Development of Institutional Indicators

The CSD’s set of sustainability indicators was the first one to explicitly take into account the fourth essential dimension of sustainability, the institutional one, besides the well established economic, environmental and social ones. Although this is a major achievement for sustainability policies, the indicators proposed have not all been received with enthusiasm. This results not from the concept, but from the inherent weakness of the indicators proposed. The need for improvements is assessed by comparing them to some conceptual standards regarding sustainability in a system-dynamics view, institutions in a political science view and quality criteria for indicators. For the development of an improved set of institutional indicators, Agenda 21 is analysed regarding its institutional content (organisations, mechanisms and orientations). On this basis, cardinal performance indicators are developed by associating the institutions with the purposes allocated to them explicitly or implicitly in Agenda 21 and taking the level of implementation as a quantitative measure for the effectiveness of the respective institution. In this process, a number of indicators already included in the CSD’s set can be identified as institutionally meaningful, although specific for one of the other three dimensions. This is the typical characteristic of interlinkage indicators. Thus the indicators developed can be classified as either core institutional or interlinkage indicators. After checking the purposes of institutions in Agenda 21 against the stated objectives, finally other international documents are evaluated (World Bank, Caribbean Development Bank, OECD) to create linkages to other actors as a first step towards an integrated sustainable development reporting system.