| 1. This note attempts to provide a tour
d'horizon of significant statistical issues
at the regional or global level which have occurred
over the past year or so, since the tenth session
of the Committee on Statistics. It is certainly
incomplete; the paper generally does not cover
those fields of official statistics which are
featured elsewhere on the Working Group's agenda,
or areas of work which are primarily dealt with
by the specialized agencies of the United Nations
(and by sectoral ministries at the national
level); and, of course, it contains only information
that has come to the secretariat's attention.
Participants are invited to share additional
information with members of the Working Group.
I GENERAL STATISTICAL
ISSUES
2. The 1997 session of the United Nations
Statistical Commission established an ad hoc
group to explore new approaches to the structure
and operation of the Statistical Commission
as well as to the relationship between the Statistical
Commission and the regional commissions and
other international organizations. The review
was intended to enhance previous efforts at
strengthening international statistical cooperation,
including the "Begeer Report" of 1992 and the
follow-up report by McLennan in 1997. First
indications of the principal recommendations
of the ad hoc group are as follows:
- involve policy analysts
and important users from the private sector
more systematically in statistical programme
and standards development and in priority
setting at the international level;
- present an integrated international
statistical programme for discussion in the
Statistical Commission;
- in order to achieve a global
statistical action plan, more precisely define
the roles of the various actors including
the regional commissions in international
statistics, in particular in terms of the
outputs expected from them;
- consider the Statistical
Commission's Working Group as a de facto continuation
of the Statistical Commission itself, in the
years that the Commission does not meet;
- expand the present Bureau
of the Statistical Commission to a steering
group which meets at least twice a year and
which sufficiently represents member countries
from all the regions, but is small enough
to give effective guidance to the international
statistical system;
- reduce the duration of the
biennial meetings of the Statistical Commission
to three calendar days;
- further reduce the volume
of documentation for meetings of the Statistical
Commission, in particular by systematic use
of executive summaries;
- create an "international
cyber platform" on the Internet to enable
more active participation of member countries
in all the major international statistical
discussions, while avoiding undue travel cost.
3. The ad hoc group felt among other things
that dynamic economic developments in Asia,
the Pacific and Latin America require stronger
involvement of countries from those regions
in global statistical development and decision-making
than is presently the case; that developing
countries require increasing support from international
organizations and from other countries, which
puts technical cooperation higher on the agenda
on the international statistical community than
ever before; and that more effective and efficient
cooperation would be achieved by promoting the
active involvement of countries and regions
in the development of the global statistical
system.
4. In terms of the ad hoc group's initial
conclusions on the regional commissions, their
functions are primarily seen as (a) monitoring
and stimulating the implementation of international
standards in the countries of their region;
(b) guiding the countries of their region in
the implementation process; and (c) contributing
to the development of international statistical
standards. The ad hoc group agreed with previous
reports which had recommended that statistical
divisions of regional commissions should be
strengthened, and underlined again the importance
of active regional meetings of chief statisticians
such as the ESCAP Committee on Statistics. The
ad hoc group felt that bodies like the Committee
should be presented with an integrated work
programme, and needed to establish procedures
which ensured member countries' involvement
with strong continuity. It also felt it desirable
to create a regional steering group as is proposed
for the Statistical Commission. (In a sense
this steering group has already been created
through the establishment of the Bureau of the
Committee on Statistics.)
5. The Statistical Commission in February
1997 considered the topic of strengthening of
statistical offices of the regional commissions
on the basis of a short report from the Secretary
General. The Statistical Commission took note
of the report and saw it as relevant to the
work of the review group on strengthening international
statistical cooperation, described above. It
also emphasized that active country involvement
was essential to the success of the regional
commissions, and encouraged countries to consider
augmenting the resources of the commissions
by deploying personnel from national statistical
offices on a temporary basis.
6. On the global level, dates were agreed
for the Statistical Commission's Working Group
on International Statistical Programmes and
Coordination (New York, 10-13 February 1998)
and the thirtieth session of the Statistical
Commission itself (New York, 1-5 March 1999).
It has been confirmed that all heads of national
statistical offices, whether members of the
Statistical Commission or Working Group or not,
are more than welcome to attend these meetings
and enjoy equal participation in them.
7. Work continues on the feasibility of developing
an integrated presentation of statistical work
programmes at the global level, based on the
approach already adopted in the Conference of
European Statisticians. Some obstacles to keeping
the approach manageable are being addressed.
