Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

206 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTtogether for the resolution of the very difficult issuesthat face us as societies. Implicitly, indicator systemsought to function as a policy instrument connectingscientific knowledge to a system of users.Uncertainty regarding the role of information in policymakingis not a theme unique to the sustainabilitydebate. The notion of adapting knowledge to theneeds of society, or the general relationship betweenknowledge and decision-making, dates back at least asfar as the time of the Ancient Greeks (Rich 1979). Theinformational contents of most knowledge systems,indicators included, are consistently subjected tomultiple interpretations in any modern society. Thisranges from absolute instrumental rational assumptionto the more volatile, power-based relational conceptssuch as secrecy, concealment and manipulation. Theunderlying question is how do we optimize publicpolicy decisions by basing them on accurate andadequate information?Despite the popularity of sustainability indicatorsystems, the understanding of how they are connectedto policy processes is still limited. Although thereexists a substantial body of literature on sustainabilityindicators, most of it is mainly technical with lesstreatment on the issues dealing with processes aroundindicator development (Hezri 2004). As sustainabilityhas been gradually integrated into public policy acrossthe world, there is a need for research that sees beyondthe production of sustainability indicators to theircommunication and reception in policy processes. Ofcentral concern is the question of what outputs andimpacts indicator-based assessments have had, or couldhave, on policy processes and associated social debates.Such a process-based perspective requires an analysisof the social and institutional basis of sustainabilityindicator systems (Hezri and Dovers 2006; Rosenstromand Kyllonen 2007).Research objectives and designAgainst this background, the paper provides a preliminaryexploration of this subject through two case studiesdrawn from primary and secondary data research usingsemi-structured interviews and documentary analysis.The two case studies are on the national sustainabilityindicator systems in Indonesia and the Philippines.The overall goal is to understand the dynamics of theinteraction of sustainability indicators with policysystems and processes. The objectives of this researchare four-pronged:• To understand the salient features of policy processesfor sustainable development in Indonesia and thePhilippines;• To review the attributes of the major nationalsustainability indicator systems and how they areshaped and utilized by the policy systems;• To investigate the extent and impact of sustainabilityindicator systems on policy processes throughpolicy learning; and• To compare the two case studies by contrastingsimilarities and differences.The study proceeded in three stages: the field study, thetwo singular case study syntheses and a multiple casesynthesis at the final stage of the research. The field studyfor both Indonesia and the Philippines took four monthseach. The first two months involved documentaryresearch and the identification of the key policycommunity in the area of sustainable development. Thefinal two months were used to interview key officials,practitioners and civil society representatives involvedin developing and using sustainability indicators.Policy processes for sustainable development inIndonesia and the PhilippinesBefore the East Asian economic crisis in 1998, Indonesiahad achieved remarkably rapid growth, povertyreduction and other forms of social development forseveral decades. This high growth, accompanied byunprecedented industrialization, high populationgrowth, structural transformation of the productionand consumption base and rapid urbanization, wasnot conducive to the attainment of the country’senvironmental sustainability. Sustainable developmentbecame a recognized public policy framework thattook into account socio-political, economic andenvironmental aspects to support the developmentof solutions to these pressing problems. A strategicarticulation of the challenges toward sustainabledevelopment for the country is found in an ‘advisory’document entitled The Agenda 21 Indonesia (StateMinistry for Environment 1997). Prior to its release inMarch 1997, the preparation of the eighteen-chapterreport took two years, with the involvement of 22national consultants who formed working groupscomprised of 1,000 government officials and membersof NGOs, academe, the private sector and the generalpublic. The document contains recommendations forsustainable development up to the year 2020 for eachsector of development. This was followed by the releaseof Sectoral Agenda 21 documents in 2000, covering themining, energy, housing, tourism and forestry sectors.These processes marked a shift from the hitherto formallegalisticapproach that gave sole responsibility to theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows