session 11: development of the eca core list of environment indicators

African Centre for Statistics

United Nations Economic Commission for AfricaUnited Nations Economic Commission for Africa

Session 11: Development of the ECA Core List of Environment Indicators

Workshop on Environment Statistics and Accounts

7 – 11 March 2011

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia


Outline of Presentation

I. Introduction

II. Recommendations of the Second Workshop

II.1 Institutional and coordination issues

II.2 Capacity building

III.3 Advocacy

II.4 Data Gaps

II.5 Methodology, Knowledge management and networking

II.6 Core set of environment indicators

III. Conclusion


I. Introduction

• The members of the Inter-secretariat Working Group on Environment Statistics (IWG-ENV) include: UNSD, UN-ECE, UNEP, FAO, OECD, Eurostat, etc.

• The main objective of the IWG-ENV is to firmly anchor environment statistics as part of official statistics at all levels by improving and strengthening basic environment data and to harmonize international data and their collection.

• IWG-ENV focuses on the: o Development and harmonization of methods; • concepts, definitions and

classifications o Coordination of data collection, ando Coordination of training


I. Introduction (cont’d)

The African region has benefited from the work undertaken by the IWG-ENV through training and capacity building activities. Since 2005 four workshops have been organized in the area of environment statistics:

• - In 2005 in Dakar, Senegal for ECOWAS sub-region

• - In 2007 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for all Africa

• - In 2008 in Abuja, Nigeria for ECOWAS sub-region and

• - In 2010 in Accra, Ghana for ECOWAS sub-region.

The training workshops were organized by UNSD in collaboration with ECOWAS, ECA and UNEP, and other partners.


I. Introduction (cont’d)

The main objectives of the workshops were to:

• Train participants from national statistical offices and ministries/agencies responsible for environment on basic concepts, methods and best practices in environment statistics;

• Provide a forum for exchange of information on the status of national environment statistics; and

• Establish a network of environment statisticians among the countries as recommended by the Action Plan of the Environment Initiative of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

In addition to above objectives, the second training workshop held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was organized to agree on a core set of environmental indicators and statistics for national and regional reporting.


II. Recommendations of the Second Workshop

The workshop bearing in mind the critical role of environment issues in sustainable development policies and programmes, was concerned by the scarcity of data and information to assess the state of the environment in Africa. The workshop therefore made recommendations on the following 6 issues:

– Institutional and coordination issues

– Capacity building

– Advocacy

– Data gaps

– Methodology, knowledge management and networking

– Core set of environment indicators


II.1 Institutional and coordination issues

• Countries (which have not done so yet) to design a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) as the overarching framework for statistical capacity development, including the appropriate legal framework, institutional set-up, distribution of responsibilities and coordination mechanisms;

• UNEP, UNSD, ECA, UNDP and AfDB to assist countries to develop and implement a sectoral strategy for the development and mainstreaming of environment statistics as a component of the NSDS, capitalizing on the outcomes of the African Environment Information Network (AEIN), the African Environment Outlook (AEO) process and global/national development reports;


II.1 Institutional and coordination issues (cont’d)

• The strengthening of coordination, collaboration and partnerships at country, sub-regional and regional level by developing appropriate interim mechanisms of data exchange where the legal framework does not yet exist;

• Recognizing that some important environment issues are transboundary, urged ECA,UNSD, and other partners to support UNEP-AEIN Collaborating Centers and National Focal points in developing a sub-regional environment statistics strategy and networking;

• UNEP, UNSD, ECA, UNDP and AfDB to support countries in reporting on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7;

• National statistical offices to put in place an environment statistics unit, strengthen the unit’s capacity and strongly collaborate with the AEIN focal point at national level;


II.2 Capacity building

• ECA, UNEP, UNSD, UNDP and other partners to work together within the framework of the Bali Strategic Plan for Technology Support and Capacity Building, to develop training materials including e-learning tools on environment statistics and pilot test in the AEIN and in countries where the One UN concept is in use;

• The development of a curriculum on environment statistics and sustainable development indicators to be used in African Statistics Training Centres and universities engaged in statistical training to establish a firm conceptual foundation and ensure the sustained availability of trained human resources;


III.3 Advocacy & II.4 Data Gaps

Advocacy

• The strengthening of data user-producer dialogue;

• Countries, sub-regional and regional organizations to put environment statistics on the agenda of the African Statistics Day celebration to promote understanding and use of environment statistics among policy and decision makers;

Data gaps

• To identify data gaps at national, sub-regional and regional levels based on the agreed core set of environmental indicators and find mechanisms to fill in those gaps;

• UNSD and UNEP to include natural disasters, coastal and marine environment, and biodiversity in the scope of their questionnaire;


II.5 Methodology, Knowledge management and networking

• Countries with the assistance of ECA, UNEP, UNSD, UNDP and other partners to agree on detailed concepts, methods and definitions for the calculation of the indicators that are consistent with existing international standards;

• Within the framework of AEIN, national, sub-regional, and regional organizations, to disseminate environment statistics and spatial data on-line through an African data portal (on-line database).


