth and development in the region; and

• Guiding the development of similar frameworks by member States and RECs to promote the integration of sustainability principles in the development, implementation and monitoring of national and sub-regional development policies, strategies and programmes, including national poverty reduction strategies.

Toward fulfilling the above objectives, this Framework seeks to provide the policy and institutional context for developing SD indicators; clarifies the conceptual underpinning; defines linkages among economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions of SD; systematically organizes and arranges indicators; outlines their basic characteristics; sets criteria for identifying and choosing; and proposes guidelines for refinement and improvement.

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1.2 Methodology

The process of developing this sustainable development indicators framework included the following activities:• A review of literature on sustainable development and indicators by the United Nations

system including UNCSD-UNDESA, UNECA, UN Statistical Division, the Human Development Indicators (HDI) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicators, the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Indicators of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), The Africa Environment Outlook (AEO), UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD), UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), IUCN-The World Conservation Union, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the World Wide Fund (WWF), the World Resources Institute (WRI), the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI2005) prepared by Yale and Columbia Universities, the Governance Research Indicator Country Snapshot (GRICS) of the World Bank, and the Global Corruption Report of Transparency International. Environmental Performance Index (EPI2006), the Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI2004), the Ecological Footprint (ECOLFOOT), and the Wellness Index (WI). The review would help to identify relevant and appropriate indicators that can be adapted at the Africa level.

• Interviews with relevant experts within UNECA, the AUC, the AU/NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA), the African Development Bank (AfDB), including authors of the SDRA Report.

• Discussions with selected reputable experts through one to one meetings, phone calls, and emails

• Drafting of the indicator framework and generating the initial compendium of sustainable development indicators for Africa based on the framework.

• Identification of data availability and gaps, assessment of quality and capacity needs, and providing recommendations to generate the required data.

• Feedback from participants of the validation workshop.

It is important to note that any work on sustainable development indicators is never a one-time undertaking, but a continuous process of testing and retesting of indicators at the national, sub regional, regional and global levels; distilling lessons learned; and based on these lessons learned, improving and refining regularly indicators in coverage and quality.

The diagram below shows the proposed process of developing the SD indicators framework and compendium of indicators, which entails participation of member countries and UNECA partner institutions.

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African SD Indicators Framework & Compendium of Indicators Preparation Process

Figure 1: African SD Indicators Framework & Compendium of Indicators preparation process

2. Background and Context

The question of measuring sustainable development (SD) and what indicators to use has been an issue of considerable debate since the Brundtland Commission Report brought the SD concept to the global scene in 1987. The Commission in its seminal publication, Our Common Future, defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Sustainable development is understood to involve the attainment of three related objectives: economic growth, social well being and equity, and protection of the environment in an integrated and balanced manner, which necessitates the existence of responsive and well functioning institutions- the fourth dimension of sustainable development.

It is fair to say that both in Africa and the rest of the world the notion of sustainability is not a new idea. Human beings have harmoniously coexisted with nature for time millennia despite their dependence on/depletion of natural resources for survival. In Africa, it is only since the colonial period more so in the post World War II years of corporate greed that the use of natural sources resulted in the destruction of species and ecosystems at a scale unknown to

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Inception Note Feedback from Partner Institutions

Agreed Inception Note

Revised Draft SD Indicators Framework

Feedback from Partner Institutions

Draft SD Indicators Framework

Draft Compendium of Indicators

Validation Workshop

Revised SD Indicators FrameworkCompendium of Indicators

Publication and formal launch of SD Indicators Framework

Pilot Testing the Indicators in Selected Countries

Preparing the Second Edition of SD Indicators Framework & Compendium of Indicators (way into the future)

humanity. “Over the past 50 years, humans have changed the ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). These rapid shifts included irreversible vegetation cover loss, threats to the quantity and quality of water resources, soil degradation and loss, climate change (recurrent drought and desertification), and an overall erosion of the natural resource base upon which most livelihoods in Africa depend.

The notion of sustainability postulates that used natural resources need to be replaced by an equal amount (quantity and quality) to offset depletion. It is, however, interesting to note the different perspectives regarding the origin of this sustainability or sustainable development, which influences the work on indicators. Keiner (2006) wrote that “sustainable development was born in 1713 in forest sciences when Carlowitz called for a balance between timber growth and lumbering.” Others attribute the origins of sustainable development to the founder of ecology, Ernst Haeckel, who wrote about ecology as a science and basis for social systems and argued for the need for society to adapt itself to the state of balance in the natural world (Ramphal 1992).

The sustainable development idea might even go back to ancient Greece with Aristotle, who wrote that property that is communally owned (water, air, forest, etc.) is the least cared for. Individuals tend to take good care of resources they own. Communal property often becomes “nobody’s property” as individuals are eager to exploit it but not assume responsibility for replacing it. Garrett Hardin articulation of “tragedy of the commons” in 1968 captured world-wide attention as the best expression of Aristotle’s concern. Diamond (2005) attributes the collapse of great human civilizations to mismanagement of common property (the environment). However, the extent to which a common property will be subject to “tragedy of the commons” depends on culture, institutions, and common property management regimes. For example, Ostrom (1990) argues that users of common property resources have managed, in various places around the world, sustainably those resources through local institutions and self-regulation that defined clearly individual and group rights and obligations. Indeed, Africa has a long and proud history of well functioning indigenous community governance and regulatory institutions, although these are under serious threat today because of political developments and perspectives that ended up concentrating power in the center.

At the continental Africa level, one of the earliest concerns for the environment, hence for sustainable development, was expressed in the 1900 London Convention for the Protection of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa, which aimed at preventing the indiscriminate destruction of wildlife (UNEP 2003). The other land mark agreement was the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources adopted in Algiers in 1968 by then Organization of African Unity (OAU). The Convention called for “the conservation, utilization and development of natural resources, particularly soil, water, flora and fauna resources based on scientific principles” to meet societal needs (UNEP 2003). Nevertheless, the current environmental problems Africa grapples with suggest that the two conventions have not been implemented.

In addition to lessons learned from past efforts to promote sustainable development, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in conjunction with Agenda 21, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) and the three Rio Conventions (UNCBD, UNCCD and UNFCCC) that Africa is party to provide the broad framework for development of indicators.

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A key objective of NEPAD is “placing Africa on a path of sustainable growth and development” through eradicating poverty, building peace, and conserving the integrity and diversity of its ecosystems, most notably its forest resources. Centred on “African ownership and management,” NEPAD calls for a new partnership between Africa and the international community and the enhancement of the continent’s integration in the global economy and trade based on “transformation from a raw materials supplier to one that processes its natural resource.” NEPAD makes clear that African countries will be responsible for restoring and maintaining peace, preventing and managing conflicts, enhancing democracy and human rights by (i) “developing clear standards of accountability, transparency and participatory governance.” Restoring and maintaining macroeconomic stability; revitalizing and extending the provision of education, technical training and health services; and promoting the role of women in social and economic development are the other measures that African countries are committed to taking. Monitoring of progress toward the attainment of NEPAD goals, so far, is done through compartmentalized traditional and sectoral indicators.

On the positive side, many African countries are, today, increasingly embracing the sustainable development idea as a recent ECA study of the experiences of 16 African countries shows. Almost all these 16 countries have embarked upon or set in motion the formulation and implementation of National Strategies for Sustainable Development, although there are differences in emphasis of the four dimensions of sustainable development (UNECA-FSSD 2010). “Increasingly, countries are applying the principles of sound leadership, good governance and multi-stakeholder participation and ownership (FSSD 2010). But one of the lessons learned from this process has been that greater integration of the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainable development calls for the development of specific indicators/indices to measure progress toward sustainable development.

UNECA’s seminal publication, the Sustainable Development Report on Africa (SDRA): Managing Land-Based Resources for Sustainable Development reviews in great length the sustainable development concept, the importance of indicators and work done on sustainable development indicators at the global level. The Sustainable Development Report on Africa (SDRA): Five Year Review of the Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development Outcomes in Africa (WSSD+5) takes the issue further and assesses how population growth, economic activities and consumption patterns, weak policies and institutions have impacted the environment negatively resulting in severe and accelerating environmental degradation against the backdrop of limited integration of environmental issues into development decision making. The report concluded that serious constraints and barriers remain on the path to sustainable development and ensuring social and environmental sustainability of economic growth Africa has achieved in recent years. It then highlights the vital importance of developing sustainable development indicators and the need for future work on indicators to focus on measuring the status of sustainable development in countries.

At the global level, all African countries, as members of the United Nations, have a responsibility for the implementation of Agenda 21, the Statement of Principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests, and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI). Under the banner, saving the earth, Agenda 21 and subsequently issued declarations and action plans to implement it called for a major shift in the priorities of governments and individuals in the way business is conducted on a daily basis, including the way we live, eat, move around and communicate in a manner that will show concern for the environment and sustainable and responsible use of natural resources. The UN Commission for Sustainable

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Development (UNCSD), created to monitor and follow up the implementation of Agenda 21, has developed a comprehensive list of indicators, which provide both the foundation and scaffolding for this African SD indicators framework and compendium of indicators.

Beyond Agenda 21, the three flagship global environment conventions, notably, UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to which all African countries are signatories of, impact heavily the form and content of the indicators work.

The UNCBD aims to enhance the conservation of biological diversity, ensure the sustainable use of its components, and promote the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from that use. Most African countries have formulated national biodiversity strategies and action plans to assist them realize the Convention at the country level. These strategies and action plans, however, remain largely unimplemented (Ejigu 2001).

In 2002, the CBD COP agreed on biodiversity targets to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity (biomes, habitats and ecosystems; species and populations; and genetic diversity at the global, regional, and national levels (UNCBD Secretariat). The targets set include (i) reducing major threats to biodiversity, notably, invasive alien species, climate change, pollution, and habitat change; (ii) maintaining ecosystem integrity to enhance human and ecological wellbeing; and (iii) protecting traditional knowledge, innovations and practices. At the recently convened Nagoya Biodiversity Summit (October 2010), the Parties agreed on specific targets that included: (i) “to at least halve and where feasible bring close to zero the rate of loss of natural habitats including forests”; (ii) to conserve “17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10 per cent of marine and coastal areas”; (iii) for Governments to ”restore at least 15 percent of degraded areas” and (iv) to make special efforts to reduce the pressures faced by coral reefs. These targets, ambitious as they may be, constitute obligations to all African countries. Progress made toward achieving these targets is monitored through the regular publication of the Global Biodiversity Outlook as well as the Africa Environment Outlook (AEO).

Almost all African countries have formulated national action plans (NAPAs) to combat desertification within the context of UNCCD, whose primary objective is to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought, mostly in Africa, through the rehabilitation, conservation and sustainable management of land and water resources, thereby leading to improved human and ecosystem wellbeing (UNGA 1994). The Parties to the Convention have developed a ten year strategic plan (2008-2018), which calls for expanded sustainable land and water management policies and practices, better preparedness and adaptive measures to reduce human and ecosystem vulnerability to drought and climate variability.

Strong political commitment and unity of purpose have been demonstrated in addressing the climate change issues under the UNFCCC, particularly during the preparation for and since Copenhagen. The primary objective of UNFCCC issued side by side with Agenda 21 in 1992, is the “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (UN GA 1992). Africa has the lowest per capita emissions. Yet, it is the most vulnerable region to climate risk in the world because the high dependence of African economies on natural

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resources. Some “projections show that by 2020, in some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 per cent”.. and “between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change, The African common position on climate change, articulated by the Nairobi Declaration on the African Process for Combating Climate Change and which will be one of the building blocks for developing SD indicators, includes: (i) “mainstreaming climate change adaptation measures into national and regional development plans, policies and strategies;” (ii) “ensuring adequate adaptation to climate change in the areas of water resources, agriculture, health, infrastructure, biodiversity and ecosystems, forest, urban management, tourism, food and energy security and management of coastal and marine resources;” and (iii) “moving Africa towards low-carbon development.”

African countries have embraced, right from the beginning, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the UN General Assembly through its Millennium Declaration of 2000, provide globally accepted framework for poverty reduction, social and environmental wellbeing. For almost a decade, national poverty reduction strategies have replaced medium-term development plans as tools for guiding and managing the economic and social development of many African countries. These NPR strategies have embraced the specific goals enshrined in the MDGs, notably, eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education, gender equality and ensuring environmental sustainability, which this SD indicators framework study has to capture and reflect. In the areas of economic growth and addressing environmental issues, however, these strategies have been generally weak, which has prompted some countries to launch five-year development and reconstruction plans.

This African SD indicators and compendium study will build upon these efforts, while ensuring that the indicators are reflective of specific macroeconomic and sectoral conditions as well as policy and institutional concerns of the continent. Most African countries share common problems: (i) huge dependence on natural resources for livelihoods and exports; (ii) pervasive poverty and food insecurity; (iii) soil, land degradation and biodiversity loss; (iv) prevalence of armed conflict; (v) low literacy rates; (vii) high incidence of HIV/AIDS and malaria; (viii) high vulnerability to drought and climatic variability; and (ix) fragility of the democratic process. This similarity of economic, social, and technological conditions among African countries would make the task of developing SD indicators easier at the continental level and also their effective use at the national level. This SD indicators framework is an effort to fill critical gaps through developing a comprehensive set of indicators that span across all dimensions of sustainable development and at the same time show inter-linkages.