8. With regard to general promotion and coordination
of international statistical work at the interagency
level, the Subcommittee on Statistical Activities
of the Administrative Committee on Coordination
(ACC) met in September and reviewed its own
role in the coordination of international statistical
work, affirming its belief that it had an important
role to play. The ACC Subcommittee covers not
only United Nations agencies but also some important
statistical players outside the System, notably
the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) and Eurostat. It was agreed
that concerted attempts should be made to involve
agencies such as the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), which did have significant
statistical activities, in the Committee's work.
9. In October, the Central Bureau of Statistics
of Indonesia hosted the first meeting of the
Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Directors of Statistics in Jakarta; further
information on the outcome of the meeting might
be provided to the Working Group by participants
attending the meeting.
Technical assistance
to developing countries
10. At the 1997 meeting of the Statistical
Commission, the United Nations Statistics Division
(UNSD) reported on the difficulties being encountered
in the preparation of a report on the status
of technical cooperation that had been requested
by the Statistical Commission. There were fundamental
problems that make it difficult to measure the
volume of technical cooperation in statistics
accurately, and UNSD felt that future reports
would not be feasible.
11. The Statistical Commission also endorsed
the formation of an informal group on technical
cooperation, comprising several national statistical
offices and some international agencies, to
work out details of a workshop on promoting
best practices in technical cooperation in statistics.
Meetings of the informal group were subsequently
hosted by Statistics Netherlands in April and
September 1997. The meetings discussed a range
of issues related to improving technical cooperation
in statistics, including conceptual frameworks,
goals of technical cooperation, avoiding overlaps
and duplication, coordination problems from
both donor and recipient perspectives, success
criteria etc. Some guidelines are expected to
be forthcoming for the Statistical Commission's
Working Group in February 1998.
Transition countries
in Central Asia
12. The work of the Steering Committee on
Coordination of Technical Assistance in Statistics
to the Countries of the Former Soviet Union
(FSU), of which ESCAP is a member, continued,
but focused mainly on work in the Ukraine. A
census donors' meeting was held in Geneva in
September 1997 to mobilize financial and technical
assistance for countries of the Former Soviet
Union and Former Yugoslavia, including the seven
members of this group which are members of ESCAP
-- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. These
countries are planning censuses around the year
1999, their first census operations as independent
countries.
Information technology
applications
13. While there have no doubt been numerous
developments elsewhere, at the regional level
ESCAP launched implementation of its UNFPA-funded
project on the application of new technology
to population information collection, processing,
presentation and dissemination. The project
is being carried out through a working party
consisting of experts from eight countries,
and at its first meeting in September 1997 the
Working Party agreed to focus on three pilot
applications in three different countries, as
follows:
- Imaging technology - Indonesia
- Use of GIS (geographic information
systems) for census operations and dissemination
- Philippines
- Use of GPS (global positioning
system) for preparation of census enumeration
area maps - Bangladesh
International economic
and social classifications
14. At its February 1997 session, the Statistical
Commission had recommended that the Central
Product Classification (CPC) version 1.0 should
be published, on the understanding that users
would be alerted to plans for its further improvement.
The Commission also emphasized the importance
of keeping the goods part of the CPC in step
with future revisions of the Harmonized System,
and recognized the need to continue to consult
the Voorburg Group on Services Statistics, in
order to utilize its technical expertise on
the services part of the classification. Member
states are being encouraged to start implementing
CPC version 1.0 and make suggestions for further
improvement. ESCAP would be happy to transmit
such suggestions from member countries to the
United Nations Statistics Division.
15. The Statistical Commission also endorsed
the ongoing work on international economic and
social classifications in general, which will
lead up to the third meeting of the Expert Group
Meeting on Classifications in New York in December
1997.
Statistical methodology
16. Under the heading of "critical problems
in economic statistics", the Statistical Commission
in February 1997 has taken note of the work
of a number of "city groups" which were pursuing
methodological and other agendas in different
fields of statistics. As had the ESCAP Committee
on Statistics in 1996, the Statistical Commission
stressed the importance of making the existence
and the workings of the various city groups
widely known. The United Nations Statistics
Division (UNSD) has written in May and September
1997 to all national and international statistical
agencies describing the genesis and the modalities
of the various city groups. UNSD has also established
links on its home page to existing bulletin
boards of the groups. ESCAP has similarly distributed
information on meetings and work programmes
of city groups as that information has been
received by the secretariat. A listing of the
current city groups and other important groups
is given in the Annex to this paper.
