SDNP China: Helps to Implement Agenda 21
"People are now aware that the sustainable development strategy is essential to China's future development." - Wang Qiming, SDNP Coordinator , China
To a greater extent than most other SDNP projects, the project in China is an integral part of its host country's Agenda 21 (comprehensive programme for action agreed to by most countries at the 1992 Earth Summit) initiative. This alliance is what gives the programme its special character. "Technically, there are many organisations that provide IT training in China," says SDNP National Co-ordinator Wang Qiming, "but only our organisation does IT training combined with sustainable development."

Launched in 1997 with UNDP grants totalling US $340,000, SDNP China has trained 150 government workers in four training courses, with two more courses planned for this year. Participants from the Government include civil servants at the national level and those from 16 pilot cities with local Agendas 21, as well as representatives from 40 counties and townships known as "sustainable communities." All of these government trainees are working on implementing Agenda 21 at their respective levels. Among other things, they are preparing web sites to provide the public with information on local resources and sustainable development issues.

"National Agenda 21 co-ordinates the implementation of China's sustainable development strategy," Mr. Wang explains. "So we have lots of communication with each government department, particularly those dealing with natural resources, environment and legislation." These agencies, he points out, already have access to the Internet. Where they need help is in learning how to use the Internet effectively to find information relevant to their work, and this is the focus on SDNP's training. In addition, SDNP has trained people in a number of government agencies in content preparation and the production of web sites. "We now have ten ministries whose data can be searched on the web," says Mr. Wang.

Newly active NGOs

But it would be inaccurate to say that SDNP China trains only government employees. Mr. Wang notes that in recent years a groundswell of concern has focused public attention on environmental issues. "In China in the last couple of years, people are concerned about the environment," he says. "For instance, Beijing is the worst city for air pollution in the world. The people know that, and they want to know how to improve it." So about 30 percent of the people SDNP China has trained are academics, researchers, and representatives of nine NGOs based in Beijing, including the Chinese Society for Sustainable Development, the Environmentally Sound Technology Centre, and the Economic Monitoring Centre which provides "neutral" monitoring of China's economy.

The rise of NGOs in China has coincided with the proliferation of Information Technology (IT), and represents a sharp departure from conditions of the last 50 years. "The NGOs in China working on environment and development are new," says Mr. Wang. "They provide their own independent monitoring indicators on their own web sites. The Government has to accept this. In fact it's quite normal now. Multi-information is available on the Internet. Nobody can stop that."

In another dramatic break with tradition, Mr. Wang says that Chinese NGOs are now finding they can arrange for funding via the Internet, both from the Chinese Government and from abroad, in order to create their own activities. "They are searching for co-operation and partnerships," he says, "and they also provide information about their activities in China." For instance, one NGO is working on eliminating the environmental pollution caused by the ubiquitous plastic bags used to wrap "quick lunches." Another is monitoring automobile emissions in Beijing. "They can provide their recommendations to the government through the Internet," says Ms. Wang. "Actually, the government encourages NGOs who are concerned about the environment and development, because that is the way we seek the participation of the whole society."

Before SDNP came along, Chinese NGOs and research organisations were already compiling databases on various sustainable development topics, but none were available on the Internet. That has only been accessible in China since 1997. Now they are. "We encouraged the NGOs to get on the Internet and connect to each other to share their information," says Mr. Wang. "That's the primary goal of SDNP."

This year, the two training courses run by SDNP will be advanced courses in areas such as how to create a Common Gateway Interface [CGI) between a database and one or more web sites. Participants will be drawn from the most qualified trainees from the Government and NGO sectors.

Promoting information-sharing

To further promote information-sharing within China, SDNP has organised formal workshops on information-sharing and brought together government agencies and Chinese research institutions to discuss what kinds of mechanisms would be best for sharing information within China. "It's not Internet, it's Inconnect," says Mr. Wang.

SDNP China also promotes access to the Internet on the part of the general public by providing a fully-equipped centre in the SDNP office at the Beijing Environmental Training Centre for anyone who cares to drop in. "We have a national node here, our own server" says Mr. Wang. "We have the software and the hardware and ten computers. So we provide remote access for users who would like to get onto the Internet."

In fact, SDNP has a number of servers, including an FTP server, a web server, and a database server. It has set up the first Geological Information Survey [GIS) Internet server in China. On this server, information on natural resources (agriculture, forests, mineral deposits), the environment and natural disasters, including "a huge amount of diagrams" is available to the Chinese public for the first time.

Innovations in IT and Metadata on Sustainable Development

Mr. Wang is obviously proud of the project's accomplishments. "We provide the training course, the training materials, and we publish a book on IT use through China's scientific press," he says, noting that SDNP China also invited researchers to use their facilities to set up the first GIS standards for China and to create metadata standards for the first time in China. "We initiated this idea in China from the international community. We provided the data standards, we organised a meeting with the government, the State Development Planning Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology to which we are attached, to release these standards and use them on all projects in China containing GIS information. So now it's accepted."

SDNP China is also working with the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT) to set up a mirror site of the Global Systems for Sustainable Development (GSSD). "We are working on translating their interface into Chinese so they can have the Chinese mirror site here," says Mr. Wang. "People can access it by keying in Chinese words, and this software can do the auto-translation into Chinese and English. On the parallel search for information when it comes back, they will ask if you want to have it translated into Chinese or if you want the original English information. Then the software will do the auto-translation back into Chinese." However, he points out that the software for these automatic translations still needs improvement, and SDNP China is working on this during the current year.