3. The Conceptual Underpinning of Sustainable Development Indicators

Undeniably, the Brundtland Commission with its report, Our Common Future, pioneered the worldwide popularization of sustainable development and its eventual acceptance as a development paradigm. A key global response to the call made by the Commission was the convening of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Summit) in 1992, five years later. The Summit’s Declaration and its program of action (Agenda 21), and the landmark environment conventions (UNCBD and UNFCCC) ushered in a new era in the understanding and operationalization of sustainable development. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) of 2002 consolidated the achievements of the first decade

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of Agenda 21, reinforced it and laid stronger foundation for the pursuit of sustainable development.

Since SD was brought to the global scene, various efforts have been made to define and redefine sustainable development and even come up with an alternative development paradigm; but with no success. Enormous efforts were also made to picture sustainable development and draw the integrated and balanced nature of the three pillars: economic growth, social wellbeing and environmental protection. However, the dynamic and multifaceted nature of inter-linkages has made the task difficult, although many people ended up using the pyramid shown below instead of the triple helix tried in some areas..

Figure 2: The sustainable development pyramid and its three pillars

The pyramid shows that all the three pillars of sustainable development: economic growth, social wellbeing, and protection of the environment are of equal importance. The three pillars are inseparable and need to be pursued in an integrated and balanced manner. Inherent in this inseparability is the inevitable tradeoff (often short-term) between economic growth, protection of the environment and social wellbeing, which necessitates prudent management. Indeed, sustainable development is a continuous process of integration, balancing and managing tradeoffs. It has no end point as illustrated by the two directional arrows in all sides of the pyramid. At the center of the pyramid is governance, which represents “institutions” later added by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) as the fourth dimension of sustainable development.

Underlying the economic dimension of sustainable development is the concept of Hicksian income, and of optimal and efficient use of scarce resources to meet human needs.1 This entailed the shift of economic theory from the notion of efficient allocation to efficient use of resources and emergence of three forms of wealth: natural capital, human capital, and produced capital (World Bank 2005).

In explaining these three forms of wealth, the authors argue that “human capital” also called “intangibles” constitutes the largest share of wealth (World Bank 2005). Intangible capital includes the value of institutions as measured by rule of law, the skills and know-how embodied in the labor force, the freedom people have to work without threat, access to

1 Hicksian income refers to Hicks (1946) definition of income as "the maximum value which [a man] can consume during a week, and still expect to be as well off at the end of the week as he was in the beginning." The notion of “well off" has been interpreted to mean that consumption must be sustainable over time and .that income will be equivalent to the maximum sustainable consumption. (See Brekke, 1997)

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efficient judicial system, equitable and clear property rights, degree of trust among people in a society and their ability to work together for common purposes (World Bank 2005). In less developed countries, the authors further argue natural capital accounts for one fourth of the total wealth. This underscores the crucial importance of conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and natural resources not only as a means for but also as a goal of sustained economic and social progress. Accordingly, some economic growth models have also been modified to take into account associated environmental and social changes that traditional economic growth models shunned as unquantifiable, thus unworthy. Major efforts have been made and continue to be made to capture social and environmental costs of investment and growth in output. The valuation of aggregate output and demand that traditional economic theory based on a flow concept is now embracing a stock concept to reflect changes (degradation or loss in quantity and quality) in the stock of natural capital such as forests, fertile land, biodiversity and fresh water.

The social dimension of sustainable development refers to people (human capital), particularly the maintenance of different cultures, diversity, pluralism and effective grass-roots participation in decision-making (Maler and Munasinghe 1996). Intra and intergenerational equity remains an essential aspect of the social dimension of sustainability. Social sustainability is judged by whether all citizens of a given society have access to minimum standards of living, security, human rights, basic needs and benefits including access to affordable health and education services at the place and time they require them. Included in the social dimension of SD is the opportunity available for individuals to be gainfully employed, productively contribute to society, and the possibilities for them to receive just and fair rewards for their contributions (Reed 1996). Sen takes the issue further and argues that “sustainable development is not just sustaining our living standards, but rather our freedoms, including the freedom... to achieve a standard of living at least as good as our own and to look after next generation similarly, freedom to choose family size and … value objectives other than our own living standards (for example, preservation of some species)” (Sen 2001).

The environmental dimension is concerned with the maintenance of the stability of bio-physical systems through conservation, sustainable use and management of natural resources. The central issue here is the preservation of the “resilience and dynamic capacity of such systems to adapt to change, rather than the conservation of some ideal static state” (Munasinghe 1996). “Environment” long seen by many people, in its narrowest form (reduced to the conservation of trees and flagship mammals), is now increasingly understood as a field that deals with the totality of all biophysical resources, ecosystem services and functions, external conditions and factors that affect the development and survival of all species including human beings. It includes also the relation between human beings and nature and how they impact one another.

The ascendancy of climate change mitigation and adaptation as a global political agenda; biodiversity conservation as a development issue; and the recent interest of conservation organizations in such issues like poverty reduction heralds the shift in focus from species conservation to conserving the integrity and diversity of ecosystems, with people at the center of it. Indeed, the notion of biodiversity has enabled policy makers to address issues of livelihood improvements and conservation of species, genes, and ecosystems in an integrated manner. The economic, social, cultural, education, recreational, and ecological values of biodiversity are widely recognized and global efforts are being made to attach monetary values to these benefits.

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Environment is also increasingly recognized as a critical factor for national security and political stability, hence sound environmental management as a strategy for conflict management and building peace. NEPAD’s environment initiative encompasses: combating desertification, wetland conservation, controlling invasive alien species, coastal management, acting on global warming, promoting cross-border conservation areas, environmental governance, as well as related institutional, policy, legal, planning, training, financing and capacity development issues (AU 2001). Major environmental problems that reduce the integrity and the stability of bio-physical systems include pollution, deforestation, soil degradation, and in general biodiversity loss. Environmental degradation threatens all aspects of human wellbeing (UNEP 2007) including livelihoods, human health, human migration, insecurity, and conflicts.

While the inclusion of “institutions” as the fourth dimension of sustainable development by UNCSD represents an important milestone in the conceptualization and operationalization of sustainable development, in the African context, however, the term “governance” is much more relevant. Governance is often referred to as the glue that bonds the economic, social, and environmental pillars and makes sustainable development operational. Governance is also one of the critical areas of NEPAD, which identifies five aspects of governance: political governance, environmental governance, democratic governance, corporate governance.

Governance is a broad concept that encompasses: institutions, policies, customs, relational networks, laws and structures governing and regulating a community and common property, rule of law, effective participation in development, transparent and accountable processes, respect for citizens and their rights, state legitimacy, access to knowledge, information and education, and political empowerment of people that foster sustainability. Policies and institutions determine who has access to natural resources and who does not, when and how such resources are utilized, and how they are managed and protected. The rights of individuals, groups, and organizations in reference to a given resource may be different and unequal but such rights have to be institutionally established if the natural resource is to be sustainably utilized. Poor governance and resource mismanagement accelerate environmental degradation, inefficiency and productivity losses, social deprivation, and buildup of grievances that my eventual result in armed conflict.

NEPAD blames “poor leadership, corruption and bad governance” for Africa’s socioeconomic doldrums and argues that “development is impossible in the absence of true democracy, respect for human rights, peace and good governance.” It then calls for sound economic, political, democratic, and corporate governance including institutionalization of commitments made at various levels. In developing SD indicators, UNCSD included such issues as integrated decision-making; capacity building; science and technology; public awareness and information; international conventions and cooperation; role of civic society; and institutional and legislative frameworks as institutional indicators. This African SD indicators framework, however, goes beyond these issues and includes broader governance, peace and security aspects of development to reflect concerns and aspirations of the region expressed in NEPAD.

In a nutshell, sustainable development is a continuous process of growth and improvement in living standards, quality of life, productivity, educational, cultural, and political well being of the people while maintaining the quantity and quality of environmental resources. It can thus be understood in terms of improvement of economic, social, and environmental well being; sound governance; expansion of human capabilities; freedom from hunger, deprivation, and

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personal threats; having enabling conditions for people to be creative and use their ingenuity, and be free from any kind of insecurity arising from social marginalization, environmental stress, pollution, drought, and desertification. For the policy maker, sustainable development means that economic gains need to be seen in the light of the socio-cultural wellbeing of the people and the maintenance of the integrity and diversity of nature and natural resources. Similarly, social gains and the conservation of the environment need to be seen in the light of economic benefits and costs.

Despite its conceptual elegance and political appeal, sustainable development has been heavily critiqued as opaque, excessively theoretical, too aggregative, very anthropocentric, lacking concern for loss of human freedom due to environmental protection (Sen 2001), and a luxury for Africa, which struggles with life threatening problems like famine, refugees, armed conflict Admittedly sustainable development is a complex concept; but has been unduly mystified and made impractical.

Sustainable development is nothing more than a movement toward an integrated and balanced short, medium, and long-term process of development, improvement, change and transformation at all societal levels taken in continuous steps. Sustainable development has no end point, but requires acting upon the short, medium, and the long-term in a synchronized manner with the medium-term building upon the short-term and the long-term building upon the short and medium-term. It also espouses a flexible approach in which any of a country’s critical development problems and concerns, for example, poverty reduction, disaster preparedness, foreign exchange generation, agricultural, industry, and mining development can be entry points. Tackling unsustainable consumption and production patterns as well as economic and social behavior including extensive agricultural practices, heavy reliance on food aid can also be good entry points for the sustainable development drive. What is needed is for each entry point to be bolstered by robust investment programs to promote economic growth, technological transformation, improvement of social well-being, trade diversification, and maintenance of ecosystem services and functions. Indeed, the wider adoption and operationalization of sustainable development is an African political, economic, social, and environmental imperative. The opportunities are there for economic growth and transformation, which at the same time ensures social and environmental sustainability.

Indicators help to assess changes, or the lack of it, in all dimensions of sustainable development, their dynamic co-influence, and cause-effect relationships. These indicators need to show progress toward or retreat from sustainable development in terms of outcomes and processes with the view to encouraging policy actions and concerted efforts from all sections of society. Sustainable indicators help to analyze sources of un-sustainability including policies and human behavior to help come up with measures to remove constraints and pave the ground for achieving balanced and integrated development. One study on indicators of sustainability (Holdren et al., 1992) concluded:

“…the list of what is not known and what needs to be known in order to address unsustainability with comprehensiveness and rigor is a very long one. At the same time, there is a great danger in falling into the scientist’s trap of calling for more research without sufficiently emphasizing what we already know and the implications of that knowledge.”

What is needed, however, is a systematic and regular assessment of progress or lack of progress toward sustainable development to generate sufficient knowledge for decision making. This SD framework embraces assessment (economic, social, environmental and

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governance) as a double-pronged tool for: (i) understanding Africa’s specific conditions and development challenges on which indicators will be based on, and (ii) effectively using indicators for determining how far or close the region is in its progress toward sustainable development.

4. Assessing and Measuring Sustainable Development

Sustainable development assessment is an integral part of SD indicators development. Assessments help establish initial sustainable development conditions, measure changes over time and space, identify drivers of the change (triggers and amplifiers), capture both actions and reactions (responses) – the chain effect, and bring all actors in the process. Indeed, one of the key developments of the post UNCED era is the evolution through which “assessment” went through, both in concept and practice, from a tool for “fault finding (inspection) to one that facilitates well informed decision making and at the same time learning and reflection. Its earlier focus on expert based and quantitative performance measurements (in terms of outcomes and impacts) have also shifted toward participatory and qualitative measurements (processes). These efforts were strengthened by the growing commitment to building an assessment culture and institutionalize assessments as integral parts of policy making and planning.

In addition to cost benefit analysis, today, development decision-makers have a variety of assessment tools available to them. These include: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), Environmental Security Assessment (ESA), Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA), Poverty Assessment (PA), Biodiversity Assessments (BA), Vulnerability Assessment (VA), the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), and Sustainable Assessment (SA). All these tools have one common objective: inform development policies and programs in a timely manner to promote and achieve sustainable development, which is also the objective of SD indicators.

The Millennium Ecosystem2 Assessment (MEA) is perhaps the most profound and massive undertaking covering the entire earth’s surface. MEA provided a holistic idea on the status of various ecosystems, drivers of ecosystem degradation, consequences of degraded ecosystems on human well-being and economic development, and options available to conserve the integrity and diversity of ecosystem and their contributions to achieving sustainable development and meet human needs. The assessment involved governments, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and scientists and influenced considerably international development cooperation and relations among countries.

The oldest of the environment related assessment tools is Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), born in the US Environment Protection Agency (US EPA) back to the late 1960’s. EIA is a highly structured process of identifying, predicting, evaluating, and mitigating environmental and social consequences of intended projects/activities. Most EIAs today include assessment of social impact and are often referred to as Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA). The development of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) over the past decade and half is an important milestone in quest for a comprehensive

2 The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - Ecosystems and Human Well-being: A Framework for Assessment offers the following definition: (i) ecosystem – a functional, dynamic and complex unit of flora, fauna, microorganisms across different landscapes; (ii) ecosystem services – food, shelter, climate regulatory services, pollutant filtrations, nutrient cycling, cultural services; (iii) ecosystem wellbeing – integrity and diversity of nature, human survival.

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assessment of development activities. SEA is a systematic process of integrating environmental concerns in policies, plans, and programs using a variety of tools rather than a single, fixed, and prescriptive approach like EIA. The primary objective of SEA is to assess the environmental consequences of a proposed policy, plan or program; and conversely the constraints on development imposed by the environment with the view to influencing these policies and programs to integrate environment concerns at the earliest and most appropriate stage of decision-making. Although at a very early stage of practice in Africa, SEA promotes flexible, adaptive, and diversified approaches that fits the level and generality of decision-making, sector, and environmental consequence and assists in building stakeholder engagement for improved governance. The combined ESIA (environmental and social impact assessment) and SEA methodology (often referred to as “environmental assessment”) comes closer to addressing sustainable development issues, albeit fraught with several weaknesses. Among these weaknesses are: the lack of awareness and weak political support; paucity of knowledge; narrowly focused on biophysical concerns, technically oriented and discretionary; problems to be tackled became too complicated (visible and invisible pollutants, short and long term, community and national level impacts); and proved inefficient (biodiversity loss, income inequality, poverty, climate change, ozone layer depletion, loss of aquifers and their pollution, etc.) making repair and rehabilitation too costly (Gibson 2005).

EIA, ESIA, and SEA methodologies and processes have been supplemented by such tools as Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) – assessing the likelihood of sudden and slow-onset environmental changes impacting species and ecosystems, e.g., the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, 2010); Environmental Security Assessment (ESA – examining the link between environmental change, grievances, and political instability/conflict); vulnerability assessment, etc. are all vital contributions to assessing progress toward sustainable development. Almost all countries that launched national poverty reduction strategies conduct poverty assessments periodically. These poverty assessments have helped to improve the priority focus, program content as well as the contribution of PRSPs to promoting sustainable development.

Despite improvements in environment assessment methodologies and also refinements in poverty and vulnerability assessments, the need to fully capture changes in the economic, social, and environmental areas in an integrated and holistic manner have rekindled the quest for sustainability assessment (SA). They have also been proven feeble and inefficient as social cleavages, economic marginalization, poverty, vulnerability to climate risk continue unabated (Gibson 2005). Sustainability Assessments (SAs) seek to analyze the political, economic, social, and environment context (commitment to sustainability), engage all key players in a transparent and engaging manner, focus attention on most significant undertakings, and most importantly enhance national ownership of processes and results. Nevertheless, sustainability assessment remains a complex undertaking and at a very early stage of conceptual and operational development.

Assessment involves measuring changes in the object to be assessed, in this case sustainable development or its four pillars (economic, social, environmental, and governance) in an interlinked manner. There is a two-way relationship between indicators and assessment: indicators are used to conduct assessments while assessments help generate indicators and also influence the nature and types of indicators. The development of indicators, however, has assumed a broader scope and wide ranging uses, for example, at the technical level for conducting: (a) assessment – establishing benchmarks, problem identification; (b) priority setting, plan and program formulation-articulating objectives and target setting; plan and

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program elaboration – elaboration; (c) defining relationships (input – output matrices), win wins, tradeoffs; and (d) monitoring implementation – follow up, learning and improving. But first, what are indicators and why do we need them?

5. Sustainable Development Indicators: Building on Existing Knowledge and Practices

5.1 What are Sustainable Development Indicators and How Are They Different from Traditional Indicators?

Sustainable development indicators show, in an integrated fashion, the state of economic, social, and environmental wellbeing and changes taking place in a sector, system, institution, community, country, region, or continent. Often communicated in the form of tabular data, graphics, text, and maps, indicators provide benchmarks and help measure performance, i.e., where a country, sector or institution stands now compared to months or years back, where it is going; measure the degree of sustainability (integration of economic, social and environment objectives), how close or far a sector or a country is from desired targets and goals, where weaknesses are, and what needs to be done. Indicators help also set targets, monitor implementation of plans and programmes, facilitate taking appropriate policy and managerial action, facilitate comparisons across sectors, countries or regions, facilitate research and policy analysis by helping to identify problems. For policy decision makers, indicators form a useful communication tool for assessing and expressing the relative effectiveness of (or need for) policies and performance of elected political leaders (political accountability). Numeric indicators often provide the most useful and understandable information to decision-makers. In Africa and other developing countries where there is paucity of data, qualitative information is necessary to understand the condition of a sector or community and monitor progress.

Because sustainable development is the pursuit of integrated and balanced development across sectors, generations, and places, sustainable development indicators tend to be cross-sectoral and multidimensional, where a sectors progress or retreat is expressed in relation with changes in other sectors. Examples of such indicators are: economic growth measured in changes in GDP adjusted for environmental degradation and income inequality instead of ordinary GDP; the switch from leaded to unleaded fuel; the ratio of renewable energy used at renewable rate compared to nonrenewable energy instead of total energy consumption of a country; and the percent of farm area in hectares sustainably managed instead of land area cultivated.

Indicators of sustainable development are different from traditional indicators of economic, social, and environmental progress as they are required to point out areas of strong or weak links between economic growth, social wellbeing, and environmental protection. For example, GDP is universally used indicator of economic growth. However, it cannot be considered a sustainable development indicator because it treats, among other things, the depletion of natural capital or degradation of the environmental resources because of economic activity as income. In other words, in a traditional GDP calculation, a tree will have value only when it is cut and put into the production process (or when it generates economic activity). Further, as GDP records all monetary transactions, activities that depreciate human capital and quality of life such as crime, divorce and natural disasters are treated as economic gain. GDP increases also with activities that pollute the atmosphere or oceans and coral reefs, and it further increases when society spends for clean-ups. In lieu of GDP, what can be

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regarded as a sustainable development indicator is Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which adjusts GDP for changes (degradation or improvement) in human and natural capital. Sustainable development indicators can measure inputs, process, outputs, and outcomes. Input indicators measure resources (human, materials and financial) devoted to a particular program or intervention, for example, budget earmarked, the number of workers needed, the amount of fertilizer used, etc. Output indicators measure the quantity of goods and services produced. made available and consumed. Because sustainable development is a process of interaction among economic, social, ecological, and institutional/political factors, process indicators play critical role in measuring progress toward sustainability and/or effectiveness of program services and goods. Examples of process indicators are: degree of participation in development: problem identification, priority setting, visioning and formulating a long term strategy; gender equity, and institutional capacities, policy enforcement; degree of local ownership.

Indicators of sustainable development can also measure pressure factors, state/condition, responses, effects/impacts, and mitigation measures. For example, in the area of fresh water, sustainable development indicators include: water sectoral withdrawals (%, m3) – a measure of pressure factor; water consumption per capita (m3) - a measure of state of condition; water availability per capita (m3) - a measure of effect/impact; and increase of rural population with access to safe water (%) – mitigation measure.

Sustainable development indicators take into account the needs of different sectors and decision-makers including those at the policy level, academic and research institutions, communities and their organizations, private sector investment decisions, media, and international development community. For example, indicators geared toward policy makers can be used to identify problem areas and weak links; set benchmarks and policy targets; monitor implementation; and conduct political campaigns. But to be useful to decision makers, data on indicators must be accurate, reliable, and collected frequently enough to facilitate decision making at all possible levels and places. In some areas, the quality and accuracy of statistical data may be important for the decision maker than the quantity or coverage. In other places, qualitative indicators may have to be used or the coverage of the statistical data with less accuracy may have more value. The information/ data should also be there at the time needed. In Africa, where national statistical offices are weak, and where economic and social infrastructure is poor, the quality and coverage of primary data would be poor. Decision making processes should thus take into account the data inadequacy and set provisions. Indeed, there is strong correlation between the adequacy and reliability of data and the level of technological development of countries. The type, quality, and range of indicators used vary between developed and developing countries accordingly.

Key Developments in Measuring Performance and Monitoring Sustainable

Several institutions have launched programs to measure performance and monitor sustainable development aggregated mostly at the country level. Among these are: • Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) – developed by the World Bank, GPI measures overall

economic wellbeing sustainability of a country by adjusting GDP for social costs (crime, automobile accidents, commuting, family breakdown, loss of leisure time, underemployment) and environmental costs (household pollution abatement, water pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, loss of wetlands, loss of farmlands, depletion of non-renewable resources, long-term environmental damage, ozone depletion, and loss of

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old-growth forests). GPI has not yet been accepted and practiced worldwide (World Bank 2005).

• Genuine Domestic Savings (GDS). Traditionally measured savings and investment are income-based that take into account the depreciation of physical capital and exclude the natural and human capital. Developed by the World Bank, GDS seeks to capture changes in all capital forms: physical capital (generated by applying human skills and know-how on natural capital); human capital (stock of capabilities-productive capacities of individuals acquired or inherited) and natural capital (natural resources and ecosystem services) (World Bank 2005).

• Ecological Footprint: seeks to measure sustainability by calculating human consumption requirements of the earth’s surface through aggregating the quantities of energy and renewable resources – minerals excluded – that a society (at any level from country to community, household, sector or business) consumes. This consumption is then converted into a common unit of area: the area of productive land and sea required to supply the same resources and absorb the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. (Global Foot Print Network).

• Human Development Index (HDI) – developed by the UNDP, HDI measures national progress through the indexation of three socio-economic indicators: longevity, knowledge, and standard of living. It is often considered as an alternative to GDP, although not yet universally accepted by the scientific community and internalized at the national level. It entails considerable investment in national statistical offices to enable them generate the data required for developing the index.

• Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI). Prepared by the Yale University Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP) and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) of Columbia University, ESI seeks to measure sustainability by using the environment as an entry point and gauging the ability of nations to protect the environment through tracking “natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, environmental management efforts, and the capacity of a society to improve its environmental performance. The measurement focuses on five issues: environmental systems, reducing environmental stresses, reducing human vulnerability to environmental stresses, societal and institutional capacity to respond to environmental challenges, and global stewardship.

• Governance Research Indicators Country Snapshot (GRICS). Developed by the World Bank, GRICS appraises how “governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them by focusing on six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability; political stability and absence of violence; government effectiveness; regulatory quality; rule of law; and control of Corruption (World Bank 2009).

Beyond those stated above, laudable efforts have also been made by various organizations to craft tools for monitoring progress toward or retreat from sustainable development. Among these are:

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• The Barometer of Sustainability. Developed by IUCN-the World Conservation Union and IDRC, the Barometer is based on the premise that economic growth, social and environmental wellbeing are inseparable and integral parts of the egg of sustainable development. One of the key features of the Barometer is a performance scale which the user can mark as desirable, acceptable, or unacceptable to ensure that ecosystem and human well-being are mutually supportive.

• Dashboard of Sustainability: Named after a vehicle’s instrument panel and presented in visual format, the Dashboard of Sustainability illustrates the complex relationships among economic, social and environmental issues by displaying performance toward (or away from) sustainability. The Dashboard also displays the Millennium Development Goals indicator set. Among its key features are: performance evaluation with individual indicators and aggregate indices; country comparison with distribution curves and maps; comparison within country groups; and linkage analysis and scatter plots.

• Natural resource accounts (NRA) and material/energy balances (MEB) measure physical exchanges between the economy and the environment natural resource accounts record changes in the stocks of raw materials such as minerals or timber material/energy balances record the flows of materials and energy from the environment to the economy, through the economy, and back to the environment as pollution and wastes.

Monitoring progress toward sustainability can also be done through a regular reporting on trends, changes in and co-influence of the economic, social and environment pillars of sustainable development. The three key global publications, which this SD framework study will draw upon, are: the Global Environment Outlook (GEO), the African Environment Outlook (AEO), and the Global Biodiversity Outlook are good examples.

The African Environment Outlook (AEO) is a flagship publication of AMCEN with the support of UNEP, its host agency. Since its first publication in 2002, AEO has become the most authoritative, influential, and valuable source of comprehensive information on environment and development in Africa. Published every four years, AEO tracks country, sub-regional and regional state of the environment, trends, threats, opportunities, and emerging issues. “Some 22 countries and five sub-regions have produced their environment outlook reports using the AEO methodology (UNEP 2006). With its well developed list of themes, priority issues, lead indicators, type of indicators, and indication of sources of data, AEO is a valuable reference for this SD indicators work.

The Global Environment Outlook (GEO). A flagship publication of UNEP, GEO is a comprehensive report on the global state of the environment, trends, challenges, and the way forward to improving environmental management. Since initiated immediately after the publication of Agenda 21, GEO is on its fifth year with GEO-5 expected in 2012. One of the unique features of GEO is its use of wide ranging data sources and highly participatory and consultative approach to its preparation involving leading scientists, environmental experts and key policymakers within a well coordinated global network of collaborating centers.

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Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO). This is the flagship publication of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Currently on its third edition, GBO draws upon a range of information sources to report and status and trends of biodiversity as well as on the implementation of the Convention.

The above performance measures and reports are valuable sources of information and indicators. Their contribution to the development of this indicators framework varies with the degree of relevance to Africa, data availability, level of aggregation, and user friendliness. AEO is the most relevant and vital source of information for this work. GEO and GBO make also important contribution to, but to a lesser extent. Since its first publication in the early 1990s, HDI comprehensive approach to human resource had a profound effect in the development practitioners, researchers, and academicians view societal advancement. ECOFOOT, similarly, had enormous effect on how people see their consumption behavior in relation to the earth’s resources. Undoubtedly, ESI and GRICS have played significant role in global awareness raising and inter-country comparison. However, their usefulness for development decision making at the country level has been limited. “Rather than offering a comprehensive view of sustainable development, many of these indicators are specifically focused on the environmental dimension of sustainable development and resource management, for example Ecological Foot Print” (UNCSD 2007). This SD indicators work is an effort to develop more comprehensive, relevant, and at the same time user friendly indicators framework.

