Information for Decision-making for Sustainable Development (IDSD) Project

1
Information for Decision-making for Sustainable
Development (IDSD) Project

• A joint effort by the United Nations Department
  of Economic and Social Affairs and the General
  Secretariat of the Organization of American States

by Leisa Perch, Project Coordinator, GS/OAS
for the IDSD Resource Persons Meeting on Using
Information for Decision-making on Sustainable
Development Issues and Challenges for Caribbean
SIDS, Rex St. Lucia, May 27th, 2003, St. Lucia
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Information for Decision-Making for Sustainable
Development (IDSD) Project

• Why focus on Information Management?
• Where did the IDSD Project come from?
• What are the challenges in the region regarding
  information management?

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Why focus on Information Management? (I)

• Ready access to reliable data is key for
  decision-making
• Information is power
• SIDS lack readily available data on sustainable
  development and environment
• Sharing information regarding institutional
  procedures is key for implementation of decisions

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Why focus on Information Management? (II)

• Recognize that information will underpin all
  efforts towards sustainable development (Agenda
  21 and SIDS/POA)
• Countries in the region are overburdened by
  statistical and international reporting demands
  that are often far from the realities of the
  countries
• The increasing number of global frameworks and
  mandates requiring reporting and data collection.

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Why IDSD and why now? (I)

• Environmental statistics is a relatively new
  field in the Caribbean region
• Unites Nations Statistics Division has recently
  completed effort in collaboration with CARICOM
  compiling social/gender and environmental
  statistics and indicators for the region
• Environmental statistics workshop held in Belize
  in 2000 launched the environmental phase of the
  above project

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Why IDSD and why now? (II)

• Several countries have initiated compendiums of
  environmental statistics at the national level
• Many programmes/activities focusing on data,
  access,comparability, statistics etc
• Countries are starting to grapple with the MDG
  Declaration as well as the Targets agreed at
  Johannesbu in 2002

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What are the key challenges?

• What mechanisms are required for long-term
  information management?
• How does one harness information for
  decision-making purposes?
• Addressing the lack of consistency in reporting
  formats to MEAs

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Project Objectives

• Identify and assess regional and country needs in
  information management systems for sustainable
  development
• Develop materials for training of local human
  resources
• Create a regional electronic site for accessing
  information on information management systems and
  techniques

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Main Project Activities/Key Events

• Assessment of existing activities and capacity in
  the region April 2003
• Facilitating sharing of information through
  website launched May 2003
• Establishment of pilot network July 2003
• Collation of best practices and tools,
  implementation of training course
  June/September 2003
• Enhancement of technical capacity through support
  for new equipment, training materials
  September/October 2003

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Project Implementation

• Project executed by OAS
• UN will finance the project through a ----US
  271,000 contribution
• Four countries have been selected to participate
  as pilots Barbados, Belize, Jamaica and St.
  Lucia

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Expected Project Outputs (I)

• A pilot network of national, regional, and local
  institutions
• Resource persons from the region trained as
  information managers
• Training materials accesible through SIDSNET

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Expected Project Outputs (II)

• A forum of exchange for experiences among
  information system managers throughout the region
• A final report on implementation, including an
  assessment and evaluation of the projects

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Progress in Project

• Completed
• Planning and Assessment Mission
• First iteration of the project website
• In progress
• Identification of priority training needs
• Identification of a framework for a pilot network
• Input from regional resource persons to confirm
  key capacity-building needs, training priorities
  and overall needs for information sharing

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Objectives of this Workshop

• Review findings and conclusions of Assessment
• Agree on main issues and themes for the region at
  the present
• Agree on indicative priority training needs to
  inform the development of training materials
• Develop basic principles for information for
  decision-making which could inform SIDS 10
  discussions
• Discuss structure for a pilot network

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• PART 2 Assessment and Establishment of a
  Baseline for Information Management, use and
  capacity in the region

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Information for Decision-making

• The utility and effectiveness of a decision is
  in direct proportion to the quality and
  availability of information.
• Easy accessibility to information on
  institutional procedures and frameworks increases
  the probability of being able to implement a
  decision once it has been taken.

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Objective of Assessment

• To identify and assess regional and country
  status and needs in information management,
  systems for sustainable development
• Assess what is happening, who is doing what,
  identify priority issues within themes, and
  determine what the contribution of the project
  could be and in which areas
• Identify some of the challenges
• Identify potential pilot countries and potential
  project partners

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Methodology

• Acknowledge that a lot has been done
• Review and assess previous work
• Employ innovative mechanisms for obtaining a lot
  of information in a limited time-frame
• Assess funding priorities of donors - meet with
  the donor agencies and regional organizations
• Meet with key national agencies/agency

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Expected Results

• Clear idea or picture of state of play and
  efforts relating to information and information
  management as well as developmental trends
• Identify key priority areas
• Obtain a picture on potential needs
• Identify path/scope for further project
  implementation

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Findings (1)

• Clearly there is a lot of emphasis amongst donors
  and countries on information availability and
  technology
• There are many initiatives some small, some
  involving the entire region, and in many diverse
  areas
• There are some clear hot themes which also
  reflect present directions at the international
  level and clearly where the present funding
  trends are.
• Several information management systems are being
  developed or piloted in Environment, Water,
  Economics, Tourism, Land Evaluation , Coastal
  Resources and Regional Environmental Issues.

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Findings (2)

• In Disaster Management alone there are efforts
  ranging from database development,
  decision-making, approaches to standardization.
• Trade Statistics are being developed on a number
  of fronts regional and national.
• Efforts also range from the geo-spatial to
  governance, to natural resource management, to
  land use, to social and health, to statistics to
  training in information management
• 7 information management systems which have been
  developed or are being piloted 13
  information-related activities in the sustainable
  development area

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Findings (2 contd)

• At least 20 or more projects are being
  implemented amongst various agencies touching on
  some level of information management
• Activities range from data collection,
  statistics, indices, indicators and information
  management
• Reporting demands There are currently 12 UN
  requests to Member states for national reports
  most annual and most are mandatory. A further 3
  report frameworks are carried out by UN-led teams
  and 29 efforts relate to information and data
  gathered by the UN system

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Findings (3)

• At the national level,
• All CARICOM countries are involved in some
  activity relating to information management all
  certainly involved in data collection
• Many are involved in efforts to develop
  information management systems either for their
  own specific needs or as pilots
• Only some are involved at the level of looking at
  decision-making. In fact, few seem ready for that
  level of activity and
• Reporting at the international level remains
  sporadic, incomplete and challenging

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Some key themes

• Participation/participatory approaches
• Health AIDS
• Trade
• Vulnerability
• Human Development
• Decision-making
• Making Governments e-ready
• Gender Issues

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General Issues Identified

•   Fundamental gaps still exist in data collected
  related to environmental aspects in several
  CARICOM countries.
•  
•   General standards for the coding of
  information remain ad hoc, therefore creating
  data incompatibility issues.
•  
•   There is a lack of knowledge on how to extract
  and manage sustainable development data in ways
  that are productive for decision-making, and for
  the implementation of those decisions.
•  
•   The integration of data and information
  relating to various sustainable development
  issues remains challenging.
•   Lack of continuous and high-speed access to
  the Internet.

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General Issues Identified contd

•    Information management is only incompletely
  digital,
•  
•    Few forums exist at the national and or
  regional level for exchanging information and
  experiences on sustainable development needs for
  decision-making.
•  
•    Community involvement in the design and
  development of national monitoring processes
  continues to be a challenge, occurring
  infrequently.
•  
•    Reviews of the effectiveness of activities of
  projects conducted by donor agencies, in terms of
  impacts and achievements, are rarely conducted.

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Some Key Achievements/Advances

• UNDP Capacity 21 - 8 out of 10 countries have
  developed reports on progress in poverty
  reduction strategies
• All countries or almost all have completed and
  submitted their First National Communications on
  climate change
• Trade database for CARICOM countries has been
  developed and established online by ECLAC
• Establishment of Sustainable Development Units
  and programmes within Ministries charged with
  Environment or related issues

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Some Key Achievements/Advances contd

• Establishment of Indicator programmes in a number
  of countries Barbados, Jamaica
• Countries moving towards Integrated Development
  Planning Dominica, St. Lucia
• Creation of institutional mechanisms to address
  key issues i.e. the Climate Change Centre, the
  Disaster Management Facility at CDB
• Availability of information to develop indices
  for social vulnerability, resiliency and
  disadvantage in the human development field

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Some key advances contd

• Establishment of CARICOM Advisory Group on
  Social/Gender and Environment Statistics
• CEPNET Project and capacity established in using
  technology to manage information
• Development of MIST, ALES and CRIS the
  beginning for multi-criteria decision support
  systems
• The establishment of a Development Partners for
  Poverty Working Group (DPWWG) to harness poverty
  reduction efforts in the region

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Key Remaining Challenges

• Keeping up with technology
• Data compatibility and standardization
• Lack of central or unifying strategy for
  collecting and using data
• Lack of coordination between producers and and
  users of data

• Data accessibility functionally and practically
  (paper vs electronic)
• Limited perspectives on development
• Effective multi-criteria decision-making
• Lack of information policies

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Critical Challenge

• Even in all of the present efforts and assuming
  that we address most of these challenges a
  fundamental question remains
• How we will know if data is being used
  effectively and being used for making decisions?

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Conclusions

• Social, environmental and sustainable development
  data efforts need to be further strengthened.
• Only with some attempt to define information
  priority needs can some of the fundamental data
  questions and challenges be addressed.
• The absence of clear sustainable development
  priorities and strategies makes it difficult to
  monitor and collect data on the issue.

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Conclusions contd

• There is a lot of data which already exists. It
  can be used with the right analytical expertise
  capacity-building in this area is as critical as
  training in collection of newer types of
  information.
• New approaches and methods exist which must be
  explored and evaluated.
• Much to be gained from the efforts of others in
  addressing some of these challenges.
• Though there is a lot of information making it
  useful for decision-making is where the challenge
  lies.

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The Long-term Challenge

• Agenda 21 addressed the issue of Information for
  Decision-making in the last chapter and noted it
  as the factor which would underpin all other
  issues
• Chapter 40 also highlighted 2 key issues
• Bridging the information gap within and between
  countries
• Improving the availability of and access to
  information