Peru A Case Study in Sustainable Development Indicators

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hicks, Barbara

Keywords

Sustainable Development, Peru, Indicators

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

The United Nations is the coordinator and promoter of sustainable development across the globe. In this role, the U.N. can influence the manner in which developing countries create and implement development programs. The information collected by the set of indicators that the U.N. uses to measure progress toward sustainable development should therefore be as accurate as possible to facilitate better policymaking. In order to evaluate the efficacy of the indicator framework, this study applied the U.N. indicators to the case of Peru. The indicator set identified consisted of 29 goals from Agenda 21, which was the product of the 1992 Rio Summit, and corresponding indicators that reflected the driving forces affecting the goal, the current state of progress toward or from the goal, and possible responses or ways to aid its progress. The case of Peru was chosen because geographical variations within its borders make it a thorough case for the application of all indicators. A more qualitative overview of the development situation in Peru was used as a basis for comparison to see whether the data produced by the indicators reflected the real situation. Several of the indicators did not accurately reflect the development situation in Peru, and when this was the case, suggestions for improving the indicators were made. Three types of flaws characterized the indicators: some indicators produced skewed data, the data produced by some indicators was not relevant to the stated goals, and some indicators were too vague. As a whole, the framework has the potential to provide useful information, but individual indicators need to be changed, removed, or added in order for the information collected to precisely reflect the development situation in a given country. Another finding was the need to disaggregate national measures to eco-regions in order to interpret the data more fruitfully and design more effective and sustainable development programs.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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