A Sustainable Development web-browser

Like other SDNP projects in countries such as Lebanon, SDNP China found that commercial Internet browsers are not always as user-friendly as they might be. "The difficulty is that Yahoo provides too much information," says Mr. Wang. "You may search for sustainable development in China, and they provide you with thousands of articles. You really don't know which one you want."

So to help people find their way through the tangled web of the Internet, SDNP China has created its own Sustainable Development web site navigator. "We collected 400 web sites from around the world related to sustainable development," says Mr. Wang. "We put them into classified groups, like capacity-building, environmental technologies, human settlements, cleaner production, global issues on SD. This helps people so they can easily access the information they want."

SDNP is also compiling a database of information on China from 100 databases around the world, such as FAO's data on China's food production, UNDP's data on China's development, or the US Geological Survey's geological data on China. This newly compiled database will be accessible on the Internet soon.

A mouthpiece for sustainable development

Mr. Wang feels that SDNP China's greatest accomplishment so far has been in promoting sustainable development in the context of Agenda 21. "SDNP is an integral part of the implementation of Agenda 21," he says. "We are not independent. I think our greatest accomplishment is that people are now aware that the sustainable development strategy is essential to China's future development. And they know about this strategy through government documents such as the national Agenda 21 document," -- documents which are available to them through SDNP on the Internet both in both English and Chinese." This information provides tools that people at the local Agendas 21can use for their own purposes."

Another important element is the credibility associated with SDNP's web sites because of their affiliation with UNDP and the Chinese government, which according to Mr. Wang is highly trusted within China. "People believe our web sites," he says. "The news or the information has authority. If we were an NGO, or if we are funded by foreign countries, the government officials would not trust us."

Working toward self-sufficiency

UNDP funding for SDNP China is due to expire in mid-2000, and Mr. Wang is seeking ways for SDNP to become self-supporting. Because of its close ties with the Chinese government, particularly the Ministry of Science and Technology with which it is affiliated, support appears to be forthcoming. "Last year the Ministry of Science and Technology approved a US $2.5 million project for us to continue SDNP's work," he says. "We are responsible for managing this project, co-ordinating with ten different Ministries and encouraging them to put their data onto the Internet. That is the follow-up to SDNP and it's very important. Without SDNP the Chinese government wouldn't be launching a big follow-up project like this on information-sharing."

Additional funds are being sought from the European Union, which is supporting a 15 million ECU (European Currency Unit) project on China's environmental management for sustainable development. "In terms of dollars, quite a large part of this project involves exchanging information between the European Union and the States on environmental issues," says Ms. Wang.

But he is also convinced that SDNP China can become a money-making venture through what he calls "the transfer of environmentally sound technologies," in other words, charging people to access information about the growing number of activities in China designed to produce new technologies that will support environmental sustainability. "This will provide the Chinese people with information on where to find technologies that are environmentally friendly," he says. "There is a market there." He cites examples such as research on detergents that do not contain phosphorous or technologies that use all parts of a given crop, including the stems which can be made into cardboard and building materials. "There are a lot of new technologies, such as energy efficiency and clean investments, new materials, construction and also medicine, which are very interesting to the Chinese people and which we can put on different servers," he says. SDNP already charges users of its ISP 50 cent an hour, but Mr. Wang points out that this discounted price ("to stimulate them") will have to be increased.

Another plan for income-generation would be to provide technical assistance and help with web site design to the 16 cities and 40 "sustainable communities" whose representatives have already been trained by SDNP. These communities did not have access to the Internet until SDNP trained their employees and the local Agenda 21 projects provided the hardware they needed to access the Internet, through a US $70,000 grant from SDNP.

With all these possibilities, it would seem that SDNP China's work is far from over, despite the important contribution it has already made. Maybe it's partly a coincidence, but when Mr. Wang looks back on the two-year SDNP project, he is struck by the huge increase in the level of Internet use in China. "I have to say that since 1997, the Internet has spread out to the whole country," he says.

Agenda 21

Agenda 21 is the comprehensive programme for action agreed to by delegates from most countries of the world at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development ("the Earth Summit") which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It provides a blueprint for action in all areas relating to sustainable development of the planet, from now into the 21st century. There is a growing consensus all over the world that development must meet the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Agenda 21 calls for changes in the economic development activities of all human beings - changes that are based on a new understanding of the impact of human behaviour on the environment. The call for sustainable development is not simply a call for environmental protection, but is in fact a call for a new concept of economic growth - one that provides fairness and opportunity for all the world's people, without further destroying the world's scarce natural resources and carrying capacity.

Sustainable development is a process in which economics, finance, trade, energy, agriculture, industry and all other policies are so designed as to bring about development that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.

For more info: info@sdnp.undp.org

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Metadata:

Metadata are descriptive information about data and information resources. Typically, they describe, point to, or otherwise complement the information content of the data to which they are related. Metadata provide concise aid in locating desired information on a variety of topics, and help make such information easily accessible. Metadata may describe a range of information resources such as digital data images, databases, and printed materials such as books, memos, or maps.