5.2 Characteristics of Good Indicators

The question of what are good and/or sound sustainable indicators has been debatable. There is, however, growing convergence of opinion on common characteristics of good indicators that include: relevance, reliability, consistency, cost effectiveness, availability. For example, UNCSD in its publication “Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies of October 2007” Third Edition, came up with nine characteristics of a good sustainable indicator:

• primarily national in scope • relevant to assessing sustainable development progress• limited in number, but remaining open-ended and adaptable to future needs• broad in coverage of Agenda 21 and all aspects of sustainable development• understandable, clear and unambiguous• conceptually sound• representative of an international consensus to the extent possible• within the capabilities of national governments to develop; and• dependent on cost effective data of known quality.

UNECA’s sustainable development report (SDRA I), for example, used the following: • ease of measurement • availability• usefulness • sensitivity• user-friendliness • reliability • validity• policy relevance and cost effectiveness.

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To this list, one can add the following3 characteristics of what are called good indicators: • represent or cover the most important parts of the sector or problem of concern• show trends over time and differences between places and groups of people• cross-sectoral: indicator addresses the economic growth or decline within the context

of the environment and social changes or environmental protection and social changes within the context of economic factors.

• consistent: fully internalized, adapted and/or chosen by national organizations in light of prevailing conditions.

Undeniably, all the criteria listed above are important. For purposes of this study, the following will be used:

• relevant to sustainable development (show status, assess progress, planning and management) and addresses the economic growth or decline within the context of the environment and social changes or environmental protection and social changes within the context of economic factors;

• effective – provide critical information representing or covering all aspects of sustainable development issue, sector, or problem of concern;

• reliable - trust the information that the indicator is providing;• understandable to non-experts, clear, unambiguous, and conceptually sound;• available – at the time and place needed and based on readily accessible data

permitting the gathering of additional information to fill gaps, if any, in a timely manner and at reasonable cost;

• show trends over time and differences between places and groups of people; and• consistent with current practices of multinational development and finance institutions

and also many countries

5.3. Sources of Indicators: Embracing Qualitative Information

Where do we get these indicators from? This is one of the critical questions posed in any type of indicators development. The source of most indicators is primary data, which is usually generated from:

• administrative records – national and local governments (municipalities), ministries of agriculture, health, transportation, energy, custom departments, commercial and central bank on exports and imports, etc.

• field surveys and/or census – usually conducted by a statistical authority. For example, population census, household income and expenditure surveys, crop production surveys, industrial surveys, etc. are all important sources of indicators. The survey and census conducted by central statistical offices is often based on sound science and universally accepted methodology, which makes the data generated reliable. It is also possible to obtain such data on time series basis as central statistical offices conduct periodic surveys.

• mapping and remote sensing institutions – make available maps, Satellite images• international organizations – climate data, terms of trade, foreign direct investment • assessment studies and field research – although often one-time undertakings, studies

conducted by individuals, academic institutions, research centers, civil service organizations, and in some cases private sector are important sources of data.

3 See http://www.sustainablemeasures.com/Indicators/index.html

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Obviously, numbers are powerful tools to communicate messages and tell a story. Numbers placed on a tables and graphs; for example, tell an entire a story over generations by a glimpse. However, in Africa, where statistical data is lacking, it is not uncommon to come across sectors and institutions, whose planning and program monitoring work has been stifled for lack of data. One rule of thumb in indicators development is: never get stuck. Every effort has to be made to complement quantitative indicators with the use process and qualitative indicators. Qualitative indicators are as important as quantitative indicators. Participatory planning, policy development, monitoring and evaluation, and in general development decision-making in which the essential feedback loops are kept healthy and functional are, thus, vital indicators. As explained earlier, sustainable development is a continuous process of (i) growth and improvement in living standards, quality of life, productivity, educational, cultural, and political well-being of the people; and (ii) process of ensuring intra and intergenerational equity, seeking mutually beneficial strategies, enhancing partnerships, making prudent tradeoffs including sacrificing short term interests for bigger long-term gains while maintaining and also improving the quantity and quality of environmental resources. Some in fact argue that the actual measurement of sustainable development, complex as it is, may not make sense, what is needed is monitoring progress made toward sustainable development through process indicators.

5.4 Using globally developed indicators framework and indicators

Over the past two decades, considerable work has been done on sustainable development indicators by the UN system and other organizations at the global level. Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 encouraged countries, governmental and non-governmental organizations to develop and identify indicators of sustainable development, harmonize efforts at the regional and global levels and anchor development decision making in accurate and reliable data and sound information.

The UN Commission for Sustainable Development (UNCSD), the most authoritative institution on sustainable development issues, published in 2007 “Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies” Third Edition. This latest set of indicators is an outcome of “extensive testing, application, and use in many countries of the preceding two sets of indicators” (UNCSD 2007). It identifies four frameworks:

• Driving force-state-impact-response framework. This framework shows the cause effect relationships, how various factors impact one another and help decide what factors to focus on and indicators to use. The pressure or driving force indicators show processes or activities or factors that impact sustainable development either positively or negatively, for example, climate change or property rights while the state indicators show the current status for example of poverty, forests, coral reefs, etc. Response indicators reflect how governments, communities and individuals react to the pressure factors and essentially how they cope with negative consequences and how they react to positive developments and decisions taken by them. UNCSD discontinued the use of this framework because: “it was not suited to addressing the complex inter-linkages among issues; the classification of indictors into driving force, state or response was often ambiguous; there were uncertainties over causal linkages; and it did not adequately highlight the relationship between the indicators and policy issues” (UNCSD 2007).

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• Issue-or theme-based frameworks. Developed in recent years and most widely used, such frameworks involve categorizing and grouping indicators into various issues or themes in relation to sustainable development based on policy relevance. Such frameworks help to “link indicators to policy processes and targets” (UN 2007); help convey “a clear and direct message to decision-makers and facilitates both communicating with and raising the awareness of the public;” monitor progress toward sustainable development, and are “flexible enough to adjust to new priorities and policy targets over time” (UN 2007).

• Capital frameworks. These frameworks are designed to “calculate national wealth as a function of the sum of and interaction among different kinds of capital, including not only financial capital and produced capital goods, but also natural, human, social and institutional capital” (UN 2007). Capital frameworks facilitate identification of how development takes place and how it can be sustainable, what resources are available, and how they should be managed. Nevertheless, such frameworks may have little relevance for Africa, where there is data inadequacy, as they require “all forms of capital be expressed in common terms usually in monetary terms” (UN 2007).

• Accounting frameworks. These frameworks are used for aggregating total goods and services produced by a country, for example, gross domestic product based on data obtained from primary sources, surveys (crop production, household expenditure). The United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), the world’s most authoritative statistical institution, that developed the System of National Accounts (SNA) for estimating GDP, GNP, national savings and investment, has now prepared the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA). SEEA takes into account depletion of the environment when estimating aggregate output and demand and includes accounts expressed both in monetary and physical terms. It also “allows for the construction of a common database from which some of the most common sustainable development indicators in the economic and environmental spheres can be derived in a consistent manner”(UNCSD 2007). “Several countries are using the SEEA, and it is in the process of being proposed as an international statistical standard” (UNCSD 2007). In Africa, valuation of forest ecosystem services and functions, estimation of forest, biodiversity, and soil fertility losses have been launched, although not yet at the level of governments, in Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Namibia, among others, as entry point for greening GDP.

While the UNCSD work is an outcome of several years of discussion, field research, and testing of SD indicators developed earlier, the fundamental question remains whether the above theme approach is the best way around to express the linkage among sectors, in particular, the issue of integrated pursuit of economic development, social wellbeing, and protection of the environment in the African context.

The previous chapters have laid the foundation for generating indicators that are reflective of inter-sectoral connectedness through an amalgam of a modified driving force-state-impact-response and issue-or theme-based frameworks. Indeed, Africa does not have to embark upon expensive indicators development. Instead the approach here is to adapt those indicators developed by the UN system and other international organizations found relevant to address African development issues and concerns and build on them to develop a compendium of sustainable development indicators.

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6. Identifying, Selecting, Organizing, and Using Sustainable Development Indicators

The world has not yet come up with a single sustainable indicator. The identification, selection and organization of sustainable development indicators, thus, poses enormous challenges. It has also been an issue of considerable debate for the past two decades. There is, however, convergence of opinion on key processes to consider, which are:

• ensuring effective synergy of concepts and indicators• clearly defining what indicators are to be used for• developing conceptual frameworks• selecting indicators and determining themes, subthemes, core and other indicators

6.1 Ensuring effective synergy of concepts and indicators.

The identification and selection of indicators needs strong sustainable development knowledge: understanding of the concept of sustainable indicators and sustainability, what indicators to use, where to get those indicators, and what to assess and measure. Indeed, the type, number, and mix of indicators are dictated by the sustainable development concept and practices. Undeniably, there has been colossal effort made to translate the SD concept into concrete action and measure changes in this integrated process. However, many sustainable development indicators continue to be organized along sectoral or theme lines resulting in compartmentalization and disconnect between the sustainable development concept and the set of indicators used. In some cases, convenience and availability seem to dictate the selection of indicators with ordinary development indicators used as sustainable development indicators. For example, GDP calculated on the basis of the traditional flow approach is used as a sustainable development indicator although the post Agenda 21 approach calls for combining the flow and stock approaches, where the latter captures changes in the stock of natural capital (e.g., increase or decrease of forest cover (deforestation). Because data on aggregate output and services value added (GDP) estimated on the basis of sustainable development (green) accounting methodology are unavailable, many people are quick to argue that traditional GDP figures are good proxy indicators and thus make sense to use them. This has led political leaders to believe GDP growth rates as sustainable development achievements. This might have stifled efforts to introduce and use widely use green accounting methodology despite the idea coming on board to the global scene immediately following the adoption of Agenda 21.

6.2 Clearly defining what indicators are to be used for.

Indicators can be used to:• assess overall progress toward achieving sustainable development goals through

measuring changes in country’s economic, social, environmental, and governance conditions, development constraints, and opportunities; policies, plans, and programs; inter-linkages, trade-offs and/or complementarities among economic, social, environmental and governance factors, thereby, establish benchmarks and diagnose problems.

• inform policies, legal and institutional reforms to promote sustainable development or remove sources of unsustainable consumption and production patterns.

• formulate plans, strategies, and programs of short, medium and long term duration – setting priorities, articulating objectives and setting targets including national poverty

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reduction strategies, sectoral strategies such as sustainable agricultural and industrial development, education and health, sustainable mining practices, tourism, etc.

• manage development - defining relationships (input–output matrices), win wins, trade offs; analyzing economic and financial costs and benefits, establishing bench mark relationships

• improve governance, including enhancing decentralization and public participation including democratization

• public communication – convey messages on achievements and success stories or failures at the national and community levels.

• monitoring and evaluation – follow up, learning and improving using both quantitative and process indicators

• reporting performance on the implementation of global commitments the country has entered into, for example, Millennium Development Goals, multilateral environment agreements, universal access to education and health services, respect for human rights, reduce pollution, conserve the integrity and diversity of ecosystems, and others.

While the above is a list for possible uses of indicators, it is important to note that one indicator can have multiple uses. For example, national level indicators like GDP adjusted for environmental loss and income inequality can be used for all indicator purposes listed above. Indicators on forest degradation, soil fertility losses or improvements, use of fertilizers, etc are robust indicators at the local/community level.

6.3. Developing conceptual frameworks.

Frameworks facilitate decision-making on the identification and selection of indicators, including what to focus on, measure, expect and how indicators can be used. These conceptual frameworks show how an institution or country conceptualizes sustainable development, its key dimensions, inter-linkages and co-influences among the dimensions, how the issues are prioritized, and measured.

The kind of framework to be developed and used should, first and foremost, be anchored in and reflect the economic, social, and environmental realities, including technological conditions, threats and opportunities for growth. Under these circumstances, what will be needed is to develop an SD indicators framework that is amalgam of all the above frameworks. For example, the driving force-state-impact-response framework is relevant and powerful that facilitates understanding of the cause-effect relationship, helps bring up the impact of governance, and guides decision makers where to focus. The diagram below illustrates pressure–response-effect-mitigation conceptual framework, which is proposed for use to develop the African sustainable development indicators framework in combination with the issue-theme approach. It is a modified driving force-state-impact-response framework used earlier by UNCSD.

The conceptual framework, presented below, postulates that in highly natural resource dependent economies, which most African countries are, the manner people use and manage

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natural resources for livelihoods is influenced by pressure factors: climate change, population growth, property rights, markets, knowledge, technology, and infrastructure (both economic and social). Natural resource users and decision makers respond to these pressure factors through adopting various coping strategies at the household, community, and national levels that include: land use change; encroaching into marginal lands; degrading forests and wetlands, reducing size of commons (grazing areas), and at times shifting settlements. These responses under conditions of technological and knowledge limitations as well as weak governance often lead to livelihood losses, increased poverty, erosion of state legitimacy because the state is perceived to have failed to deliver goods and services needed by society, increased human insecurity, mass migration (mostly forced), and breakdown of law and order. At this stage, rational governments will take mitigating measures that include formulation of sustainable development strategies, tools, investment policy, improved knowledge, education / health, and developing human and institutional capacities, which in turn influences how people use their natural resources.

