Chapter II.

Overall Framework of APEIS/RISPO

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2.1. Outline of overall activities

The RISPO project aims to develop knowledge-based reference tools, such as the Good Practices Inventory, and to propose Strategic Policy Options to aid policymakers seeking better solutions to the sustainable development challenges that they face. RISPO also places significant emphasis on applying these research findings to actual attempts to promote sustainable development, rather than considering the database or policy recommendations to be the final outcome. Thus, providing policymakers with capacity building opportunities is an important aspect of RISPO’s activities. Furthermore, the project intends to examine the workability of its recommendations by implementing pilot projects.

APEIS, as mentioned previously, comprises three sub-projects, namely, Integrated

Environmental Monitoring (IEM), Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA), and Research on Innovative and Strategic Policy Options (RISPO), and will last for three years, from April 2002 to March 2005.

With environmental innovation as the overarching theme, the three sub-projects address urgent

sustainable development issues in the Asia-Pacific region, taking different approaches that complement each other. While the Integrated Environmental Monitoring sub-project (IEM) and the Integrated Environmental Assessment sub-project (IEA) take a bird’s-eye-view approach, adopting research methodologies such as satellite monitoring and computer modelling, RISPO emphasises the importance of ground-based field studies. Through these practices, the intention is to develop a sound understanding of the factors promoting or hindering sustainable development in various settings, and to share the lessons learned among policymakers and a wider audience through the website database developed.

APEIS is designed to be implemented collaboratively by research institutes and key

international organisations in the environment field in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also expected that dialogues with policymakers, such as the ECO ASIA Panel, will be maintained throughout and beyond the project’s duration. 2.2. Research framework of RISPO

Through consultation with international researchers and policymakers in the Asia-Pacific region,

the following four research themes were identified as the RISPO key research areas at the initial stage of the project:

• Promoting Eco-Markets and Eco-Industry • Developing Innovative Urban Systems • Using Community Resources Appropriately • Networking Stakeholders for Action However, in order to structure the outcomes derived from the eight sub-themes, such as good

practices and strategic policy options, the overall framework of the research was rearranged under three headings: 1) economic instruments, 2) physical instruments and 3) social instruments, taking into account the key factors of innovation and sustainable development (see Table 2-1).

In addition, from February 2004, an overall analysis team was organised consisting of four

international research institutions to systematically synthesise the outcomes of the eight sub-themes

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and to produce comprehensive and innovative sets of policies for sustainable development for the region.

Table 2 -1. Focus and Sub-themes of APEIS/RISPO

Focus Sub-themes

Innovative financing for renewable energy development Creation of an inter-boundary market for recyclable materials Economic

instruments Improving the environmental performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises Facilitating community-based tourism in protected areas Promoting environmental education by NGOs Social instruments Promoting local/indigenous knowledge-based sustainable resource management Development of environmentally sustainable transport systems in urban areas Physical instrumentsPromotion of biomass energy

RISPO is a three-year project (April 2002–March 2005) and the priority activities in each stage

are as follows: • First year: develop an overall RISPO research framework to identify research themes and

sub-themes in collaboration with participating research institutes and policymakers in the Asia-Pacific region, and launch research activities.

• Second year: prepare initial draft of the Strategic Policy Options and Good Practices Inventory for preliminary proposal.

• Third year: refine the proposed Strategic Policy Options through the review process that involves policymakers and local stakeholders from the target countries as part of capacity building activities, and prepare the final products of RISPO’s first phase.

Milestones in the project timeline are shown below.

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RISPO Schedule RISPO Schedule (April 2002 (April 2002 –– March 2005)March 2005)

Preliminary Framework

Good Practices InventoryDevelopment

Field-based Case-studies

Strategic Policy Options Development

StrategicPolicy

Options

GoodPractices Inventory

Refining

Proposal

StrategicPolicy

Options

GoodPractices Inventory

FY2002 FY2003 FY2004

March 2004 March 2005(on the Web)

GEF Projects

Interaction with policy makers

Project Development

Overall Analysis

Figure 2-1. RISPO Overall Schedule

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2.3. Current stage of development of Good Practices Inventory

In FY 2003, the following progress was made in the development of the Preliminary Proposal of the Good Practices Inventory (GPI):

(1) Launch of the prototype GPI on the website (2) Continuous collection of good practices and registering in the database (3) Database improvement

(1) Launch of the prototype GPI on the website The GPI prototype was released on the internet on 6 June 2003 and presented at the Eleventh Environment Congress for Asia and the Pacific (ECO ASIA 2003), held in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. (2) Additional collection of good practices and registering in the database

In Year 2, approximately fifty cases were submitted by the participating researchers, based on the criteria for selecting good practices and the GPI format and guidelines developed in the First Year. Overviews of the GPIs of each sub-theme are listed in the reporting section of each sub-theme in Chapter 3.

The cases submitted were registered in the database on the website. To ensure the high quality

of the published cases, various quality control measures were taken, including a review system by designated reviewers, a format and writing style check, clarification of copyright issues and a native language check..

During the two years of research, approximately one hundred cases have been collected and

compiled in the database. Figures 2-2 and 2-3 show the geographical distribution of good practices collected during the first two years.

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Figure 2-2. Distribution of Good Practices – The Asia-Pacific Region

Figure 2-3. Distribution of Good Practices – Other Regions

1

1

1

1

2

U.K.

Brazil

Argentina

Colombia

Ecuador

15 6

2

1

11

11

34

14

4India

Nepal

Bangladesh

Japan

Republicof Korea

China

Philippines

Indonesia

Singapore

Malaysia

Viet NamThailand

18

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(3) Database Improvement

The prototype developed during the previous year did not contain data of when the good practices were registered or updated, and updates made to the information contained in the good practice could not be tracked. Therefore, the following modifications to the database were made to improve the user friendliness and efficiency in managing the different versions of the good practice cases.

• The data fields of first registered date, last registered date, and version number were added to the database.

• The GPIs search result display was modified to display the above data (A of Figure 2-4) and

the word “New” is now marked next to the title of cases that are newly registered or have been updated during the last three months (B of Figure 2-4).

Figure 2-4. Search Interface of Good Practices Inventory

Ｂ

Ａ

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2.4. Current status of development of the Strategic Policy Options The major progress regarding the Strategic Policy Options (SPOs) in Year 2 was the

development of an SPO framework and format common to the eight sub-themes, through discussions at research team meetings and the Second RISPO Plenary Workshop. Based on the common framework and format, frameworks have been developed for each sub-theme and a number of SPOs have been developed.

Figure 2-5 shows the common framework of SPOs. Strategies for sustainable development are

identified for each policy area to which the RISPO sub-themes correspond (e.g. environmentally sustainable transport), and policy options to contribute to the strategy are categorised under each strategy as SPOs.

Each SPO contains information such as a brief description, background, critical instruments,

impacts, evaluation, implementation issues, and applicability limitation (Please see Attachment 1). The information in the SPOs is derived from analyses of the GPIs as well as other empirical data. The length of one SPO is approximately 5 pages and detailed analyses to support the SPO are documented in analytical background papers linked to the SPO.

Figure 2-5. Common Framework of Strategic Policy Options

Introduction Strategies and Strategic Policy Options

•Strategy 1 (e.g. Reducing Transport Demand) -SPO1 (e.g. High density urban planning) -SPO2 (e.g. Telecommuting) •Strategy 2 (e.g. Share of Public Transport) •Strategy 3 (e.g. Reducing Vehicle Emission)

Policy Area (e.g. Environmentally Sustainable Transport)

GPI Analyses of GP; Political implications derived from GP and other empirical data

Analytical Background Paper(s) GP

GP GP

Brief description Background Critical instruments Impacts Evaluation Implementation issues Applicability & limitation

SPO

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By using this framework, policy makers using the SPO database can identify and obtain the necessary information on the policy options applicable to the relevant policy areas and strategies. For example, if a policy maker is engaged in policies to mitigate environmental problems due to transport and chooses ‘environmentally sustainable transport’ as a policy area, he or she is shown three strategies, namely, reducing transport demand, enhancing public transport share, and reducing emissions from vehicles. The policy maker can examine policy options under the relevant strategy or strategies applicable to the specific conditions of the country and/or local area. Based on the common framework, each sub-theme developed frameworks of strategies and SPOs. Some preliminary SPOs were developed in the SPO format. Details of these frameworks and preliminary SPOs are shown in Section 3.2. The prototype of the SPO database containing part of these frameworks and SPOs was developed and presented at the Second RISPO Plenary Workshop and the Third Research Coordination Committee (RCC). Figures 2-6 to 2-10 give examples of displays of the prototype SPO database .

Figure 2-6. Display of the SPO database – Policy Area

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Figure 2-7. Display of the SPO Database – Overview of Sub-Theme and List of SPOs (Example of Environmentally Sustainable Transport)

Figure 2-8. Display of the SPO Database – Viewing the list of SPOs and Selecting an Option

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Figure 2-9. Display of the SPO Database – Result when the SPO “Bus rapid transit systems” is selected

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Figure 2-10. Display of the SPO Database – Key Word Search Interface

In the third year of RISPO, the plan is to develop and finalise the SPOs, based on the peer reviews and interactive workshops with policy makers. It is also intended to improve the SPO database, upload the SPOs into the database, and disseminate the database on the website as one of the final outcomes of RISPO.