II.6 Core set of environment indicators

• Countries with the assistance of ECA, UNEP, UNSD and other partners to conclude the development of a core set of African environment indicators to reflect the environmental national priorities and the needs of national, sub-regional, regional and international organizations;

• The updating of the NEPAD-AEO core set of indicators to be harmonized with the agreed upon core list of indicators identified by countries, regional and international organizations during this workshop; and

• To put in place a task force (AEO-Data Working Group, ECA, UNSD and other partners) that will streamline indicators and develop methodology sheets; circulate to the group and other regions; finalize the list of indicators; test them on selected countries and organize seminars for the launching.


II.6 Core set of environment indicators (cont’d)

Based on the above recommendations, a core list with 109 environmental indicators taking into account the revised list of MDGs indicators, was developed on the following 11 thematic areas:

– Natural Disasters and Environmental Performance– Air– Land use– Agriculture– Forests and woodlands– Coastal and Marine Resources– Freshwater– Biodiversity– Energy and minerals– Waste– Health and Environment



II.6.1. Natural Disasters and Environmental Performance

• Priority areas

» Adaptive capacity

» Exposure to various types of natural hazards, drought, floods etc

» Impacts to various types of natural hazards, drought, floods etc

» Inadequate early warning system for the timely prediction of location and intensity of future natural disasters

•

• Proposed indicators (5)

» Percentage of population having access to information from early warning system

» Frequency of extreme events

» Human and economic loss due to natural disasters

» Percentage of population living in hazard prone areas

» Public expenditure on disaster reduction and related measures



II.6.2. Air

• Priority area– Air quality

– Climate change

– Ozone Layer Depletion

•


» Ambient concentrations of air pollutants in urban areas

» Annual variability of rainfall (at least 30 years)

» Annual variability of temperature (at least 30 years)

» Carbon dioxide emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP)

» Consumption of ozone-depleting substance

» Emissions of greenhouse gases

» Frequency of extreme events



II.6.3. Land use

• Priority area – Land Quality (degradation)

– Land tenure/ownership

– Land use change


» Percentage of land area by ownership categories

» Percentage of population (by groups, gender) with secure land tenure

» Land affected by desertification

» Land degradation (wind erosion, water erosion, salinization)

» Land use change

» Proportion of land/area affected by contamination



II.6.4. Agriculture • Priority area

» Agriculture» Irrigation» Rangeland carrying capacity» Use of pesticides/ fertilizers

• Proposed indicators (6)» Percentage of land/agricultural area under irrigation» Agricultural Production Index » Fertilizer consumption» Livestock pressure over carrying capacity» Number of reported cases of contamination of toxic substances» Use of agricultural pesticides



II.6.5. Forests and woodlands

• Priority area

» Established protected areas (forests etc.)

» Forest change (loss/ degradation)

» Forest resources management


» Percentage of exports of forestry products

» Percentage of forests damaged (abiotic, biotic and human induced)

» Percentage of protected forest areas to the total forest area

» Area of forest under sustainable forest management

» Proportion of land area covered by forest

» Rate of afforestation/ deforestation



II.6.6. Coastal and Marine Resources

• Priority area

• Climate change (sea level rise)

• Coastal and marine pollution

• Coastal erosion/ sedimentation

• Marine biodiversity

• Poverty eradication

• Urbanization of coastal zones


» Percentage change in coastal areas lost

» Annual sea level change



Proposed indicators (14) (cont’d)

» Change in area under mangrove forest

» Coastal water quality

» Number and area of marine aquaculture sites

» Number of marine species (mangroves, fisheries, etc) threatened and extinct

» Number of people making a living from marine resources

» Percentage of total population living in coastal areas

» Proportion of coastal areas affected by pollution

» Proportion of fish stocks within safe biological limits

» Proportion of marine area protected

» Proposed indicators

» Total & per capita marine aquaculture fish catch

» Total & per capita marine fish catch



II.6.7. Fresh water

• Priority area

– Water Accessibility

– Water Management issues and Water availability

– Water Quality (Pollution)