Pressure Factors Responses

Mitigation Effects/ impactsChart 4. A conceptual framework tracing the economic, social, and environmental effects of the use of natural resource under a variety of pressure factors

The framework also shows the governance (public participation, policies, institutions, state capacity to implement, etc) influence pressure factors, how individuals, communities, and the state respond to these pressure factors, how and to what extent the responses impact livelihoods and social formation, and the kind of mitigating measures to be taken. Under conditions of failed governance and weak state capacity, the manner in which individual and community resource users respond to pressure factors often results in livelihood losses, erosion of coping capacities, social and economic deprivation, and displacement. On the other hand, strong political leadership and capable states have the capacity to intervene at the right time to reverse trends and enhance sustainable development.

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Climate changePopulation growthProperty rights Markets KnowledgeTechnologyInfrastructure

Low investment rateLand use change Encroaching into marginal landsDegrading forests, wetlands, Reducing size of commons, Shifting settlements

Sustainable development strategies, tools, Investment policyKnowledge, Technology, Education / health Capacities (human, institutional)

Livelihoods loss, poverty Erosion of state legitimacy Human insecurity Mass migration (mostly forced)

Human and social capital: cultureNatural capital: land, forest, airwater, minerals energy resources

GovernancePublic participation, Policies, institutions,

State capacity to deliver

a) Sustainable development indicators reflecting changes in pressure factors. The second box above shows pressure factors that include: climate change, biophysical factors, population growth, property rights & institutions, knowledge, and technology impacting the use and management of resources (land/ forest, water, etc.). The physical environment (topography, slope gradient and length, and climate) has direct effect, independent of human action, on the behavior of natural resource users. Changes in population relative to natural resources, property rights and institutions governing rights, level of knowledge and technology (including indigenous knowledge), and development of markets also influence awareness, incentives, constraints in the use of natural resources, productivity, and social relations.

b) Sustainable development indicators capturing responses. It is widely recognized that environmental degradation is a result of individual and/or collective decisions made in response to actual or perceived changes in vulnerability to climate risk, the biophysical environment, population size, technology, institutions, market conditions, and public policy. Responses at the individual level may take the form of changes in land use, management practices, and investment. At the community level, responses may include changing the size of commons, the rules governing uses and transfer of common resources, as well as the distribution of benefits. These changes in resource conditions affect productivity, livelihoods and social structures.

c) Sustainable development indicators capturing effects/impact. The effects/impacts of responses, indicated above, trace the consequences of changes in natural resource uses (mismanagement/degrading behavior and practices), changes in human settlements, and erosion of coping capacities. As in a typical “Malthusian” scenario, these responses result in livelihoods loss, poverty, human insecurity, increased vulnerability to climate risk and natural calamities, rising covert and overt unemployment, and increased exposure to consumption risks that periodically translate to mass starvation, and ultimately erosion of state legitimacy. Increased human insecurity is a cumulative effect of food, health, political, economic, environmental, and community insecurities (UNDP 1994) and is generally a result of severe competition for scarce resources resulting in the loss of livelihoods, lowering of consumption levels, erosion of coping capacities, and large-scale population movements and.

d) Sustainable development indicators capturing mitigation measures. Once individuals and communities have exhausted their coping capacities, the primary responsibility for changing the course of events by taking mitigation measures rests with the state. These mitigation measures can take the form of developing sustainable development policies and strategies, tools, investment policy, enhancing knowledge, education / health, building capacities (human, institutional), and expanding international development cooperation.

e) Sustainable development indicators capturing changes in policy, institutions, and governance in general. SD indicators have multiple uses: policy development; formulation of plans and programs; setting development priorities; monitoring implementation of policies, plans, and programs; meeting international commitments; comparison of countries; assess political accountability, etc. In fact, there is a two way relationships between policy development and indicators. Policies shape the type of indicators to be developed while indicators inform policies about their successes and failures. It is also widely recognized that the proper management and use / the

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mismanagement and abuse of natural resources and consequent degradation is a result of individual and/or collective decisions made in response to changes in public policy or the lack thereof. Governance or public policy has thus a pivotal role in creating incentives to invest in land, strengthening institutions to innovate and supply new technologies, and in creating conditions to promote livelihood strategies that is consistent with the goal of sustainable development.

f) Sustainable indicators reflecting changes in human, natural, and produced capital wealth. Mitigation measures taken is bound to change the quality and quantity of human, natural, and produced capital which is captured by aggregated indicators, for example, the genuine progress indicator or adjusted GDP for environmental loss and income inequality. Other aggregated indicators like Ecological Footprint, the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) fall in this category.

6.4 Selecting and determining themes, subthemes, core and other indicators

Two factors influence the selection and determination of themes and indicators: first, African economic, social, environmental, governance realities, global and regional commitments, and planned actions; and second, the sustainable development concept and agenda.

Africa’s overall socioeconomic and environmental situation can be described as: largely subsistence and low technological intensity agriculture; low level of industrialization; high population and urbanization growth rates, high vulnerability to climate risk; large dependence on biomass energy; low level of access to education and health services; severe environmental degradation; growing water scarcity; fragile democracy; and low institutional and technological response. It is widely reported that Africa is the poorest region of the world with almost 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line and one-third of Africa's population undernourished. Africa faces also “lack of export diversification, supply side constraints, low levels of sub-regional and continental trade integration, and mounting food shortages” (UNECA and AU 2009).

It is against this background that NEPAD aims “to eradicate poverty in Africa and to place African countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and thus halt the marginalization of Africa in the globalization process” (OAU/AU 2001). It is also against this background that Africa’s sustainable development agenda and indicators need to be developed.

If sustainable development is the integrated and balanced pursuit of economic growth, social wellbeing and protection of the environment, the themes and core indicators will be those changes in resources or pressure factors or responses, or effects/impacts or mitigation measures that reflect the interaction of the three pillars of sustainable development. This can be illustrated, following Segnestam (2000), with the following:

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Chart 4. Core sustainable development indicators, socioeconomic sustainability, econo-environmental and socio-environmental sustainability indicators.

Africa’s core SD themes and indicators are those marked deep green; fall where the three pillars interact; and at the same time reflect the regions priority concerns or collective aspirations as articulated in NEPAD and global conventions that African countries are signatories of.

The following 20 themes have been chosen in light of the Africa’s current development opportunities and challenges as well as the proposed criteria described earlier, notably:

• relevance • effectiveness • easily understandable • consistency with current practices of multinational development and finance

institutions

The themes are:

• Economic transformation/ wealth generation

• Poverty• Governance• Food & agriculture • Health & nutrition• Social equity (women, youth,

participation)• Education • Demographics• Land• Forests

• Fresh water• Biodiversity• Energy• Infrastructure and markets• Natural hazards• Climate variability & change• Peace & security• Oceans, seas and coasts• Consumption and

production patterns• Global partnership for

development

The Table below shows a list of the core sustainable development themes that reflect current Africa’s development opportunities and challenges. It also shows how these themes relate to the three pillars, and also to regional and global commitments African countries have entered into.

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Table 2. Core SD themes for Africa and Status

SD Core Pillars National, regional, global, commitments

UNCSDthemeThemes Economic

GrowthSocial wellbeing

Environment protection

Economic transformation/ wealth generation

National Development Plans, NEPAD, modified

Poverty MDGs, NEPAD Governance APRM, NEPAD,

MDGs,

Food &agriculture MDGs, NEPAD XHealth & nutrition MDGs, NEPAD Social equity (women, youth, participation)

Beijing PlatformAU charters on women and youth

X

Education MDGs, NEPAD Demographics ICPD, MDGs,

NEPAD

Land UNCCD, AEO Forests NEPAD, ACNNR,

UNCBD, UNCCD, IPF

Fresh water African Water Vision Biodiversity UNCBD, ACNNR,

AEO

Energy NEPAD XNatural hazards AU/NEPAD Disaster

Risk Reduction Strategy

Climate variability & change

UNFCCC, MDGs African Common Position on Climate Change

asatmosphere

Infrastructure and markets

NEPAD, JPOI X

Oceans, seas and coasts

NEPAD, Abidjan and Nairobi Conventions

Consumption and production patterns

JPOI, African 10-Year Framework of Programmes on SCP, Chemicals and wastes-related Conventions

Peace & security NEPAD XGlobal partnership for development

NEPAD, MDGsWTO, ACP agreements, Monterrey Consensus, Paris Declaration, Agenda 21 and JPOI

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Explanation and justification for the choice of the core themes is provided below.

a) Economic transformation/ wealth generation. This refers to the call made by NEPAD to transform African economies from raw material producers and exporters to economies that process raw materials, aim for maximum value addition and diversified exports, and develop national industrial production capacity that supports the agriculture sector with technological inputs (fertilizer, machinery and tools, agriculture chemicals, etc.).

Today Africa accounts for only 2.7 per cent of world trade (2007), remains primary commodities exporter with crude oil and minerals accounting for about 70 per cent of total exports while agriculture and manufactured commodities take the balance or about 30 per cent of total exports (UNECA 2009). The UNECA Report further shows that “Africa’s share in world imports was about 2.5 per cent in 2007, and imports grew by 24 per cent the same year.” What is even disturbing is the structure of African imports, which is “concentrated in manufactured goods (68 per cent of total merchandises imports), followed by fuels and mining products (15.4 per cent) and agricultural products (4 per cent) (UNECA 2009). Sixty per cent of the top ten African exporters are oil-exporting countries and the ten top exporters accounted for 81.5 per cent of African exports in 2007” (UNECA 2009).

Africa’s undiversified export base, low share in world trade, and the dominance of manufactured goods in the import bill are prima facie evidences of the imperatives of restrategization and reprioritization of Africa’s development policies, including NEPAD target areas, toward pursuing NEPAD’s calls for “transformation.” This transformation requires placing Africa’s industrialization at the forefront of the development agenda; and aim at processing the continent’s natural resources to meet the needs of the population for manufactured products. Transformation also involves broadening the market size and investment capital through regional integration and diversifying exports by raising the share of processed goods in total exports.

The transformation of subsistence and extensive agriculture practices to high productivity intensive production processes will largely depend on the industry sector. Industrialization is not about expanding manufacturing industries; but transforming an economic activity or sector like agriculture from subsistence and traditional production methods to modern (efficient, value adding, and environment friendly) system of production of goods and services. Industrialization involves also developing and enhancing forward, backward, and lateral linkages of agriculture and other productive sectors.

There is no historical precedence where a country has emerged out of poverty before industrialization. While poverty reduction oriented development strategies are important, the attainment of sustained growth, technological transformation, social wellbeing, and even protection of the environment require the pursuit of strong industrialization agenda. A study conducted by UNECA in 2006 concluded that while the Poverty Reduction Strategies have resulted in “improved focus on poverty, active stakeholder participation, focusing attention on governance issues, and providing a better framework for managing aid and consistency with the NEPAD, ….the content of the PRS was found to be wanting in relation to economic growth and employment” (UNECA 2010). In terms of the PRS formulation process, “there was little attention to broader national processes and political

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organizations, especially Parliaments and that processes were driven in large part by the need for IMF and WB endorsement” (UNECA 2010).

With green and more environment friendly technologies made available, Africa has indeed golden opportunities to achieve industrialization based on clean technologies and avoid the environmental mess that the now developed countries went through. Some African countries are already on the path of industrialization, which was made possible through well articulated economic development plans that either embraced or replaced national poverty reduction strategies as primary tools for guiding and managing national economies.

b) Poverty. Poverty reduction is a vital development agenda at the global level (one of MDGs), regional level (NEPAD), and at the national level (national poverty reduction strategies). “Poverty rates continue to be stubbornly high in Central, East, South and West Africa, despite the impressive economic growth rates recorded in recent years (United Nations 2008).

“Poverty” is also one of themes of the UNCSD Indicators of Sustainable Development and Guidelines & Methodologies (2007). The Guideline breaks down poverty into income poverty (proportion of population living below national poverty line, proportion of population below $1 a day); income inequality (ratio of share in national income of highest to lowest quintile); sanitation (proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility); drinking water (proportion of population using an improved water source); access to energy (share of households without electricity or other modern energy services and percentage of population using solid fuels for cooking); and living conditions (proportion of urban population living in slums). In Africa, however, with much of the poverty being rural and with a majority of the population deriving its livelihood from fragmented and small sized farm plots, incidence of poverty tends to be strongly correlated not only to the availability and productivity of land but also to the household coping capacity with environmental threats (for example, vulnerability to climate risk); maintenance of ecosystem services to support subsistence agricultural systems; and also to sources of individual insecurity (for example, limited access to justice). “One in five rural Ethiopian households lives on less than 0.8 ha per person’, which yields on average only slightly more than half the daily cereal caloric needs per person, given current cereal production technologies used in Ethiopia. (Teklu, et al., 2003). Mapping of poverty by geographical area shows also poverty to be higher in villages that are characterized by poor topography and soils, low and variable rainfall, high population density and poor market access (Elizabeth 1997).

