INECE Indicators Forum Special Event

E-dialogue on Good Practices for Identifying Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Indicators

The International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE) invites you to participate in an upcoming e-dialogue on environmental compliance and enforcement indicators. This e-dialogue, which is the first in a series of discussions on the development and use of environmental compliance and enforcement indicators, will focus on good practices for identifying environmental compliance and enforcement indicators.

The goal of this e-dialogue is to solicit ideas and country-specific examples and experience from environmental enforcement practitioners and other stakeholders on good practices for identifying environmental compliance and enforcement indicators. Michael Stahl, Director of the Office of Compliance at the United States Environmental Protection Agency, will moderate the discussion.

The e-dialogue will be open over a three-week period, from Wednesday, 18 August 2004 through Wednesday, 08 September 2004. Participants may visit the discussion at any time during these dates to post comments, view responses, and to present questions to the moderator and other participants. Participants are invited to describe their personal experiences identifying environmental compliance and enforcement indicators and share lessons learned.

Please refer to a brief background on types and applications of environmental compliance and enforcement indicators that is located below the questions.

The following questions will be use to guide the discussion:

1 What criteria should we apply in identifying a "good" environmental compliance and enforcement indicator, e.g., relevancy, transparency, feasibility, measurability, credibility?

2 What purposes should be served by a set of performance indicators? Reporting to external audiences? Monitoring program operations? Improving program performance? Others?
2.1 How do we ensure the indicators are responsive to programmatic goals?

3 What are some of the challenges associated with identifying environmental compliance and enforcement indicators?
3.1 What institutional barriers need to be recognized and overcome in the indicator identification stage?
3.2 How do we prioritize ECE indicators in light of resource limitations?

4 What stakeholder groups need to be consulted in the process of identifying indicators?
4.1 How can you ensure that indicators meet the needs of multiple user groups?

5 How do we consider currently available resources and data collection activities in identifying indicators?
5.1 What resources are available to collect, store, distribute, and use the data?
5.2 What steps are necessary to ensure the discovery and use of existing data?

6 What are additional challenges that transition and/or developing economies might face while identifying ECE indicators?
6.1 How can these challenges be resolved?
6.2 Do you have specific experiences or examples of overcoming these obstacles?

As part of INECE's project to identify and expand the use of environmental compliance and enforcement indicators, INECE is developing a document entitled "Performance Measurement Guidance for Compliance and Enforcement Practitioners." The Guidance Document will serve as a comprehensive reference guide for the development of indicators of the effectiveness and efficiency of environmental compliance and enforcement activities in developed, transition, and developing countries. The e-dialogue will be archived and used to shape the formation of the Guidance Document.

For further information on the INECE Indicators project or the e-dialogue, please contact Ken Markowitz at the INECE Secretariat at inece@inece.org.

Background on Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Indicators
for the INECE E-dialogue

What are Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Indicators?

Environmental compliance and enforcement indicators, in general, serve three major purposes:

• Environmental compliance and enforcement indicators assist program management in monitoring operations of compliance and enforcement programs.
• Environmental compliance and enforcement indicators enhance the accountability of environmental compliance and enforcement programs.
• Environmental compliance and enforcement indicators provide a framework to assess the performance of environmental compliance and enforcement programs.

Basic Types of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Indicators

Other definitions may be accessed through the INECE Indicators Glossary.