II DEMOGRAPHIC AND
SOCIAL STATISTICS
Civil registration and
vital statistics systems
17. At its twenty-eighth session, the Statistical
Commission "endorsed the continued implementation
of the International Programme for Accelerating
the Improvement of Vital Statistics and Civil
Registration Systems, particularly training
workshops on civil registration and vital statistics,
and efforts aimed at the economies in transition".
18. Four reports to provide technical guidance
to countries on civil registration and vital
statistics are being prepared by the Statistics
Division of the United Nations with the support
of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
(1) Manual for the management, operation and
maintenance of civil registration systems; (2)
Manual on developing information, education
and communication programmes for effective civil
registration systems; (3) Manual on how to prepare
a legal framework for civil registration and
vital statistics systems; and (4) Manual for
computerization of civil registration and statistics
systems. The review, technical editing and publication
of these manuals are scheduled for completion
in 1997.
International migration
19. Recognizing the need to improve international
migration statistics, the United Nations Statistical
Commission, at its twenty-seventh session in
1993, requested that the current recommendations
on statistics of international migration be
reviewed. The United Nations Statistics Division
and the Statistical Office of the European Communities
(Eurostat) carried out such a review jointly,
in cooperation with the regional commissions
and other interested organizations. The resulting
"Draft revised recommendations on statistics
of international migration" was produced in
collaboration with the United Nations Population
Division. At the twenty-ninth session of the
Statistical Commission, the draft revised recommendations
on statistics on international migration were
adopted, with a number of revisions to be incorporated
in the final document.
Human settlements and
city statistics
20. At its twenty-eighth session, the Statistical
Commission endorsed the work of the Statistics
Division of the United Nations and the United
Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat)
in preparing the Compendium of Human Settlements
Statistics 1995. The Compendium provided
human settlements statistics for more than 200
countries and more than 300 cities in five general
areas: population, land use, housing, infrastructure
and services, and crime. It provided global
statistical information for the United Nations
Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II),
held at Istanbul in June 1996. The Commission
also encouraged the further development of a
human settlements statistics database and its
speedier availability on the Internet and on
compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM).
21. At the regional level, an expert group
meeting is being held at the end of October
1997 in preparation for the second Ministerial
Conference on Urbanization in Asia and the Pacific.
The discussions featured the preparation of
state of the city reports with their accompanying
data requirements, as well as the selection
of urban indicators.
Labour statistics
22. Besides the dissemination of labour statistics
through publications and computer-readable media,
the technical cooperation programme of the ILO
Bureau of Statistics is aimed at assisting countries
to apply international statistical standards
and thereby produce and analyse useful and reliable
labour statistics. This assistance takes the
form of providing experts, sometimes in cooperation
with other United Nations agencies, and of missions
carried out by ILO statistical experts.
23. Based on the work undertaken in previous
biennia and the outcomes of the Meeting of Experts
on Labour Statistics (October 1997), a report
and a draft resolution will be prepared on the
concept and measurement of underemployment.
Taking account of the Meeting and the additional
preparatory work to be conducted in early 1998,
the Sixteenth International Conference of Labour
Statisticians (ICLS) is planned to be held in
the third quarter of 1998. The proposals for
its agenda, which will be determined by the
Governing Body of ILO, will include the adoption
of new statistical standards in the form of
resolutions on the measurement of underemployment,
the measurement of income from employment and
statistics of occupational injuries. Following
the Sixteenth ICLS, technical assistance will
be provided, training activities carried out
and regional and international meetings organized
to promote the application of the new guidelines.
Household income statistics
24 The Expert Group on Household Income Statistics
(the Canberra Group) held its first meeting
under the auspices of the Australian Bureau
of Statistics in Canberra in December 1996.
The first meeting focused on conceptual issues
and practical problems under the headings of
data sources and related issues; methods and
analytical issues; income inequality; and international
comparisons. The broad areas of work for the
Canberra Group's second meeting, scheduled to
be held in the Netherlands in March 1998, include
- documentation on methodology and quality;
statistical units: concepts, definition and
use; developing a hierarchy of income concepts
and definitions; reconciliation with national
accounts and other national aggregates; and
the measurement of self-employment income.
Poverty statistics
25. An intentional seminar on poverty statistics
was organized by the Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago
in May 1997, with the ESCAP secretariat and
a number of ESCAP member countries participating.