There is also the issue of how poor people see their future. Indeed, how people see their future and how they perceive their vulnerabilities to both (human made and natural disasters and threats) tomorrow and beyond is as important as their current state of poverty. “Vulnerability” of a person can be defined “as the prospect of that person becoming poor in the future if currently not poor or the prospect of that person continuing to be poor if currently poor” (Christiaensen and Subbarao 2004). Environmental stress and land degradation worsen both the actual and perceived vulnerability to poverty and famine both at the individual and community levels. For example, “during the severe 1984/85 Ethiopian famine households that reported to have suffered substantially more continued to experience two to three percent less annual growth per capita between 1989 and 1997 compared to those that suffered substantially less” (World Bank 2005). Poverty

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related sustainable development indicators, thus, need to capture not only the actual state of rural poverty (soil fertility loss and access to productive land), but also the extent to which people perceive the future (improved coping capacity at the individual, community, and state). This study argues for the inclusion of soil fertility; biodiversity losses; degradation of ecosystem integrity and diversity, among others, as indicators of poverty. The idea here is to have Ministers of Finance present success in reducing poverty reduction along with changes in soil fertility and biodiversity.

c) Governance. Governance, as used here, refers to policies and institutions; the rule of law, political empowerment of people, effective participation, respect of human rights, access to justice, transparent and accountable processes, an efficient and effective public sector, state legitimacy, access to knowledge and information, laws and structures governing and regulating a community including the management and use of common-property, and attitudes and values that foster responsibility, solidarity and tolerance.

Governance, as discussed earlier, is the fourth pillar of sustainable development and impacts societal economic, social, and environmental wellbeing across space and generations. The notion of governance encompasses economic, political, democratic, and corporate governances that NEPAD has identified and brings on board environmental governance, state capacity to articulate societal needs and respond to it, implement policies, negotiate bilateral economic and trade agreements. The key attributes of good governance can be summarized as follows:

• accountability at all levels• responsibility including for conserving ecosystem integrity and diversity,

sustainable management of common property• transparent including timely and unconstrained access to knowledge and

information • participation • responsiveness (to the needs of the people and their cultural values) • effectiveness (capacity to implement policies, rules and regulations) • legally secure property rights • rule of law• equitable access to justice• institutional stability

A unique feature of governance in Africa is the authority exercised by traditional institutions, which have played vital and effective roles in common property organizations and conflict management. While the authority of a state rests on its legal structure and enforcement, these traditional institutions have the moral authority and tradition behind them and have been effective. Thus, the respect for and effective use of traditional resource management and conflict resolution mechanisms is an important aspect of good governance.

d) Food and agriculture. Despite the huge natural resource endowment, Africa faces chronic food insecurity and indeed food crisis. The quantity and quality of food produced, how it is produced, marketed, prepared, and consumed is closely related to and a reflection of society’s economic, social, and environmental wellbeing. Most of the food production comes from subsistence agriculture characterized by low productivity, high vulnerability to climate risk, low technological input, fragmented land holdings, and high susceptibility to soil and water erosion. Today “most African countries are net food

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importers and the high food prices have resulted in deteriorating terms of trade for many (UNECA 2009) and increased dependence on food aid. One of the key objectives of NEPAD is “ensure food security for all people and increase the access of the poor to adequate food and nutrition.” As poor households spend more than 60 per cent of their income on food (UNECA 2009), achieving food security entails structural transformation of not only the agriculture sector but also that of industry (processing and supply of farm input), economic infrastructure (transport, roads, marketing, etc.), social infrastructure (education, extension, health services) as well as food culture. Indeed, attainment of food security is tantamount to achieving sustainable development.

e) Land. This is Africa’s greatest natural resource with considerable social, cultural, and historical importance. Land is the principal resource that provides for cultivation, grazing, and household energy. However, over the past several decades, the prime agricultural land in Africa has been shrinking due to climate change and extreme weather events such as drought; loss of vegetation cover; distorted property rights and tenure practices; unsustainable land use and management practices; and unplanned human settlements. Degradation of land in Africa is characterized by escalating soil erosion, soil nutrient mining, declining soil fertility, agrochemical pollution and increasing tendency towards desertification In arid and semi-arid lowlands, where extensive mobile pastoralism dominates, pastoral communities face contraction of rangeland because of conversion of large areas of range into large-scale irrigated agriculture and continuous encroachment of neighboring sedentary farmers into the traditional grazing areas of the herders. In these areas, conflicts over scarce pasture and water have become more frequent.

Though not widely practiced, irrigated agriculture has also been poorly managed, which exacerbated problems of flooding, siltation and salinization? Forest and wildlife resources, once a source of pride for Africa are threatened by unsustainable and often illegal harvesting practices, tenure insecurity, population encroachment, and conflicts over land use. Compounding these problems is the recent drive to commercialize African agriculture through large land concessions, which has profound environmental and social impact, given weak policies and institutions, including crowding out of small farmers, monoculture practices resulting in overuse of fertilizers and agricultural chemicals, soil pollution, increased green house gas emissions.

Forests. Forests have special place in Africa’s economic, social, and cultural wellbeing. They are vital sources of food, energy, construction material, employment, local and foreign trade as well as cultural identity. Forests provide also essential environmental services including controlling soil and water erosion, combating environmental degradation, regulating climatic variability, conserving lakes and wetlands, and freshwater systems.

On average, forests account for 6 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Africa, which is the highest in the world (UNEP 2003). In Western, Central and Eastern Africa where there is considerable forest cover, the contribution of forest to economic and social wellbeing of people is significant. The Congo basin in Central Africa is home to the world’s second largest continuous block of tropical rain forest (UNEP 2006), which provides critical ecosystem services and functions including regulating the hydrological cycle in many African countries.

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Areas covered by forest have shrunk by 3 per cent in Central, East, South and West Africa and increases in the proportion of people with access to safe drinking water and sanitation are far below the rate required to achieve the targets set for 2015 (UNECA and AU 2009). The forest sector in Africa is today under serious threat arising from deficient forest property rights, weak institutions, mismanagement, lack of awareness, paucity of scientific knowledge, and low priority (lip service) given to reforestation. The sustainable management and conservation of forests are, thus, critical building blocks of African sustainable development agenda.

f) Education. Education, as used here, all formal (primary, secondary, and tertiary) and non-formal training (adult and community education), vocational and skills training, the quality and coverage of education, access to education, the effective use of educated people including brain drain/brain gain. Education impacts the economic, social, environmental wellbeing and governance of any society.

“Bridging the education gap” is one of the prime goals of NEPAD. Education is widely recognized as one of basic human rights and a leading instrument for promoting and achieving sustainable development. For Africa, where progress toward sustainable development involves climbing out of poverty; accelerated economic growth and technological transformation; reversing environmental degradation and ensuring ecosystem integrity, etc., education is particularly crucially important. Education helps to improve a nation’s social wellbeing including health, contribute to reduced population growth, enhance governance, create greater tax revenue base, and lead to a more entrepreneurial society.

NEPAD aims “to enroll all children of school age in primary schools by 2015.” Despite progress made in increasing gross enrollment ratios in the post independence period, enrollment rates in primary school and higher education too remains the lowest in the world. About 40% of Africans over the age of 15, and 50% of women above the age of 25 are illiterate .Gross enrollment in higher education, critical to the transformation of African economies, which was 1 per cent in the early 1960s, stands at only 5 per cent (Bloom, Canning, and Chan 2005).

“Reversing the brain drain” is one of the objectives of NEPAD. With continuing flight of scientists, engineers, medical doctors, and social scientists, brain drain is among the serious problems Africa faces today. “Africa’s share in the world’s scientific output has fallen from 0.5% to 0.3% and Africa as a whole counts only 20,000 scientists or 3.6 % percent of the world total” ( UNECA 2000). UNECA further reports that “Africa lost 60,000 professionals (doctors, university lecturers, engineers, etc.) between 1985 and 1990 and has been losing an average of 20,000 annually ever since” (UNECA 2000).

Brain drain entails huge economic, financial, material, and social cost. Losing people after two decades or more of training means not only losing an entire investment in higher education, but also endangering the economic and political systems, crushing peoples hopes, and losing the multiplier effects of training as the less qualified people who remain in the country take responsibility for training future generation. Further, “to fill the human resource gap created by brain drain, Africa employs up to 150,000 expatriate professionals at a cost of US$4 billion a year (UNECA 2000).

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g) Health and nutrition. Health, is used here as defined by WHO, to mean a state of complete physical and mental well-being. Principle I of the Rio Declaration states that "human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature” (UNEP 1992). Health is both a means for and an end of development. It is a cross-cutting issue that impacts every aspect of sustainable development. High prevalence of ill-health, malnutrition, poverty, unhealthy consumption patterns, pollution, and environmental degradation, among others, are signs of unsustainable development.

Africa, today, faces huge challenges: average life expectancy is only 46 years. HIV/AIDS and malaria are the two leading causes of death (WHO 2005). According to WHO, there are an estimated 5,500 AIDS deaths a day in Africa. Of the approximately 850 000 deaths due to malaria in 2008, 85 percent of these deaths were in Africa.

h) Social equity. Social equity is generally understood to include fair and equitable access to resources, employment, education, and health services; full participation in the political and cultural life of a community; enjoyment and the exercise of basic human freedoms; and also fair and equitable to livelihoods (food, energy, and employment) and justice. Since some of these issues have been addressed by other themes, the primary focus of social equity theme is gender equity (women participation and empowerment) and intergeneration equity (effective communication with and involvement of youth).

In Africa, the place of women and youth both as the engines and beneficiaries of sustainable development is significant. The effective participation of women and youth (social equity) is, thus, a cross cutting issue that impacts all aspects of sustainable development. Despite progress made in areas of education, health, HIV/AIDS, employment and participation in political and decision-making processes. some visible progress made, “African women still experience the greatest forms of marginalization and exclusion from the benefits of recent growth recovery in Africa” (UNECA and AU 2009).

i) Energy. Africa’s energy profile is characterized by low production, low consumption, and high dependence on traditional biomass energy in the midst of a huge wealth of unexploited energy resources. Africa accounts for 5.7 percent of the world’s energy consumption, the lowest in the world. There is considerable energy wastage in the production and use of both biomass energy and electricity. Indoor pollution from the use of traditional biomass is also a serious health concern. Traditional biomass energy, used in the form of solid wood, twigs, and cow dung, accounts to over 97 percent of household energy consumed. For Africa, energy is an economic, social, and environment issue. For example, improved access to modern sources of energy in the rural sector would immediate impact the welfare of children as mothers will use the time spent gathering firewood to take care of their children.

j) Demographics: Africa’s greatest resource is its people; and the ultimate beneficiaries of development. Population growth rates, age structure, fertility and mortality, and migration impact societal economic, social, and environmental wellbeing.

Africa’s population reached one billion in 2009 (UNFPA 2009); and is growing at 2.3 per cent per annum. Over 70 per cent of this population, about 700 million, is under the age of 30 (UNFPA 2009). While the large youth population poses huge socio-economic challenges including increased pressure for education, health, employment, and housing,

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it also offers huge opportunities for innovation, economic growth, and technological transformation if managed well.

Driven by the high population growth rate in concert with significantly high rural-urban migration, Africa today has the highest urbanization rate in the world. Many African cities poorly planned and with weak infrastructure, as they are, hardly cope with the increased demand for services. A significant number of the urban population live n slum-like conditions, often without access to sanitation and safe drinking water, associated with increased health problems.

k) Biodiversity. “Biodiversity” is the brief form of biological diversity defined by UNCBD as, “the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems” In simple terms, biodiversity refers to the number, variety, and variability of all living organisms (species); their genes, and ecosystems. The term biodiversity includes forests. But because of the vital role forests play in African lives and social formation, it was found necessary to give special emphasis to forests and forest ecosystems.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) defines “an ecosystem as a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and microorganism communities and the nonliving environment, interacting as a functional unit. Humans are an integral part of ecosystems (MA 2003). In recent years, the conservation of nature has shifted from the earlier focus on conserving species to conserving ecosystems (functions and services). Ecosystem services and functions include: provisioning services such as food and water; hydrological cycle; regulating services such as flood and disease control; cultural services such as spiritual, recreational, and cultural benefits; and supporting services, such as nutrient cycling. The major current cause of biodiversity loss in Africa is habitat loss and that is likely to remain true for the first third of the 21st century (UNEP 2006).

Biodiversity has been a defining feature of Africa’s history, culture, economic and social organization. “Agricultural landscapes maintained by farmers and herders using locally adapted practices not only maintain relatively high crop and livestock genetic diversity, but may also support distinctive wild biodiversity” (Secretariat of CBD 2010). However, corporate greed combined with high population growth and policy failures since the colonial and more so during the post colonial period have significantly altered traditional forest management practices and the rural socioeconomic fabric. “Areas covered by forest have shrunk by 3 per cent in Central, East, South and West Africa” (UNECA and AU 2009). Further, “Africa and South America continued to have the largest net loss of forests in 2000-2010” (Secretariat of CBD 2010). Reducing deforestation and biodiversity loss have positive impact on poverty reduction, food security, energy availability, economic transformation, social wellbeing, and moderating the scale of climate change through enhancing the resilience of human societies and ecosystems.

l) Freshwater. The quantity, quality, and availability of freshwater impact the economic, social, and ecological wellbeing of any society. While Africa can take pride in its abundant fresh water resources, large rivers and lakes (Congo, Nile, Zambezi and Niger and Lake Victoria), Africa is the second driest continent in the world, after Australia. Water scarcity has already become a major constraint to development. First, Africa’s freshwater is unevenly distributed with close to a third of the water resources found in the

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Congo basin, where less than ten percent of the population resides. Second, an increasing number of rivers and fresh water lakes are drying up primarily due to climate change (particularly recurrent drought and temperature rise) and siltation caused by severe soil erosion. Third, high population growth and shifting human settlements induced by war and political instability, extreme weather events, etc. have placed strain on existing water resources.