– Water Quantity

– Water usage

– Water borne diseases (bilharzias, river blindness, sleeping sickness, etc)



• Proposed indicators (26)» Percentage of (change in amount/volume) freshwater used for

domestic use, irrigation, industry» Percentage of population connected to public water supply» Percentage of population connected to wastewater collecting system » Percentage of treated waste water produced from wetlands » Abstraction from boreholes for domestic use in rural/urban settings

(per capita yield) Amount/volume of disposal of wastewater into wetlands

» Annual groundwater recharge» Average annual concentration of dissolved oxygen in lakes and rivers



» Average annual concentration of total dissolved solids/sediment flux in lakes and rivers

» Average annual concentration of total nitrogen in lakes and rivers

» Average annual concentration of total phosphorus in lakes and rivers

» Biochemical oxygen demand in water bodies

» Change in surface water discharge

» Chemical oxygen demand in water bodies

» Developed national & river basin IWRM plans

» Emissions of organic water pollutants (BOD) total/per worker



» Incidence of water borne diseases

» Presence of faecal coliforms in freshwater

» Proportion of population using an improved drinking water source

» Proportion of total water resources used

» Ratio of external renewable water resources to total renewable water resources

» Total annual renewable water resources per capita

» Total annual water use per capita

» Urban water supply from dams

» Volume of treated wastewater for domestic use

» Wastewater treatment

» Water use intensity by economic activity



II.6.8. Biodiversity

• Priority area

» Ecosystem

» Wetlands Species

» Invasive Species


» Percentage change of the area of wetlands

» Percentage of rehabilitated/total area of wetlands

» Abundance of invasive alien species

» Abundance of selected key species

» Number of Ramsar sites

» Number of restored wetlands sites

» Number of wetland species threatened and extinct

» Proportion of species threatened with extinction

» Proportion of terrestrial area protected by ecological region

» Threatened animal species as Percentage of total known animal species

» Threatened plant species as a Percentage of total known plant species



II.6.9. Energy and minerals

• Priority Areas

» Energy production

» Energy consumption

•

• Proposed Indicators (8)

» Primary energy production total, per capita and by source

» Share of renewable sources in total energy use

» Share of imports in total energy supply

» Intensity of energy use, total and by economic activity

» Annual energy consumption total and by main user category

» Total energy consumption per capita

» Share of households with access to electricity

» Percentage of traditional fuel energy use



II.6.10. Waste

• Priority areas– Waste generation, management and treatment

• Proposed Indicators (12)

» Generation of waste

» Waste treatment and disposal

» Municipal waste collected per capita

» Development and population growth and urbanization

» Municipal waste collected as a Percentage of the amount of waste generated

» Appropriate and sound guidelines for waste management systems appropriate for the environmental conditions

» Percentage share of population served by municipal waste collection

» Generation of hazardous waste

» Hazardous substance (as defined in the Basel Convention)

» Total hazardous waste imported

» Total hazardous waste exported

» Number and capacity of facilities for the disposal of hazardous waste



II.6.11. Health and Environment • Priority areas

– Infant and child mortality – Burden of ill health – Informal Settlements

• • Proposed indicators (8)

» Under five mortality rate» Maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births» Mortality rate » Percentage of population with access to primary health care facilities » Public expenditure in health (in Percentage of GNP) » Proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility » Proportion of urban population living in slums » Informal Settlements, area and percentage of population


III. Conclusion

Points for discussion• Which one of the indicators are relevant to the country?

• Which indicators do you compile?

• How often do you compile the indicators?

• Which office(s) are the main data sources?

• Which Office(s) are the main data users?

• Has the NSO been involved in filling the UNSD/UNEP questionnaires?

• Is there a section/unit in NSO that works in environment statistics area? Is it well resourced?

• What is the plan of the NSO?

• What type of support do you think is required?

• Which major problems are hindering the development of environment statistics in the country?


United Nations Economic Commission for AfricaUnited Nations Economic Commission for Africa

Thank you

session 11: development of the eca core list of environment indicators

Documents

environment statisticsprovide

environment initiative

area of environment

environment statistics

basic environment data

african environment

development of statistics

official statistics