The papers for the meeting provided a useful
overview of national experience in the measurement
of poverty and included a report on the status
of poverty measurement worldwide. An expert
group on poverty statistics also met in Santiago
in May, and developed a work programme around
a set of topics including standards of non-food
consumption, country monitoring systems on poverty,
and studies of different food baskets in urban
and rural areas. A further meeting on these
topics is planned for late 1997 or early 1998.
Disability statistics
26. In response to a strong demand for disability
statistics for policy use, a great deal of work
on concepts, classifications and development
of statistics on disabled persons has been undertaken
in recent years. Many countries have strong
national statistics programmes including household
surveys, health surveys, and disability surveys
and registration systems. Increasing number
of countries are including disability as a topic
in their censuses. Statistics programmes of
the Statistics Division of the United Nations
(UNSD) in the next few months will concentrate
on the completion of the second version of the
United Nations Disability Statistics Database
(Distat) and the technical handbook "Guidelines
and principles for the development of impairment,
disability and handicap statistics". It has
been recommended that regional user-producer
seminars on disability statistics should be
organized in the Asia-Pacific region. In that
regard a regional project is being formulated
to organize such seminars as a joint effort
of UNSD and the ESCAP secretariat.
Social statistics
27. The purpose of the Siena Group on social
statistics is the promotion and coordination
of international cooperation in the area of
social statistics by focusing on social indicators,
social accounting, concepts and classifications,
and the analysis of the linkages of frameworks
for integrating social, economic and demographic
data for the purpose of policy formulation and
analysis. The fifth Siena Group seminar entitled
"On the Way to a Multi-cultural Society" was
held in Neuchatel in Switzerland in June 1997.
The sixth meeting of the Group, on the theme
"Families in the twenty-first century" is scheduled
to be organized and hosted by the Australian
Bureau of Statistics in Sydney in December 1998.
This seminar also aims to hold a discussion
of harmonization of concepts and classifications
in social statistics, to take stock of what
has been achieved so far, and what could be
possible in this area in the future.
Minimum National Social
Data Set (MNSDS)
28. Recent United Nations conferences have
highlighted the need to collect and present
quantitative data describing progress for individual
countries, regions and the world as a whole.
The Minimum National Social Data Set (MNSDS)
was formulated with the intention of helping
the countries in monitoring the actions identified
by these conferences, namely: the International
Conference on Population and Development (Cairo,
1994), the World Summit for Social Development
(Copenhagen, 1995), and the Fourth World Conference
on Women (Beijing, 1995). Consideration was
also given to the outputs of the World Summit
for Children (New York, 1990), and the second
United Nations Conference on Human Settlements
(Istanbul, 1996). The MNSDS was formulated in
close cooperation with virtually all members
of the United Nations system and the Bretton
Woods Institutions.
29. The Statistical Commission, at its twenty-ninth
session, endorsed the MNSDS, which is currently
a list of 15 indicators. A trial minimum set
of social indicators covering a wide range of
subject-matter fields is available on the Internet;
these indicators consist mainly of those proposed
in the MNSDS.
30. Efforts continue to develop national prototypes
on MNSDS implementation as a basis for recommendations
concerning steps to improve national data and
suggestions for refinement in the MNSDS. Reports
will be prepared for selected countries containing:
(i) a review of the availability of data relating
to the MNSDS, the practices used in data collection,
compilation and analysis and an assessment of
data quality; (ii) the country's potential or
capacity to implement the MNSDS and proposals
for improvement.
UNDAF indicators
31. Agencies participating in formulating
the United Nations Development Assistance Framework
(UNDAF) -- primarily at this stage UNDP, UNICEF,
and UNFPA -- have drawn up a working list of
indicators felt to be needed for Common Country
Assessment (CCA). The global indicators (to
be used for all countries, and to be supplemented
by indicators specific to each country) are
divided into eight main areas: population and
its structure, mortality and fertility, health,
education, income and employment, habitat and
infrastructure, environmental conditions, and
human security and social justice. The list
has drawn on, from among other sources, the
Minimum National Social Data Set endorsed by
the Statistical Commission. The total number
of indicators is 36, and funds are expected
to be available where necessary to allow these
indicators to be collected for all countries.
The UNDAF process is currently being pilot tested
in eleven countries, and the experience will
be used as an input to further development to
the global indicators list.
