DPCSD/UNEP
MEETING ON COMMON/COMPATIBLE SYSTEMS
OF ACCESS TO DATA
(New York, 19 January 1996)
FINAL
REPORT
Introduction
Organization
The meeting on Common/Compatible
Systems of Access to Data was convened in New York, on 19 January, by
the United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable
Development (DPCSD) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),
in cooperation with the Information Systems Coordination Committee (ISCC)
and the International Computing Centre (ICC), and hosted by the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Mr. Jerry Barton, the representative
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is the lead
agency for the ISCC Task Force on Information Access and Dissemination,
served as Chair. A list of participants is contained in Annex I.
Mandate
The meeting was organized
in response to a decision by the Commission on Sustainable Development
(CSD), at its third session in April 1995, in which it
"noted the importance of
developing, among the organizations of the United Nations system, a
common or compatible system of access to their respective data bases,
in order to share data fully, to streamline the collection and interpretation
of data and to identify data gaps, for the purpose of providing more
comprehensive and integrated data to decision-makers at national, regional
and international levels."
The Commission further invited
"the IACSD to refine measures
for establishing such a common or compatible system and to report thereon
to the Commission at its fourth session."
The Inter-agency Committee
for Sustainable Development (IACSD) agreed that there was need for further
action, bearing in mind the role of the ISCC and ICC, and invited the
Task Managers (DPCSD and UNEP) in consultation with focal points in
concerned UN organizations to consider how to:
identify relevant socio-economic
data systems to complement Earthwatch and to provide input in the work
on projections and models in the context of the work-programme on Changing
Production and Consumption Patterns;
develop modalities for cooperation
between the generators of the data and models with a view to allowing
better accommodation, where possible, of the requirements relating to
sustainable development;
continue their substantive
review of information systems related to sustainable development as
initiated in the report to CSD3 on Chapter 40; with due regard for the
roles of, and necessary interaction with, ISCC and ICC;
address the issue of the
home pages related to sustainable development on the world wide web
and the development of "hot links" between them.
Summary
of the Discussion
The
Primary Users
Identification of the primary
users is important both to determine what data need to be made available
and the means through which it should be made available. The meeting
agreed that the primary users of a system of common access should be
decision-makers at national, regional and international levels.
Consequently, the participants
decided that the only current and feasible means of providing common
access to UN system data was through the Internet. Among the electronic
means available, the Internet is the most technically accessible to
decision-makers at all levels. At the same time, everyone was aware
of the fact that a number of states, and particularly developing and
least developed states, may not yet have access to the Internet due
to telecommunication, infrastructural and technological constraints.
The participants therefore emphasized that their recommendation to pursue
common access through the Internet is based on the following suppositions:
1. That Development Watch,
in conjunction with the Sustainable Development Networking Programme
(SDNP) and other information related activities of UNDP, as well as
information support programmes from other organizations, such as the
World Bank, will proceed with assisting all states to establish Internet
links by the year 2000;
2. That those states that
do not yet have Internet access may rely on access through their Missions
to the United Nations in the interim;
3. That UN system information
will remain available in print, diskette and CD-ROM, as applicable.
Principles
The meeting discussed the
principles that should underlie the design of any UN information system
and agreed to the following:
Subsidiarity.
It is in the nature of the UN system that information is collected for
many purposes by innumerable organizational entities and held in many
forms and places. This is a strength to build on, since it keeps information
close to those who have collected it and who know its uses and limitations.
Any information system should keep things decentralized and near to
data collectors and users.
Responsibility.
Those who collect or originate data should be responsible for its accuracy
and appropriateness. The system should not allow data to be cut off
from their sources or to collect at secondary locations where they can
go out of date. Data should always be accompanied by meta-data, including
date, origin and conditions for access, and should not be alterable
except by the responsible parties.
Transparency.
To the extent possible, information should be freely available for all
non-commercial users. All those involved in decision-making processes
should have access to the same information with the highest standards
of reliability.
Efficiency.
Data should only be collected once, by one responsible entity, avoiding
unnecessary duplication (apart from that needed for quality control)
and simplifying reporting requirements. This will require consultation
mechanisms to determine which entities in the system are best placed
to collect and assess which kinds of data on behalf of the whole system.
Some cost-sharing mechanisms may also be appropriate. The corollary
of this is that data, once collected, should be readily and rapidly
available to any others who need it.
Economy.
Investment in the system should where possible be less than or equivalent
to that now made in collecting and processing information manually and
in responding individually to the many requests now made.
These principles or design
parameters suggest a UN information system where each organization is
responsible for collecting and posting data within its areas of responsibility,
coupled with a common access and search capacity that can tap easily
into information across the system.
Data
Content
Information for decision-makers
should be of good quality, reliable, timely, relevant and processed.
Data products, with value added, should form the basic content. In establishing
a system of common access, data should be organized by subject, consistent
with the topics covered by the forty chapters of Agenda 21, and the
organization reviewed at alater stage on the basis of actual demand.
Data that relate to the indicators of sustainable development that are
being developed on behalf of the CSD should be included and especially
coded in a manner that would facilitate their common retrieval. The
design plan should also have as an objective the creation of a virtual
country data base. Interaction with the system will be predefined but
should move toward transactional queries as soon as feasible. In order
to identify more specifically the information on sustainable development
that should be included in a system of common access,
it was recommended that
the Task Managers for the chapters of Agenda 21 be given the responsibility
to identify, within their respective chapters, the relevant data bases
of processed information within the UN system, the server on which these
data bases are maintained, the source of the data and the units responsible
for maintaining the data. Particular attention should be given to data
that relates to the indicators of sustainable development. Relevant
information that is not available electronically should be identified
and reference given to ways in which to access it (e.g., how to request;
how to order). This information should be provided to DPCSD, as the
Task Manager for Chapter 40, in time to report to the 1997 Special Session
of the CSD.
The Meeting also addressed
Principles for a Data Access Policy specifically in relation to high-level
processed information on sustainable development. These included the
following:
In principle, data collected
by and stored within the UN system should be in the public domain, freely
available to all users, unless Member States have specifically prohibited
open access.
All data should, as far as
possible, be accompanied by an acknowledgment of sources and the metadata
necessary to ensure quality, timeliness and appropriateness for different
uses.
In special cases, data access
may be restricted for any of the following reasons:
a. The data are covered by
government-defined restrictions based on strategic, security or sovereignty
considerations;
b. The data have commercial
significance, would reveal trade secrets, are covered by intellectual
property rights, or would give illegitimate holders an unfair commercial
or trade advantage;
c. The data are normally
sold as part of a data commercialization or cost-recovery programme.
Where data are so restricted,
they shall be shared with other parts of the UN system for internal
use without charge, provided that the specified restrictions accompany
and are not separated from the data, and are respected by the users.
Such data will not be shared
outside the UN system except with official partners in UN-sponsored
joint activities, where the partner agrees to be bound by and to respect
the same conditions and restrictions.
Restricted data may be used
to prepare derivative or combined information products, provided that
they are so processed as to protect the interests for which they are
restricted, and in such a way that the original data cannot be restored
or reconstructed from the derivative product.
Where charges are normally
levied for data, these charges will be waived for reasonable amounts
of internal use by UN system partners on the principle of reciprocity,
and with the understanding that such data will not be made available
to outside users who would normally purchase such data from the original
supplier.
The meeting accepted these
principles and forward them to the IACSD and the ISCC for further action.
Coordination
with the ISCC and the ICC
In order to ensure full coordination
between the work of the Meeting and that of the Information Systems
Coordination Committee (ISCC) and the International Computing Centre
(ICC), the Chair of the ISCC and the Director of the ICC were invited
to discuss the roles of their respective organizations, particularly
as they relate to the issue of establishing a common system of access
to UN system data bases.
The ISCC has as its principal
function the provision of medium- and long-term strategic views to the
Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) on information systems
technology and services. Its primary goal is to promote open access
to information, for which purpose it reviews areas that might require
standardization and/or the establishment of "best practices." It organizes
itself into issue-oriented Task Forces, among them currently, one on
Information Access and Dissemination. Three products of this Task Force
are particularly relevant to this Meeting: the establishment of a UN
System Web locator, which is a comprehensive Web page for the entire
UN system, to be housed at the ICC (by end 1996); the development of
a model information access policy as a recommended "best practice";
and the identification of the most appropriate tools for searching UN
system-related information across Web sites (by September 1996)
Other Task Forces of relevance
to the work of the Meeting are those dealing with library cooperation
to establish a system-wide mechanism for searching bibliographic data;
with the identification of areas where standards and best practices
are needed; and with document management strategies, particularly within
organizations.
The ICC is a service provider
of information technology on a cost-recovery basis and has as its clients
the United Nations Organization and twenty-one of the specialized agencies
in the UN system. It focuses particularly on the design, construction
and maintenance of data bases and on creating software to improve human-computer
interaction. The Director stressed the point that, while electronic
information services are efficient and effective, their initial investment
costs are high, and these costs must be considered from the outset.
For example, the recently-installed Integrated Management Information
System (IMIS) in the UN was completed at a cost of US$80 million over
a period of seven years. In total, the UN system is currently spending
approximately US$500 million per year on all of its information requirements.
The ICC, with its technical
innovations group, would be available to assist in developing a system
of common access to UN system data bases related to sustainable development.
The meeting noted the
complementarity between its work and that of the ISCC and the ICC and
recommended that close coordination with the ISCC and the ICC should
continue. It also recommended that the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), as one of the major providers of information related to sustainable
development, should participate more actively in the work of the ISCC.
Common
Access
Suggestions for providing
access ranged from hot-links among a series of World Wide Web sites
to be set up by each of the relevant organizations, to using a common
interface, to setting up a data warehouse. Issues of creating a common
"front end," to constructing specialized search engines, to developing
a thesaurus for sustainable development, to the emerging "agent technology"
were also discussed. Reference was made to a number of ongoing activities,
including DPCSD's plan to create a 25,000-page compendium and index
and DESIPA's StatBase Locator, available on CD ROM. The ICC submitted
a suggested "Roadmap" for proceeding with the task of creating common
access (see Annex II). Based on what it considered to be the most cost-effective
and feasible option, consistent with the work of the ISCC and the ICC,
and the most relevant to decision-making,
the Meeting recommended
the following:
a. That the UN System-wide
WEB Locator Home Page being established by the ISCC and ICC contain
hot-links to the proposed Sustainable Development Home Page;
b. That a Sustainable
Development Home Page be established on the World Wide Web (see below),
with hot links to the "value-added" data bases identified by the Agenda
21 Task Managers. The IACSD should determinewhich organization in the
UN system should take the lead role in setting up such a Home Page;
c. That a Sustainable
Development thesaurus be developed by the end of 1996, using the UNBIS
thesaurus as the starting point. The thesaurus should include, inter
alia, standardized country codes, as a basis for creating a virtual
country directory and data base, and standardized codes for data related
to the indicators of sustainable development, as a basis for creating
a virtual indicator directory.
d. It is recommended that
an amount of US$53,000 be allocated to support the cost of contracting
a consultant to develop the thesaurus and design the Home Page. Full
terms of reference would be provided by the Task Managers for Chapter
40.
e. That, once the thesaurus
has been developed and accepted, standard procedures should be adopted
among all UN system organizations whereby the authors of relevant value-added
documents, reports, publications, etc., index their material by use
of the thesaurus and work toward increasing compatibility among their
data bases.
f. The IACSD should establish
an operational support structure and review mechanism for the Home Page
and the relevant data bases to which it refers. For this purpose, the
IACSD may wish to consider using its annual meeting of Task Managers.
The
Home Page
The Home Page would provide
"hot-links" to pass users directly to the electronic sites of the organizations
holding the appropriate information, or to information "warehouses"
where preprocessed information is stocked and updated regularly from
the agencies. The proposed thesaurus should help to make this transfer
as seamless as possible.
As far as possible, the system
should be built and maintained with information already collected and
assessed by the partners. It should have mechanisms for internal monitoring
of the use of the system, so that parts receiving heavy use can be strengthened
and expanded, and those used little or not at all can be simplified
or cut back. It should be able to grow and adapt to the real needs of
its users.
Each document should have
an electronic cover sheet for all the information necessary to facilitate
its access: title, source, document number, date and time frame, type,
abstract, key words, geographic area, contact for further information
or for ordering published material, and relationship to the indicators
of sustainable development. Search tools should be considered in the
context of what is being proposed by the ISCC. It would be desirable
toprovide access in at least the working languages of the United Nations,
consistent with the ISCC UN System Home Page.
Further definition of the
Home Page will result from an identification of the data bases to be
included, and their home servers, and from the development of a sustainable
development thesaurus.
Modalities
The IACSD suggested that
modalities for cooperation between the generators of data and of models
be developed. The Meeting noted that this was discussed during the third
meeting of the Earthwatch Working Party, convened by UNEP 17-18 January
1996, in New York (see Report of the Meeting, UNEP/EWWP3/7), and would
be one of the main foci of discussion in the Workshop on Core Data Sets,
to be held 22-23 January 1996, also in New York. In order to avoid duplication,
it was agreed to defer discussion and conclusions on this topic to the
other meetings.
The Meeting did note that
there are now seven separate but related and complementary efforts underway
within the UN System, and within the context of Chapter 40 of Agenda
21, to improve the availability of information for decision-making.
These include the following:
i. Development Watch,
which includes efforts to build information capacity at the national
level (infrastructure and training), to coordinate national and local
data sources, to coordinate international actors involved in information
at the national level, to test the usefulness of indicators of sustainable
development, to promote the use of common core data sets ,
including social and economic statistical information, and to
help streamline national reporting requirements. The lead organization
for this task is UNDP.
ii. Earthwatch, which
is primarily a global level system of environmental assessment but,
set in the context of sustainable development, also has social and economic
components. The lead organization for the UN System-wide Earthwatch
is UNEP.
iii. Common access to
information, which is relevant to national, regional and international
levels, and applicable to all data sets related to sustainable development.
It is likely to interact with Development Watch and Earthwatch
and have important implications to streamlining national reporting
requirements, a social and economic information system, and common core
data sets. The lead organizations are DPCSD and UNEP.
iv. Indicators of sustainable
development. Indicators are being developed primarily for use by
decision-makers at the national level but may also be employed for purposes
of developing a social and economic informationsystem, common core
data sets and streamlining national reporting requirements.
The lead organization is DPCSD.
v. Streamlining national
reports. This is a new area of expressed concern within the IACSD
with the objective of reducing the reporting burden on national governments.
It is likely to make use of both indicators and common core
data sets and have direct relevance to Development Watch.
The lead organization is DPCSD.
vi. Common core data sets.
This is an effort to standardize the data sets used by the UN system
for assessment, modelling and reporting purposes. It is likely to be
related to Development Watch, indicators, a social and economic information
system, streamlining national reporting requirements, and common access
to information. The lead organization is UNEP.
vii. United Nations economic
and social information system. This is a new effort to put make
more consistent and compatible the social and economic statistical information
being used through the UN System. It is related to common core data
sets and indicators and has relevance for Development
Watch, Earthwatch, and common access. The lead organization
is DESIPA.
The Meeting noted that there
is a need to ensure the continued effective coordination among all of
these activities not only to avoid duplication but also to try to ensure
that each benefits to the maximum extent from the others. The back-to-back-organization
of meetings on Development Watch, Earthwatch, Common Access and Core
Data Sets, from 15 to 23 January, 1996, in New York, was one major effort
to launch this coordination. In addition,
the Meeting proposes that
annual meetings be organized by DPCSD, in cooperation with DESIPA, UNEP
and UNDP, to assess progress in each activity and to maximize the interaction
among them, as appropriate.
The participants in the
Meeting decided that they would communicate electronically through a
list server housed at the ICC, under the auspices of the ISCC.
Conclusions
and Recommendations
The Meeting requested that
its conclusions and recommendations, as contained herein, be forwarded
to the seventh meeting of the Inter-agency Committee on Sustainable
Development and to the fourth session of the Commission on Sustainable
Development.
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