Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

210 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTDevelopment Plan (RPJMN) to its implementation.Participation in the MDG, which require reportingagainst stated targets, could reveal many areas ofinformation irregularities. For instance, there is someuncertainty about the amount of forest cover in thePhilippines. Data from the Forest Management Bureau(FMB) indicate that 34 percent of forestland containssome form of forest cover but that forest cover hasbeen declining over the past ten years. In contrast, theNational Mapping and Resource Information Authority(NAMRIA) data indicate that 49 percent of the totalland area of the Philippines contains some sort of forestcover and that this percentage has been increasing inthe past several years. This is a case whereby indicatordevelopment forces improvement in the quality andprecision of existing data. Moreover, advocacy forthe MDG also comes from Houses of Congress andother sectors of society. For instance, the PhilippineSustainability Watch, a network of NGOs, providesfeedback and comments on the implementationperformance of the MDG targets in the Philippines.This is a case whereby an indicator system begins to havea significant impact on policy processes. The followingsection discusses this further.Uses and impact of sustainability indicator systemson policy processesDespite popular acceptance of sustainability as apolicy goal, the provision of data and statistics onenvironmental conditions is still lagging behind.Within this milieu, most of indicator systems discussedabove (except the MDG system) are still in their earlystages of development. In other words, case studies inIndonesia and the Philippines characterize situationswhereby institutional reporting for sustainability is stillembryonic.As pioneering policy experiments, indicator initiativesin these countries involve only minimal disseminationto and socialization among potential users. Thisnotwithstanding, a credible commitment, albeitonly through experimentation, to couple indicatordevelopment to a solid policy process is still absentin both countries. Although the Philippines hasinstitutionalized one of the most innovative processesfor sustainable development globally, the constructionof indicators has not been coupled effectively to itsAgenda 21 process. Efforts thus far still do not fulfil theintegrative logic for sustainable development. Withouta sustained effort to develop the capacity for empiricalbasedenvironmental policies, the sustainabilitydiscourse will remain issue-based and responses willcontinue to be formulated mainly along environmentallogic, fragmented and piecemeal. The onus is on bothgovernment and civil society to engage continuously indeveloping indicators that tell a story understandableto society at large. Examples elsewhere include thepromotion of the Genuine Progress Indicator byindependent organizations such as Redefining Progressin the USA and the Australia Institute in Australia.As for existing indicator systems in Indonesia and thePhilippines, there is a need to leverage the informationdeveloped within the science and policy domains tothe public domain as well. Findings from this researchindicate that without the substantial pre-testing andrevision of indicators, efforts to communicate withstakeholders and the public could be frustrated. Forexample, the inadequate socialization of users toIndonesia’s State of the Environment report throughworkshops and forums caused potential users, suchas environmental NGOs, to be suspicious of thechosen indicators as ‘only telling half-truth.’ Someinformants interviewed stated their preference forindicators provided by international organizations fortheir ‘neutral’ and ‘non-partisan’ values. Strategiesare, therefore, needed for better socialization anddissemination of indicators and sustainability indicatorsystems. This, however, has to take into account thespecificities of indicator programs. For highly technicalsystems such as green accounting, indicators aredeveloped by agency scientists and external consultantswith specialized expertise, who determine which datacollected by the department are sufficiently usefuland reliable to develop into standardized indicators.Therefore, the socialization of these indicator systemsis still inevitably limited to the circle of participatingscientists and government officials.For indicator systems that are confined withingovernment policy and science domains, the level ofawareness of these systems among potential users, be theyfrom civil society or industry stakeholders, is still low.The development of such governmental sustainabilityindicators reflects a lengthy process of agency scientistsand managers engaging in ‘knowledge selection’that yields concise, understandable presentations ofenvironmental data. Therefore, the correspondingimpact of indicator systems on policy processes inboth countries, if viewed from the framework ofpolicy learning (see Hezri 2004), constitutes mainlyinstrumental and government learning. This means thatonly selected government officials and participatingcivil society members will gain lessons about the efficacyof specific indicators or the suitability of institutionalarrangements related to indicator programmes. OneAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows