Since the Earth Summit (Rio Summit, 1992) there have been many initiatives to promote environmentally sustainable development in the countries of West Asia/Arab Africa Regions. There is a growing interest in measuring the environmental performance and evaluating the progress made by the efforts being exerted to combat environmental degradation. Thus, environmental indicators have become a tool to chart, monitor, and evaluate our success toward sustainable development.

What are environmental indicators?

• Environmental indicators are scientific measurements that track environmental conditions over time.
• Indicators help measure the state of our air, water and land resources, the pressures on them, and the resulting effects on ecological and human health.
• Indicators show our progress in making the air cleaner, the water purer, and in protecting our land.

Building on many regional and international initiatives aimed at developing, testing and using environmental indicators, DEWA West Asia has adopted a work programme to develop priority environmental indicators.

To address lack of environmental indicators in West Asia/Arab Africa Regions, DEWA West Asia in collaboration with the secretariat of the Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE) organized a regional workshop on Priority Environmental Indicators. The Workshop aimed at building agreement on a core set of priority environmental indicators to be used in the regions.

DEWA West Asia, in collaboration with Arabian Gulf University (AGU), has also finalised a set of guidelines on the development and use of core environmental indicators for West Asia.