Problem overview:
Framework for coordination: A good coordination framework is important for environmental information management in PICs as these countries tend to have two separate government entities, one of which focuses on the environment and the other on statistics. There yet exist an integrated body of the two areas. Hence, coordination is required in order for the two government entities to work synergistically in collecting national environmental information.
Meeting information requirements: A number of Pacific Island Countries are going through rapid social and economic development. In this process, the environmental and natural resources condition is being deteriorated through resource exploitation and increasing pollution. Sustainable national development policy is immediately required and sufficient, reliable, up-to-date information is an utmost necessary basis for sustainable national policy decisions. In order to arrive with environmental information, the PICs need to develop a good environmental information collection and management framework.
Background in summary:
Status of national environmental information: The status of national environmental information in the PICs can be said to still be in the developing phase. There is a need to establish a Framework for National Environment Statistics (FNES) in order to have a standardized system for collecting, disseminating and processing of environmental data.
Institutional arrangements: The institutional arrangements for PICs are quite similar in structure. Basically there are two main government bodies, one in charge of environmental management and policy issues, and the other one responsible for statistical information.
Human resource capacity and training: There are very few experts or even none in the area of statistics/information. The government also faces a problem of attracting environmental information experts as they could find better opportunities elsewhere. Human resource training is required to improve the technical skills of statistical and environmental officers, whichever entity is responsible for environmental information gathering in each country.
Data collection activities: Data is collected by on an ad hoc basis and only when there is a need for such information. In countries like Samoa and Cook Islands, environmental data is collected by the Department of Environment, whereas in Vanuatu, the National Statistics Office takes the responsibility.
Communication tools: Fortunately with advanced technology, most of these countries are able to transfer/exchange information very rapidly through the internet. However, the down side to this is the extremely high cost of communication and limited communication facilities in the Pacific island region, again due to cost.
Achievements/Shortcomings in the improvement of environmental statistics: Countries in the PICs have various degree of achievements. Samoa and Vanuatu, for instance, seem to have achieved in developing the Framework for the National Environment Statistics. Nevertheless, many of the the PICs tend to experience similar shortcomings in the process of improving national environment statistics, which are
- Lack of personnel
- Data limitations and constraints
- Limited scientific facilities
- Weak institutional structure and coordination
- Funding constraints
- Lack of communication tools
- Others
See also Status of Environmental Information in Maldives
See document in full
Good practice rating:
(1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score) |
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Sustainability
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Efficiency
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| 2 |
 Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other. |
4 |
Cost efficient. |
| 3 |
Sustainable over time (not one-off) |
Process |
| Adaptability |
- |
Participation of the community |
| 3 |
Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?) |
2 |
Participation of resource owners/users |
| 3 |
Socio-cultural adaptability. |
2 |
Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private) |
| 4 |
Level of development adaptability. |
2 |
Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments. |
| 3 |
Style of government adaptability. |
2 |
Ability to attract political interest/support |
| 3 |
Degree of decentralization adaptability. |
2 |
Procedures for feedback and review. |
Comments on this example:
Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments: The participation of relevant sectors and other users of information is vital to the identification, collection and analysis of environment statistics in the long term and that environment statistics are strongly inter linked requiring an integrated management approach both on environment issues and sectoral involvement. (source: Samoa Country Paper)
The Samoan Country further suggested greater application of environment statistics in planning and decision-making, along with the improvement of information dissemination to the public and availability of environment statistics in the new millennium.
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Sustainability of the project:
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Sustainable over time: External financial assistance can sometimes put an end to a project when the financial assistantship is depleted. Most cases, without financial assistance, a project would come to a hold until another source of assistance can be located. Hence implying the 'unsustainability' of that project.
For instance, when external financial assistance from ADB to develop three documents, namely, 1) Vanuatu Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (VFDES) 2) Compendium of Environment Statistics and 3) State of Environment Reporting, was ceased at the end of the project year, Vanuatu was unable to finish the Compendium of Environment Statistics and had yet to start the State of Environment Report. However, the Vanuatu government has planned to continue with reviving and completing the two remaining projects even though financial assistance has come to an end.
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Adaptability of the project to other situations:
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Adaptability of the framework for environmental information collection and management may be high, in particular, with countries of the PICs, but may be difficult to implement in continental countries, or countries that have different socio-economic conditions.
Level of Development adaptability: However, it is also possible that even with similar geographical characteristics, if countries are very different in the level of development, the framework for environmental information collection may be extremely different. For instance, a developed country, despite being an island country like countries in the Pacific islands, may have more information on air pollution from industrialization as their economy is more production based.
| Process of decision making and implementation: |
Framework for coordination: Comments extracted from Vanuatu Country Paper concerning framework for institutional coordination can be applied to country situations in other PICs as well, they include,
- Coordination between the offices (National Statistics Office and Environment Unit) which are directly responsible for the environment statistics needs to be further strengthened;
- As co-ordinating agencies, the National Statistics Office and Environment Unit need to liaise closely with key government departments and agencies in a concerted effort to collect required data for the development of the environment statistics database;
- Permanent positions (one in NSO and the other in EU) needs to be created in the two offices' structures to take full responsibility for the environment statistics;
Meeting information requirements: In Tuvalus Country Paper, a suggestion was made on a need to provide more on-going training to develop the capacity of local personnel in the area of Environment Statistics. This will of course make the work of collecting of data more effective and productive.
Collecting environmental information is very expensive task, requiring the expenses in recruiting experts specialized in various environmental fields, expenses in acquiring equipment for scientific data collection and experiment, along with expenses for data processing. From the amount of financial resources spent on the collection of environmental data, it seems that the utilization of such data is incomparable to the investment made to collect it.
Also, the nature of environmental data, or other types of data is that, they go out of date very quickly. Hence, data collection should be done on a continuous or regular basis, which requires more financial resources.
A possible alternative that can help minimize cost of data collection is to form a 'Pool of Experts', which is a group of resource persons with expertise in different environmental fields. They would go around as a group collecting data in each Pacific island country. This option may be more economical than to have each country hire their own group of experts because the cost will be shared by a number of countries.
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