Problem overview:

     Meeting information requirements: Maldives is facing severe environmental damage due to rapid economic growth. In order to arrive with new sustainable development policies, the country needs to acquire sufficient and reliable environmental data for decision-making, Environment Statistics has been brought in for such data collection activities.

Background in summary:

     Government direction: Despite the constraints of technical know-how, manpower and finances, the Maldivian Government has instituted appropriate policy legislation, regulatory and institutional measures for environmental planning and management. Environmental education and awareness have been given high priority.

     Status of Environmental Information: There is a lack of a centralized environmental information system. No synthesis of this information has been done, nor archives of such studies exist for referral. The results of most of these studies are contained in unpublished reports and documents held in various ministries and line departments.

     Legal basis: There exists "The Statistical Regulation of the Republic of Maldives" which outlines standards and procedures for collection, compilation, publication and utilization of national statistics.

     Institutional arrangements for data collection: The Statistical Section of the MPND has adopted a decentralized approach in obtaining Sectoral data. The MPND and the Environment Section of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Housing and Environment works closely with other relevant line ministries in development, management, identification and incorporation of environment statistics required into data collection activities of relevant line ministries.

     Data collection activities: While a large amount of environmental information is required, at present only the most important environmental statistics are collected. This is mainly due to a number of constrains and difficulties experienced by the line ministries. While emphasis is placed on routine data collection activities in order to provide continued data for trend analysis, a large potion of the environmental statistics currently available is collected as part of studies conducted on a need to know basis.

     Shortcomings in the improvement of environmental statistics:

• Absence of environmental information
  
  
• Lack of certain information that relates specifically to the environment
  
  
• Inaccessibility to available environmental information
  
  
• Lack of an information dissemination medium
  
  
• Limited human capacity for information dissemination.
  
  

See also Environmental information management in Pacific Island Countries

Peer Review Committee Good practice rating: (1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score)
Sustainability		Efficiency
2	Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other.	4	Cost efficient.
2	Sustainable over time (not one-off)	Process
Adaptability		-	Participation of the community
2	Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?)	2	Participation of resource owners/users
2	Socio-cultural adaptability.	2	Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private)
2	Level of development adaptability.	2	Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments.
2	Style of government adaptability.	2	Ability to attract political interest/support
2	Degree of decentralization adaptability.	-	Procedures for feedback and review.
Comments on this example:      Apparently, human resources seems to be a problem for environmental information management for developing countries, such as Maldives, as the number of human resources with expertise in the area are very minimal and does not stay with the government very long as they tend to seek opportunities elsewhere (outside the country). The country is then left with untrained/unskilled or low-skill environmental information staff and could not avoid hiring external expertise, which is considerably costly. Sustainability of the project:      Environmental Information Management should help enhance sustainable policy-making as the policy level decisions will be based on more reliable data, data that reflects the true value of the environment and natural resources, and the true cost of development programmes, that includes social costs, opportunity costs, and environmental costs. Adaptability of the project to other situations:      Location adaptability: Since Maldives is an island country and has similar geographical characteristics to other island countries, such as countries in the Pacific islands, environmental information management system used in Maldives should be able to be adapted to other island countries also. Process of decision making and implementation:      Meeting information requirements: Adopting the decentralization approach for information is most effective if the work does not overlap amongst institutions and if there is effective communication and information transfer. Cost efficiency:      Many island countries in ESCAP experience the problem of very high communication costs and lack of communication infrastructure. These result in difficulties and delays to exchange or transfer information within and among countries. It becomes a serious problem when the information need to be transferred is compulsory for policy level decision-making. Hopefully, with advanced technology in satellite communication, the problem of communication delays in island countries will be resolved. Nevertheless, communication would still be considerably high.