Indicators of development
progress
32. A seminar jointly organized by the OECD,
the United Nations and the World Bank was held
in Paris in May 1997 to coordinate work on the
development of indicators for monitoring progress
towards the goals of the international development
agenda, as reflected in the OECD's Development
Assistance Committee strategy document. Participants
agreed on a work programme covering a short
list of indicators for the themes of health,
education, environment, poverty and participation,
and good governance for development. A further
conference on the indicators is expected to
be held in 1998.
33. To address the issue of coordination among
agencies in the compilation and dissemination
of indicators used to monitor and follow up
recent global conferences, the ACC Task Force
on an Enabling Environment for Economic and
Social Development requested the United Nations
Statistics Division to develop an inventory
of all the indicators produced by the United
Nations system. Although the UNSD did considerable
preparatory work, the ACC Subcommittee on Statistical
Activities in September 1997 decided to investigate
whether the existing inventory of statistical
data collection activities, if suitably updated
and organized, could fulfil the same purpose.
III ECONOMIC STATISTICS
Capital stock statistics
34. The Conference on Capital Stock Measurement
was held in Canberra from 10 to 14 March 1997.
Topics discussed included: a review of the practices
of participating countries; concepts of capital;
perpetual inventory method: practice and problems;
alternative approaches to measuring capital
stock, primarily direct collection; experiences
with multi-factor productivity; new measures
of capital related to the extension of the asset
boundary in the 1993 SNA (System of National
Accounts); balance sheet issues; and international
comparability and cooperation. The next conference
on the same topics will be organized by OECD
around September 1998. The Australian Bureau
of Statistics, the Singapore Department of Statistics
and the Central Bureau of Statistics of Indonesia
are members of the informal organizing committee
for that conference.
Agricultural statistics
35. The ESCAP secretariat collaborates as
closely as possible with the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), particularly the Regional
Office located in Bangkok. The 1998 meeting
of the FAO Asian and Pacific Commission on Agricultural
Statistics is scheduled to be held in Hobart.
Industrial statistics
36. The OECD is undertaking an investigation
into the definitions used by member countries
of "statistical unit" for collection of information,
since this can materially affect classification
of the unit by activity. This to be reviewed
at the Statistical Working Party of the OECD
Industry Committee in October 1997, and reported
to the Statistical Commission's Working Group
in February 1998.
Construction statistics
37. The 1997 session of the Statistical Commission
recommended that the concepts, definitions and
terminology used in the 1993 SNA and the ISIC,
Rev 3 (International Standard Industrial Classification)
be reflected clearly in the revised International
Recommendations for Construction Statistics,
which should then be published as part of the
collection of United Nations recommendations.
International trade statistics
38. At its twenty-ninth session earlier this
year, the Statistical Commission adopted revised
concepts and definitions for international merchandise
trade statistics 1 ST/ESA/SER.M-52/Rev 2. It
also agreed that the first item of priority
in carrying out methodological work should be
the preparation of a compiler's manual. The
approach will be to develop a compendium of
available manuals, including work done by ESCAP
over a decade ago, and amend these materials
to comply with the revised concepts and definitions.
The preparation of the revision of the United
Nations publication Customs Areas of the
World and the collection of technical information
on index numbers of international trade statistics
were of second and third priority. The Statistical
Commission also welcomed the adoption by the
Harmonized System Committee of the World Customs
Organization (WCO) of the recommendation that
countries provide the United Nations Statistics
Division with their international trade statistics
according to the Harmonized System.
Trade in services statistics
39. Relevant work in this area is proceeding
on two fronts, global and regional. Four international
organizations -- the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO),
Eurostat, and OECD -- are jointly funding the
preparation of a manual on trade in services
statistics. At the regional level, ESCAP is
proceeding to finalize a publication elaborating
on the report of the November 1995 Seminar on
Statistics of Trade in Services, held in Bangkok.
Finance statistics
40. The twenty-ninth session of the Statistical
Commission took note of the activities of the
IMF on specialized statistical systems on balance
of payments, monetary and financial statistics,
and government finance statistics, and also
noted the efforts to harmonize concepts and
definitions in these areas with the 1993 SNA.
The IMF aims to publish the Manual on Monetary
and Financial Statistics at the end of 1997,
and the revised Manual on Government Finance
Statistics by the year 2000. In October 1997
the IMF Balance of Payments Statistics Committee
was scheduled to review a report on the joint
IMF and OECD survey of methodology and compilation
procedures employed by member countries in compiling
foreign direct investment data. That meeting
is also reviewing comments on an IMF discussion
draft concerning the statistical measurement
of financial derivatives.
