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COLLAGES OF BETTERMENT 211implication is that these indicators will be inaccessibleand incomprehensible to the general public. In thiscontext, it is unlikely that indicator development wouldenable social and political learning, whereby socialvalues and a normative understanding of sustainabilityare enhanced and empowered to move social actions.Within this context, the usefulness of a sustainabilityindicator system as a tool of governance follows thetraditional function of information in governance,that is, information is used to define and ‘control’ theemerging policy area of sustainability. With the guidinglogic of technical appraisal, indicators will be more usefulfor providing baseline information to guide governmentdecisions, and less as a tool for communicating withvarious stakeholders. In the Philippine case study,it seems plausible for NGOs to provide alternativeenvironmental statistics, albeit modest in sophisticationand quality. This raises the question of what is stoppingmore members of civil society from replicating such aninitiative.As with most developing countries in the world,Indonesia and the Philippines are still encumberedby the inadequacy of ecological data to developnational level indicators. Indicator systems demanda strengthened capacity in innovation systems andscientific infrastructure. At a basic level, this entailsan improvement in data acquisition and assimilation,especially the operating technology of data pooling,calibration and archiving. In theory, a strong sciencebase enables indicator development to reach theprocessing and application stages, transforming datatranslation and mediation into indicators amenablefor use. In policy systems such as Indonesia and thePhilippines, where the base of science is weak or at anearlier stage of development, the utility of indicators islimited to pointing to areas where more informationis needed, compromising the potential to steer actualpolicy change. As a result, the translation and mediationof sustainability indicators into a negotiation spacewhereby official information is debated and contestedby civil society are therefore negated. Due to the highinvestment needed in developing this capacity, nationalgovernments in cooperation with donor agencies arelikely to dominate efforts to develop indicators in thenear future. More severely, the existing trend couldpersist whereby governments dominate information andcivil society thrives on issues. International benchmarkswill continue to play a mediating role, with the MDGas an example.Conclusions and ImplicationsDisconnect and disjuncture are the hallmarks of moderngovernments. This is especially true for a relativelyyoung policy area such as sustainability. When theconceptual logic is still ambiguous, measurement willsuffer accordingly. In theory, liberal societies suchas Indonesia and the Philippines ought to be morereceptive to developing and using indicator systemscompared to a conservative society such as Malaysia (seeHezri 2005). The success of embedding sustainabilityindicator systems into the decision-making fabric iscontingent upon the nature of interactions between stateand society. The more liberal the nature of interactionis, the more possible it becomes for a sustainabilityindicator system to be a useful tool for governance; thatis, if indicators are made available in the public domain,they will allow civil society to provide political feedbackto decisions made by governments. Moreover, the twinprocesses of democratization and decentralization inboth countries offer further promises for the widespreaduse of sustainability indicator systems. These alone are,however, insufficient to effect significant changes inIndonesia and the Philippines as far as sustainabilitypolicies are concerned. Indeed, a policy-resonantindicator system is a function of robust science andcredible policy processes requiring a strong scientificunderpinning and a solid institutional basis. Thefollowing three strategies are imperative to promotingsustainability indicators as a tool for governance:1. The scientific infrastructure and innovation systemof both Indonesia and the Philippines should becontinuously developed. The existing technologicalcapacity in both countries to monitor the environmentusing tools such as remote sensing, geographicalinformation system (GIS) and modelling is stillunderdeveloped. The uptake of these technologiescould be enhanced not just by higher research anddevelopment (R&D) allocation, but also by couplingthem to long-term ecological monitoring initiativeswhich will provide appropriate data for indicatordevelopment. This strategy could pacify polemics arisingfrom a data-poor debate such as the present claim ofIndonesia being the world’s third largest net emitter ofcarbon dioxide;2. An unambiguous coercive government structure,be it formal or informal, is desirable to enableinformation and indicators to move across scales asneeded. Indonesia could emulate the Philippines inestablishing a coordinating agency/committee whichis not separated from the mainstream decision-makingprocess. To institutionalize indicator assessment, bothAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows
212 COLLAGES OF BETTERMENTgovernments could underpin sustainability reportingby providing a statutory basis, and connect indicatordevelopment to the budgetary allocation system andcore public administration bureaus. These steps couldbe the basis for incorporating sustainability indicatorsas an agenda in institutional politics; and3. A liberal interaction between the state and society isthe precondition for a more functional penetration ofindicators in public policy and governance. The policycommunity in Indonesia and the Philippines shouldactively release indicators into the public domainand to other branches of government including thelegislature and judiciary. This is the essence of indicatorsocialization. Information technology and the internetshould be utilized as key dissemination media. This hasto be complemented by the conventional mass mediadistribution of indicators. Furthermore, policy advocacyin both countries ought to be harmonized with theuse of indicators, so that policy debate becomes morequantitative.These strategies are only a guide, and hence shouldnot be treated as more than that. Their applicationin Indonesia and the Philippines should be advancedcarefully, based on a case-by-case examination. Thatnotwithstanding, adherence to these principles wouldsignificantly enhance the connectivity of indicatorsand policy, and hence its utility as a tool to informgovernance.REFERENCESCabrido, Candido. “Sustainable Development Indicators:Philippine Government Initiatives.” Sustainability Indicators:Report of the Project on Indicators for Sustainable Development,SCOPE 58. Eds. Moldan, Bedrich and Suzanne Bilharz.Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley and Sons, 1997: 344-351.Dovers, Stephen. “Sustainability: Demands on Policy.”Journal of Public Policy 16 (1997): 303-318.Hezri, Adnan. “Sustainability Indicators System and PolicyProcesses in Malaysia: A Framework for Utilisation andLearning.” Journal of Environmental Management 73 (2004):357-371.Hezri, Adnan. “Utilisation of Sustainability Indicators andImpact Through Policy Learning in the Malaysian PolicyProcesses.” Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy andManagement 7(2005): 575-595.Hezri, Adnan and Stephen Dovers. “Sustainability Indicators,Policy and Governance: Issues for Ecological Economics.”Ecological Economics 60(2006): 86-99.Janicke, Martin and Helmut Weidner. “Summary: GlobalEnvironmental Policy Learning.” National EnvironmentalPolicies: A Comparative Study of Capacity Building. Eds.Martin Janicke and Helmut Weidner. Berlin: Springer, 1997:299-313.Kraft, Michael and Norman Vig. “Environmental Policyfrom the 1970s to the 1990s: Continuity and Change.Environmental Policy in the 1990s: Toward a New Agenda.Eds. Norman Vig and Michael Kraft. Washington, D.C.:CQ Press, 1994: 81-99.Lafferty, William. Governance for Sustainable Development:The Challenge of Adapting Form to Function. Cheltenham,UK: Edward Elgar, 2004.Lubchenco, Jane. “Entering the Century of the Environment:A New Social Contract for Science.” Science 279 (1998): 491-497.McNeill, John. Something New Under the Sun: AnEnvironmental History of the Twentieth Century World.London: Penguin Books, 2000.Ministry of Environment. State of the Environment in Indonesiain 2002. Jakarta: Ministry of the Environment, 2003.Parris, Thomas and Robert Kates. “Characterising andMeasuring Sustainable Development.” Annual Review ofEnvironment and Resources 28 (2003): 559-586.PCSD. Philippine Agenda 21: National Agenda for SustainableDevelopment. Manila: Philippine Council for SustainableDevelopment, 1996.Rhodes, Rod. “The New Governance: Governing withoutGovernment.” Political Studies 44 (1996): 652-667.Rich, Robert. “The Pursuit of Knowledge.” Knowledge:Creation, Diffusion and Utilisation 1 (1979): 6-30.Rosenstrom, Ullä and Simo Kyllönen. “Impacts ofParticipatory Approach to Developing National LevelSustainable Development Indicators in Finland.” Journal ofEnvironmental Management 84 (2007): 282-298.Santoso, Purwo. “The Politics of Environmental Policy-Making in Indonesia: A Study of State Capacity, 1967-1994.”Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, London School of Economicsand Political Science, 1999.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows
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Asian Transformations in ActionThe
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iiiCONTENTSAbout the BookAcknowledg
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V. APPENDICESCultivation of Transfo
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The Regional Project, entitled “C
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ixTHE CONTRIBUTORS(in alphabetical
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MYFEL JOSEPH PALUGA is a faculty me
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xiiiare common to nations around th
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xvsilence maintained by academe on
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xviiIt is reasonable and necessary,
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xixOVERVIEWCzarina Saloma-Akpedonu,
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xxiiiABOUT THE WORKSHOPThe 6 th API
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Page 256 and 257: 233Day 3, Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Page 258 and 259: JOSIE M. FERNANDEZExecutive Council
Page 260 and 261: 237MARY RACELISProfessorial Lecture
Page 262 and 263: 239NAPAT TANGAPIWUTInstitute of Asi
Page 264 and 265: Persistent problems, promising solu
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