It is estimated that a country needs at least 2400 m3 per capita of actual renewable water resources for industrial development and many African countries and all countries of the IGAD region, for example, are below this threshold. This lack of water will severely constrain food production, ecosystem maintenance, access to water for drinking and domestic use, and for development. Obviously, availability of water is only a means; what is most crucial is efficient management of water. Indeed, there are nations in the world, with much less water resources, that have successfully ensured adequate supply of water for their population and development through good management of their available water resources.

m) Climate Variability and Change. The heavy dependence of African economies on natural resources, against the backdrop of pervasive poverty and low technological and institutional response has made Africa the most climate vulnerable continent in the world. The impact of climate change and climate variability is cross sectoral and impacts all economic and social sectors. The agriculture sector, which is a primary source of livelihoods in many African countries, is sensitive to climate change and variability. Combined with poor soil fertility; pests; crop diseases; and lack of access to technology, markets, and infrastructure, climate change and variability impacts people’s daily lives, including what to grow and when to plant, what livestock to keep, where to live, settlement patterns, overall well-being, attitudes, and hopes. Years of good rainfall are associated with prosperity, while dry years are associated with adversities, deprivation, frustration, famine, and possible displacement.

Climate change and variability are manifested through a variety of phenomena, e.g., recurrent/increased frequency of severe drought, flooding, changes in rainfall patterns, increasing temperatures, growing water scarcity, lowering of the water table, drying of rivers and boreholes, disappearance of lakes, wetland losses, and increased prevalence of diseases, in particular malaria and waterborne diseases and increased balance of payments deficits (as most African exports are agriculture based). In countries with coastal areas, sea-level rise threatens to cause the disappearance of landmasses, drive population displacement, and decrease freshwater availability through salinization of groundwater and estuaries. Beyond environmental and economic impact, climate change adversely affects social structure and relationships, culture, and human security. Indicators of sustainable develop will thus include climate factors, among others, to show climate as a policy challenge affecting all dimensions of sustainable development.

n) Natural hazards. Apart from the slow onset natural disasters, i.e., drought, several African countries face flooding, earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, major storms, and cyclones risks. These natural hazards affect the economic wellbeing, social organization, settlement patterns, and overall environmental wellbeing of many Africans.

o) Infrastructure and markets. This is a key priority area of NEPAD. Infrastructure and markets refers to the availability, ease of access, and affordability of basic transportation

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and communication services that enable people to move from one place to the other to perform their duties, lead a productive life, and meet the basic necessities of life including food, shelter, water, education, and health services. It also includes opportunities people have to access markets (buy or sell any product), technology, research findings, network, and means for sharing knowledge and experiences. Availability of well functioning markets and unconstrained access to them impacts peoples’ livelihoods, social relations and wellbeing, as well as their relationship to natural resources. In several African countries, local people have to walk long distances to reach a market against the backdrop of poor infrastructure, non-supportive legal and regulatory framework, and limited or no access to financial and other support.

p) Oceans, seas, and coasts. Africa has rich marine environment includes the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and the Mediterranean and Red seas. The biodiversity of the coastal zone including grass beds and wetlands that occur around many shores are important source of livelihood to many Africans. They are also habitats for marine animals and sanctuaries for species; generate valuable sources of export earnings (tourism); and provide ecosystem services and functions. Considerable oil reserves have also been discovered offshore, for example in the Niger delta, while the coastal sand dunes and seabed sediments along the Atlantic shores of South Africa and Namibia contain commercially valuable alluvial diamonds and shores in Mozambique are endowed with commercial titanium and zirconium minerals (AMCEN 2009). Africa’s coastal areas are also experiencing rapid urban and industrial growth (AMCEN 2009) making pollution of oceans and cities a critical issue.

q) Peace and Security. Peace is the most valuable asset for any society. Sustainable development thrives best in an environment of political stability, peace and security, while sustainable development helps achieve peace and stability. In many African countries, armed conflict remains a major obstacle to development. While Africa has made considerable progress in reducing border conflicts, intrastate conflicts and tensions and civil wars remain. Most African conflicts today are intra-state, but tend to spread to other countries, producing large numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Africa’s insecurity, political instability, and conflict can hardly be detached from the process of managing competition over scarce natural resources, notably agricultural land, pasture, and water. Suffice it here to mention: farm land (as in Burundi, Zimbabwe, and Sudan); grazing areas (as in northern and southern Ethiopia and Karamoja in Uganda’s cattle region); water (as in Southern Africa, and notably including transboundary water resources); forests/timber (as in the Upper Guinean forest belt); minerals, including diamonds, gold, and oil (as in Nigeria, Angola, and DRC); and natural disasters have displaced people and generated conflicts in the Greater Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and Southern Africa.

The 1994 Human Development Report identified economic, health, personal and community well-being, political freedom, access to food and energy, and environmental insecurity as key elements of security. The concept of security was thereby brought into contact with the level of individual citizens and communities, although, even today, national security continues to predominate in many policy discussions. At the same time, peace has been linked to more tangible considerations such as the absence of famine, freedom from threats to livelihoods and severe income losses, physical vulnerability, displacement, health insecurity, social and political marginalization, and environmental insecurity at the individual and community levels. Indeed, peace and development are two

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sides of the same coin. Peace and security impact economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of citizens and merit consideration as core sustainable development indicators.

r) Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns. The integration and balancing of economic, social and environmental policy can be achieved either through considering the limits that the “environment” poses and the opportunity it offers (supply side approach) or through considering the end use of goods and services (demand side approach). A key demand-side concept is sustainable consumption. Personal and public consumption involves the use of resources to meet basic necessities of life: food, drinks, clothing, travel, entertainment, shelter, etc. to national security and defense. Consumption patterns express our way of life and behavior. Developed countries and the wealthy in Africa tend to “over consume” while the majority suffer from malnourishment, illiteracy, and easily preventable diseases.

Urbanization influences heavily what and how we consume as well as the management of the effect of that consumption (waste). About 347 million people (38 per cent of Africans) lived in urban settlements in 2005, which makes Africa the world’s least urbanized continent (UNEP 2007). It has, however, the highest rate of urbanization, with the urban population doubling every 20 years (UNEP 2007). Rapid urbanization and unsustainable consumption patterns, against the back drop of low technological intake, impacts considerably societal economic, social, and environmental wellbeing.

The fragility of Africa’s environment, coupled with rapid urbanization and increased consumption of energy, water and other resources are major constraints to making significant progress toward sustainable development. For example, while the drive to increase food production as quickly as possible to meet the every increasing demand is positive, in the absence of improve technology and farm management practices, this has led to the expansion of crop cultivation into marginal lands including steep slopes and pastoral areas. Changes in land use patterns have led to decreased water access, soil and water erosion, land degradation, overgrazing and deteriorating rangelands, deforestation, and armed conflicts in some areas. In the industry sector, the call for economic transformation requires accelerated industrialization, which means increased emission of noxious substances and toxic trash heaps in urban areas, etc. that degrade the environment, shorten life expectancy and threaten the integrity and diversity of ecosystems. SD indicators, thus, should capture both unsustainable and sustainable consumption and production behavior and trends with the view to encouraging actions to change sources of unsustainability to sustainability. Indeed, societal consumption as well as agricultural and industrial production can be significantly enhanced while protecting the environment and social values.

s) Global partnership for development. Africa’s relation with the rest of the world impacts positively or negatively the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the region. First, Africa is signatory of the MDGs, UNCBD, UNFCCC, UNCCD and the Basel Convention, among others. It has to meet its obligations under these conventions through developing sound national programs as well as forging partnerships with the rest of the world. Second, globalization impacts all economic sectors and acts like a double edged-sword. Globalizations opens up market opportunities, facilitates access to information, and technology, which Africa can access. At the same time, Africa can be victimized by free trade that comes with globalization because of weak domestic production base and poor infrastructure. Third, while Africa’s raw material exports are

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generally free from duty, exports of semi-processed and processed commodities are subject to various tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Fourth, the capacity of African countries to negotiate with industrial countries, forge mutually beneficial partnerships, and benefit from the global movement remains limited. Indeed, Africa is the lowest beneficiary of funding opportunities that were created in the post-UNCED era.

7. Core Sustainable Development Indicators for Africa

The SD themes identified and discussed above will be disaggregated to sub-themes and issues on which indicators will be derived from. The core sustainable indicators are reflective of changes in the themes identified above and illustrate the interaction of the three pillars of sustainable development. Using an Indicators Evaluation Matrix, the strength and weakness of each indicator needs to be evaluated against the criteria set above:

a) Is the indicator relevant to sustainable development? Does it show the status, help assess progress, formulate plans and help manage sustainable development? Does it address the economic growth or decline within the context of the environment and social changes or environmental protection and social changes within the context of economic factors?

b) Is it effective? Or does it provide critical information representing or covering all aspects of sustainable development issue, sector, or problem of concern?

c) Is it reliable? Do we trust the information that the indicator is providing?d) Is it easily understandable to non-experts? Is it also clear, unambiguous, and

conceptually sound?e) Is it available – at the time and place needed? Is it also based on readily accessible

data permitting the gathering of additional information to fill gaps, if any, in a timely manner and at reasonable cost?

f) Does it show trends over time and differences between places and groups of people? and

g) Is it consistent with current practices of multinational development and finance institutions and also many countries and facilitate comparison?

Each sustainable development indicator: theme, subtheme, and specific indicator need to be evaluated against these seven criteria. The discussion above on the twenty selected SD themes has sufficiently explained that each theme meets all applicable criteria. This section focuses on developing subthemes and pressure, impact, and response relationship from which the specific indicators will be derived.

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Theme Sub-themes /issues Pressure/ constraints Response Impact Mitigation StatusEconomic transformation/wealth generation

.Total wealth (natural, human, and produced)

.Macroeconomic performance (aggregate output and demand; investment rate and structure; saving rate and sources

.Value addition (share of processed goods in total output)

.Exports (volume and structure)

.Employment

.Development financing

.Regional economic integration

. Low level and limited access to technology

. Knowledge limitation

. Lack of investment capital

. Weak policy and institutions

. Infant entrepreneurial class (low level of entrepreneurship)

. Low foreign direct investment (FDI)

. Natural resource extraction

. Extensive agricultural practices

. Raw materials and agricultural based exports

. Low agricultural input intake

. Dependence on proportionately large consumer goods imports

. Environmental degradation

. Loss of foreign exchange

. Vicious cycle of low technological intake

. Covert and overt unemployment

. Industrialization strategy –processing of raw materials

. Domestic production of essential agricultural inputs and construction materials

. Regional integration

. Creating enabling environment for FDI

. Share of produced capital in total wealth

. Gross domestic product per capita

. Gross domestic product adjusted for deforestation and biodiversity loss

. Share of industry in overall output

. Share of investment in GDP

. National saving rate

. Share of processed goods in total exports

. Structure of imports

. Structure of employment (%)

. Labor force productivity and unit labor costs

Poverty .Income poverty

.Income inequality

. Property rights

. Low level of education

. Starvation

. Urban slums

. Food aid

. Famine and destitution

. Economic

. Economic growth with equity

. Proportion of population living below national poverty

.Access to land

.Living conditions

.Perceptions

. Limited or no employment opportunities

. Weak policy & institutions

. Unproductive land

. Climate change vulnerability

dependence and social marginalization

. Widespread social and economic grievances

. Large unproductive force

. Pro-poor investment and financing

. Employment generation

. Expanding access to education

line

. Ratio of share of national income of highest to lowest quintile

. Food aid dependent population

. Covert and overt unemployment rate

. Proportion of urban population living in slums

Governance .Political governance

.Economic governance

.Social governance

.Environmental governance

.Corporate governance

. Autocratic rules and absence of democratic institutions

. Weak state capacity

. Lack of public participation

. Lack of respect for human rights

. Undermining of local and community based justice and conflict resolution institutions

. Erosion of state legitimacy

. Unsustainable development

. Mounting economic and social grievances

. Rampant corruption

. vicious cycle of poverty and underdevelopment

. Economic and social grievances

. Injustice

. Participatory political governance

. Accountable economic governance

. Social governance

. Environmental governance

. Corporate governance

.

. Inclusiveness - participation (general public and civil society)

. Development effectiveness

. Capacity for international negotiation

. Degree of accountability

. Degree of transparency

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. Rule of law

. Number of land related court cases

. Corruption – percentage of people having paid bribes

. Clearly defined and legally secured property rights

Food and agriculture

. Food production

. Access to food

. Access to land

. Agricultural productivity and inputs

. Agricultural marketing

. Land tenure and security

. Food aid

. Climate change and variability

. Biophysical factors

. Recurrent drought

. War and civil conflicts

. Access to technology

. Infrastructure and markets

. Lowering consumption levels

. Erosion of coping capacity

. Increasing reliance on food aid

. Food imports

. Famine

. Population displacement and forced migration

. Increased reliance on food aid and distortion of development priorities

. National food security strategies and action plans

. Food production and processing targets

. Investment in agriculture

. Food production by source

. Percent of income spent on food

. Share of food in total imports

Land . Land use and status

. Access to land and

• Land use change (%/y, ha/y)

• Production systems (ha)

• Soil degradation (ha)

• Sustainable land management practices

• Arable and permanent crop area

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tenure

. Land degradation (chemical and physical degradation)

. Desertification

• Potential agricultural yields (kcal/ha, t/ha)

• Land use change

• Land degradation

. Fertilizer use efficiency

• Use of agricultural chemicals

Forests . Forest cover

. Forest recovery

. Forest management

. Deforestation (%/y, ha/y, %/ natural)

. . Forest fragmentation (%, ha)

. Action plans for sustainable forest management (Y/N)

. Forest cover (ha/type)

. Forest degradation

. Forest area under sustainable management

Fresh Water . Water availability (quantity)

. Water quality

. Water use

• Water sectoral withdrawals (%,m3)

• Water use intensity

• • • Rural population with access to safe water (%)

• Water availability per capita (m )

• Proportion of total water resources used

• Water use intensity by economic activity

Biodiversity .Biomass density

.Ecosystem integrity and diversity

. Population increase

. Extensive agricultural

. Land and forest degradation

. Extinction of

Eco-regions needed for conservation (ha)

National parksProtected areas (%,ha)Rate of biodiversity

. Proportion of land area protected , total and by ecological region

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.Species abundance and diversity

.Genetic resources

practices. Invasive species. Vegetation cover

loss. Conservation

condition (ha)

indigenous species

. National parks and protected areas under effective management

. Fragmentation of habitats

. Land concessions granted in prestige areas

. Species (abundance, distribution, and threats)

. Conservation of genetic diversity

Climate change and variability

. Climate variability

. Vulnerability to climate risk

. Air quality

. Temperature increases

. Rainfall patterns and distribution

. Agricultural productivity

. Sea level rise

. Famine

. Population displacement

. Greenhouse gas emissions per capita (T of C)

. Mainstreaming of climate change & variability in development policy

. Climate adaptation

. Climate mitigation

. Technology

. Knowledge

. Temperature and rainfall trends and patterns

. Percent of the population under threat from extreme weather events

. Carbon dioxide emissions (T of C, by activity)

. Urban air pollution

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. Indoor air pollution from burning traditional biomass fuel

Health and nutrition

Mortality

Health care delivery (access)

Nutritional status

Health status and risks

Access to affordable health services

. Under five mortality rate

. Life expectancy at birth

. Percent of the population with access to primary health care facilities

. Morbidity of major diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis

. Nutritional status (per capita caloric intake)

Demographics (population dynamics)

• Population growth

• Population age pyramid

• Human settlement

• Migration

. Fertility rates

. Distribution of population (rural, urban)

. Population in poverty (%)

. Projected population change (#)

. Population growth rate

. Dependency ratio

. Total fertility rate

. Urban rural

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population mix

. Rural urban migration

Education Educational level

Literacy

Brain drain / gain

. Gross and net enrollment rates in primary education

. Gross intake ratio to last grade of primary education

. Secondary and tertiary schooling attainment level

. Literacy rate (%)

. Number of medical doctors, engineers, and scientists working abroad

Social equity (women, youth, participation)

• Women

• Youth

• Social welfare

. Share of women in wage employment in non-agriculture sector

. Youth employment

Energy

. Energy production . Population dependent on

. Hydropower generation (total kJ)

. Efficiency of dams

. Percentage of population dependent

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. Energy use

. Biomass energy

. Access to electricity

. Renewable energy

biomass energy (kW/ha) on biomass energy

. Energy efficiency

. Percent of population with access to electricity

. Share of modern renewable energy production in total energy

Infrastructure and markets

. Roads

. Information and communication technologies

. Research and development

. Market access

. Road network (km) Infrastructuredistribution(electricity, damsroads, hospitals,schools)

GDP ininfrastructure (%)

. All weather roads in kilometers per capita

. Fixed telephone lines per 100 population

. Mobile cellular subscribers per 100 population

. Internet users per 100 population

. Gross expenditure in R & D as percent of GDP

Oceans, seas, and coasts

. Coastal zone . Population in coastal areas (#)

. Mangroves and corals surface

. Areas polluted in

. Protected marine/coastal

. Percentage of total population living in

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. Fisheries

. Marine environnent / pollution

. Proportion of fish stock within safe biological limits

(ha) coastal zones (ha).

areas (ha) coastal areas

. Marine area threatened by pollution

. Proportion of marine areas protected

Natural hazards . Vulnerability to natural hazards

. Disaster preparedness and prevention

. Frequency of natural disasters

. Population affected by natural disasters (#)

. Economic and human loss due to natural disasters (US$, #)

. Disaster preparedness and prevention

. Percentage of population living in hazard prone areas

. Areas susceptible to natural disasters (ha)

. Human and economic loss due to disaster

Peace and security

. Interstate peace

. Intrastate peace

. Human security

. Conflict management mechanisms

. . Personal security.. Community security

. Border tensions and conflicts

. Armed rebellion

. Civil conflicts

. Conflict management mechanisms (state and local)

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. State capacity to respond to societal needs

. Access to justiceConsumption and production patterns

. Material consumption

. Waste generation and management

. Transportation

. Public procurement

. Generation of hazardous waste

. Waste treatment and disposal

. Modal split of passenger transportation

. Switch from leaded to unleaded fuel

Global partnership for development

. Trade

. External financing

. Multilateral environmental agreements

. Current account deficit as percent of GDP

.

. Net official development assistance received as percent of GNI

. Foreign direct investment (flow)

. Progress made in fulfilling multilateral conventions and

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agreements

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Table 5. Evaluation of Core SD Indicators Based on Criteria Developed

S – strong; M – medium: W – weak

Theme/ Sub-themes/ Core SD Indicators Selection Criteria

Economic transformation/wealth generation

Relevant Effective Reliable Easy to understand

Available Show Trends

Consistent

Total wealth (natural, human, and produced

Share of produced capital in total wealth S S S S W S M

Macroeconomic performance

Gross domestic product per capita S S S S S S SGross domestic product adjusted for deforestation and biodiversity loss

S S S S W S M

Share of investment in GDP S S S S S S SNational saving rate S S S S S S S

Value addition Share of industry in overall output

S S S S S S S

Share of processed goods in total exports

S S S S S S S

Labor force productivity and unit labor costs

S S S S W S S

External trade Exports and imports (volume and structure)

S S S S S S S

Development financing Foreign aid dependency S S S S S S SExternal debt GDP ratio S S S S S S S

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Regional economic integration

Share of transboundary projects in total development budget

S S S S S S S

PovertyIncome poverty Proportion of population

living below national poverty line

S S S S S S S

Income inequality Ratio of share of national income of highest to lowest quintile

S S S S W S S

Access to land Farming population without land

S S S S S S S

Living conditions Covert and overt unemployment rate

S S S S S S S

Proportion of urban population living in slums

S S S S S S S

Perceptions Percent of the poor who see their future improving S S S S W S W

Food aid dependency Food aid dependent population

S S S S S S S

Governance

Political governance Inclusiveness - participation (general public and civil society)

S S S S W S S

Economic governance Development effectiveness S S S S W S SCorruption – percentage of people having paid bribes S S S S W S SClearly defined and legally secured property rights S S S S W S S

Social governance Degree of accountability

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Degree of transparencyS S S S W S S

Rule of lawS S S S W S S

Environmental governance

Environmental laws and regulations effectively implemented

S S S S W S S

Implementation of MEAsS S S S W S S

Number of land related court cases S S S S W S S

Corporate governance Capacity to attract sustainable development friendly FDI

S S S S W S S

Capacity to implement corporate social and environmental responsibility

S S S S W S S

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8. Monitoring and Evaluating Africa’s SD Indicators

Continuous monitoring of progress toward sustainable development is an essential part of indicators development. Because of data limitation and other constraints, the possibility of adapting either the Dashboard of Sustainability or Barometer of Sustainability is remote. Instead, African needs to develop what can be called the African Sustainability Monitor (ASM).

The African Sustainability Monitor (ASM) will rely on a set of qualitative and process indicators and integrated into the African Peer Review Mechanism. Among these are:

a. Is wealth created, sustained, and fairly shared?

b. Are the ecosystem services and functions conserved? • Emissions of green house gases • the percentage natural, modified, cultivated or built ecosystem and ecosystem

diversity• the degree of conversion and modification of inland Changes in soil fertility, flood

hazard • the spread and intensity of marine pollution and habitat degradation

c. Biodiversity conserved?• Is the country’s biodiversity sustainable used? • Forest area as percent of land area• Protected area as percent of land area• Abundance of key selected species

d. Resource quantity/productivity maintained?• Arable and crop land area• Changes in soil fertility, flood hazard • the extent and severity of land degradation• Economic efficiency improved?• Increases in labor productivity • Poverty and inequity reduced?• Percent of population living below poverty line • Gini index of income inequality

e. Pollution prevented?• Generation of hazardous waste • Human health improved?• Population with access to safe drinking water

f. Is culture preserved?• Link between spirit and nature are maintained • Indigenous knowledge and systems given importance

g. Is the country delivering on its international commitments?• NEPAD• MDGs

• MEAs• Agenda 21 • JPOI

h. Global partnership for development• NEPAD• MDGs• MEAs• Agenda 21 • JPOI• Financing and trade related commitments

9. The Way Forward

This sustainable development indicators framework and the compendium of indicators is the first foot fall in a long journey. Continuous improvement of the coverage and quality of indicators through testing and retesting them at the country level is needed to enhance their strength to inform policy and monitor progress toward sustainable development. It is only when the set of indicators are mainstreamed and used effectively at the country level that the work on indicators can be said to have reached maturity. It is, however, important to recognize that the development of SD indicators has no end point. More and detailed indicators will be needed as a country achieves higher stage of economic and social development.

Given the current African realities the following principles and measures need to be seriously considered:

a) Pragmatism. SD indicators development, vast and complex as it is, requires pragmatism in the identification, selection, and use of indicators. A key principle here is to never let oneself bogged down. It is important to focus on key policies and strategy processes and on simple and comprehensible indicators. Move forward with what exists but note deficiencies and develop a strategy to correct those deficiencies.

b) Formulate a strategy for continuous improvement, refinement, and institutionalization of indicators. Once indicators are developed, arrangements have to be made for piloting the indicators either partially or wholly at the country, sector, or ecosystem level. There must also be an institutional mechanism for gradual application, monitoring the application and for continuous updating and refinement.

c) Put in place participatory process for development and application. Workshops, for example, the envisaged validation workshop are useful mechanisms to generate interest in indicators and get feedback.

d) Raising awareness on continuous basis. There is need to expand and strengthen the sustainable development and sustainability awareness among political leaders and the public. Undoubtedly, considerable work has been done to define and popularize sustainable development that resulted in prefixing almost every development activity by the word “sustainable” without fully understanding what it entails. This has resulted in the continued neglect of both the environment and social pillars of sustainable

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development evidenced by the accelerated environmental degradation and social deprivation at a time when Africa prides over its high economic growth rate in the midst of global financial crisis (UNECA 2009). Further, despite over a decade of PRSP experience, “very few countries have tried to incorporate sustainable development issues into their PRSPs” (UNECA 2008). This requires a well strategized and continuous process of awareness development at the community, policy making, legislative levels.

e) Developing a multidisciplinary mindset: transcending sectoral interests. One of the main features of sustainable development is its multidisciplinary approach. It requires decision makers to consider, for example, economic programs in social and environmental terms, and social and environmental programs in economic terms. There is also the challenge of managing tradeoffs, particularly in the short to medium term, by placing societal interests ahead of one’s institutional or sectoral benefits. Demanding as it may be, there is a need to systematically develop the culture of assuming collective responsibility, multidisciplinary expertise, and the culture of “us” instead of “me.” The effective use of SD indicators is heavily influenced by this culture.

f) Viewing progress toward sustainable development from the demand side. Addressing sources of unsustainable behavior and practices including unsustainable consumption and production patterns is an important step in the promoting of sustainable development. It is for this reason that consumption and production patterns are treated as core SD themes and indicators to help Africa strategize, plan, and implement investment and operational activities in a manner that minimize risks and maximize individual, firm, sector, state, and corporate social and environmental responsibility.

g) Strong national ownership and internalization of SD indicators: While the work done at the global and regional levels by the United Nations or/and other institutions provides a wealth of knowledge and lays the foundation for developing SD indicators at the country levels, the ultimate decision of what indicators to use and how to organize them rests with authorities at the national level. The continuous development and refinement of indicators, their effective use of indicators, and indeed the effective integration of all dimensions of sustainable development depend upon the commitment of people on the ground. Involvement of experts, policy makers, civil society groups and beneficiaries will help achieve national ownership of indicators, a sine quo non for their institutionalization and instilling collective responsibility for monitoring of progress toward sustainable development.

h) Develop capacity for identifying, selecting, using and continuous refinement of indicators. While strengthening and developing capacity of national statistical offices should be at the forefront of the capacity development agenda, there is need to consider broadening the scope to include those involved in policy making, assessment, planning, and program development at various levels: human resources, institutions and policy and legislative.

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