The working paper is a response to the call for the UN system to support countries interested in pursuing green economy policies by providing methodologies for their evaluation. It aims to provide guidance to policy analysts and advisers, and other stakeholders, who are involved in developing green economy policies by using indicators as a tool for identifying priority issues, formulating and assessing green economy policy options, and evaluating the performance of policy implementation. Emphasis is placed on policy options with “multiple dividends” across the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development.
The goal of the paper is neither to propose new indicators, nor to identify a catch-all list of indicators to be used in the policymaking process. Instead, it acknowledges the unique geographical and socio-cultural contexts of individual countries, and provides a step-by-step guide on how to identify and use relevant indicators in designing and implementing green economy policies. It provides examples to illustrate what could potentially be considered as a challenge in a given context and how to address it, rather than single out and prioritise global issues. Given the cross-sectoral nature of the analysis and implementation steps proposed, the use of existing indicators across various data sources is encouraged, as well as the involvement of a broad set of stakeholders, to support the design and implementation of a coherent and inclusive green economy strategy.
This paper is applicable to non-environmental issues as entry points. In some cases, the issues may not appear to be environmental at first glance, such as the case of increased prevalence of water-borne diseases among rural farmers, which will initially be perceived as a social issue with implications primarily on health policies. Upon further analysis, a strong connection to environmental problems may be revealed.