Price statistics and
the International Comparison Programme (ICP)
41. The Statistical Commission in February
1997 agreed on the need to conduct an evaluation
of the global International Comparison Programme
to address the reservations by certain Member
States about ICP implementation and the uses
of ICP results, and the need to seek ways to
improve the credibility of ICP data. It also
appointed a steering committee to supervise
the review process. A report on the progress
of this evaluation is scheduled for the February
1998 meeting of the Working Group of the Statistical
Commission, with the final report going to the
1999 session of the Statistical Commission itself.
42. At the regional level, the ESCAP secretariat
organized a meeting to review the results of
the ICP Phase VI comparison in June 1997 in
Beijing, and has started to prepare the ground
for the next comparison with 1999 as reference
year. The global ICP results for the Phase VI
comparison, including those for the ESCAP region,
are scheduled to be published by the end of
1997.
Informal sector statistics
43. The ESCAP secretariat in collaboration
with the United Nations Statistics Division
and ILO organized the Workshop on Statistics
on the Informal Sector in May 1997. The report
of the Workshop will be available as a background
document for the Working Group. The Workshop
in Bangkok was followed by the first meeting
of the Expert Group on Informal Sector Statistics
(the Delhi Group) which met in New Delhi from
20 to 22 May. The Delhi Group agreed on its
terms of reference which include operationalizing
an international definition of the informal
sector in the light of country experiences,
and recommending a minimum data set for informal
sector statistics. It also agreed on a plan
of action, including an inventory of country
practices, evaluation of area sampling frame,
list sampling frame and survey design, evaluation
of data quality, and analysis of the criteria
used to define the informal sector. The second
session of the Delhi Group is scheduled to be
held in Turkey in late March 1998.
IV ENVIRONMENT AND
OTHER STATISTICS
Environment statistics
44. Coordinational matters have dominated
the discussion in this area of work, and in
the related fields of environmental indicators
and accounting. The Statistical Commission at
its twenty-ninth session stressed that the future
work of the Task Force on Environment Statistics
should focus on improved coordination of its
programmes and activities, since an urgent need
has emerged for coordinating the respective
approaches to achieve efficiency in data collection
and in the capability for methodological work.
The ACC Subcommittee on Statistical Activities
reached a similar conclusion and has decided
to organize a discussion on environment statistics,
indicators and accounting as a special topic
at its 1998 session, with sufficient preparations
and input from all agencies involved. The Statistical
Commission considered that basic environment
statistics should be of the highest priority,
followed by environmental indicators and accounting.
45. At the regional level, ESCAP has been
hampered by severe human resource difficulties
in bringing the first edition of the Operational
Handbook on Environment Statistics to completion,
but it is hoped that it will be available for
dissemination by the end of 1997. Several ESCAP
countries are participating in the Asian Development
Bank (ADB) financed project on the development
and improvement of environment statistics, which
among other things is designed to produce national
frameworks for the development of data in this
area. ESCAP has been collaborating closely with
ADB in this field.
Environmental indicators
46. Regional work on environmental indicators
has focused on indicators of sustainable development,
as directed by the Commission for Sustainable
Development. The Environment Section of ESCAP
has enlisted a number of countries in the region
to field test a set of such indicators.
Environmental and natural
resource accounting
47. With regard to environmental accounting,
the Statistical Commission in February 1997
welcomed the proposal of the United Nations
Statistics Division to collaborate with the
London Group on Resource Accounting on the revision
of the System of Integrated Environmental and
Economic Accounting (SEEA). The London Group,
which met in Ottawa in June 1997 for its fourth
session, decided to initiate an overview of
the SEEA so as to update the System. However,
questions were asked as to whether the role
of a city group was to help develop standards
in this fashion or simply to act as a forum
in which people working in the field could present
their latest work in progress and benefit from
the views of colleagues. The London Group also
wondered whether it had the capacity to be the
body responsible for the preparation of the
revised version of the SEEA, given that it met
only once a year for three to five days and
functioned without a recognized secretariat.
48. Within the region, steps were taken to
close the Netherlands-funded project on Systems
of Environment and Resource Accounting, of which
the previous substantive activity had been the
holding if a regional seminar in Seoul in May
1996. The secretariat, in collaboration with
consultants, is currently working on a two-volume
publication which would provide methodological
material on environmental accounting as well
as selected proceedings of that Seminar. |
