Achievements and Highlights

In February 2004, IISD signed a five-year agreement with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), which will see the Measurement and Indicators team and contributors from other programs working on a series of projects to support AAFC initiatives associated with the Department's Agriculture Policy Framework (APF). IISD will focus on full cost accounting to complement the agri-environment indicators developed in AAFC's National Agri-Environmental Health Analysis and Reporting Program (NAHARP); conduct research related to the social dimension of agriculture to complement earlier work; and participate in international initiatives related to sustainable development in the agri-food sector. IISD experts will also contribute to strengthening AAFC's sustainable development strategies and its capacity to address agriculture and agri-food sector sustainability issues in the context of the APF. We are particularly excited about the opportunity to advance the sustainable development agenda in the agriculture sector by linking indicators and performance measurement more closely with the policy process.

IISD joined forces with the United Way of Winnipeg this past year to lead an ambitious initiative to develop a community indicator system for the city where IISD's head office is located. The United Way, IISD and many others will lay lasting foundations for an indicator system with which Winnipeggers can work and identify. This year's journey led us to agreement on the underlying values, purpose, goals and objectives—not a small step, given the diversity of interests involved. The work is a process to engage Winnipeggers in a dialogue about a long-term vision for the community and measures to monitor progress towards the vision. This work represents a tremendous opportunity to use IISD's global experience with indicators and assessment to make a difference at home.

The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development called on all countries "to make progress in the formulation and elaboration of national strategies for sustainable development and begin their implementation by 2005." In an effort to help governments with this endeavour, IISD engaged in an international collaborative research project with Stratos Inc. and the Environmental Policy Research Centre of the Free University of Berlin. This project studied 19 countries to understand and document the key challenges, tools, and innovations in the development, planning, implementation, and monitoring of national sustainable development strategies.

"IISD experts will also contribute to stengthening AAFC's sustainable development strategies and its capacity to address agriculture and agri-food sector sustainability issues..."

This work was a collaborative effort among the research partners and funding agencies: the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (of The German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development), the Canadian International Development Agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs Canada and Environment Canada. Advisors to the project include the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development. The project will be completed and results published in July 2004. Click here for the project web site.

IISD's role with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a Collaborating Centre on the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) continued with a renewed emphasis on training and capacity building. We were invited by UNEP to re-convene the GEO Capacity Building Working Group, and lead a process that will produce a new generation of training modules and materials on integrated environmental assessment and reporting. Practical country-level training efforts continued through our assistance to the government of St. Lucia to develop their national environment outlook program and report. St. Lucia's environment outlook is particularly interesting because of its direct connection to the government's integrated development planning initiative—a clear example of measurement and assessment having direct impact on policy.

"Practical country-level training efforts continued through our assistance to the government of St. Lucia to develope their national environment outlook program and report."

IISD continued its collaboration with Manitoba Conservation in preparing the province's first sustainability report, to be published in 2005. The Institute contributed to or, in some cases, led the analysis of social, economic and environmental trends, with particular emphasis on the analysis of cross-cutting issues and implications for sustainability. The Measurement and Indicators team has also developed two high-level measurement tools for Manitoba: a Dashboard of Sustainability, and an Ecological Footprint. The Dashboard compares the overall sustainability situation from 1980 to the present using a subset of key indicators included in the analytic part of the report. Our calculation of Manitoba's Ecological Footprint seeks to indicate the area of land—or footprint—that Manitoba would require to sustainably maintain the current lifestyles of its residents; the relative contribution of various activity components to this footprint; and how this compares with Manitoba's bio-capacity.

The Americas Capacity Assessment (ACA) Project seeks to strengthen capacity for environmental management and sustainable development (ESD) in the Americas. The ACA Project is a joint initiative of IISD, the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) through their Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC). The first component of the project identifies hemispheric gaps and priorities for ESD capacity and institution building, increases awareness of ESD issues among policy-makers in the Americas and engages Latin American and Caribbean civil society and government partners. After a series of meetings, the partners are now undertaking a survey to uncover gaps in existing sub-regional ESD capacity and confirm their priorities for future hemispheric research and capacity development initiatives.