Sets of Sustainable Development Indicators in Vietnam: Status and Solutions

: There are some sets of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) at different regional scales and the Millennium development goals indicators (MDGIs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGIs) are employed in Vietnam. Actually, building and applying SDIs have faced different difﬁculties and this has led to a reduction in their value. Solutions to improve SDIs have been proposed and completed. This paper aims to review the SDIs, MDGIs, and SDGIs in Vietnam and to propose recommendations for building and effectively applying them in practice in Vietnam. Two national SDIs, one regional SDI, one local SDI, and some provincial SDIs, in addition to the results of MDGIs/SDGIs implementation, were analyzed. The common limitation of Government promulgated SDIs was found to not be feasible as they are applied in practice. Proposed solutions are building pilot SDIs for speciﬁc regions in Vietnam based on UN guidelines from 2007 and calculating practical values of SDIs for pilot regions, subsequently recommending relevant authorities in Vietnam to change or adjust promulgated SDIs. The experiences of procedure used to develop the pilot SDIs and effective handing over the usage of SDIs to stakeholders should also be considered when developing the sustainable development goals indicators in the future.


Introduction
Sustainable development indicators have five main functions: (1) leading to better decisions and more effective actions; (2) allowing incorporate natural and social science knowledge in decision-making; (3) allowing measure and calibrate progress toward sustainable development goals; (4) providing an early warning on economic, social, and environmental issues; and (5) communicating ideas, thoughts, and values (UNCSD 2007). It was recognized that the above important functions in Agenda 21 (United Nations 1992) of the United Nations called on countries and international organizations to develop and use sustainable development indicators (SDIs). In response to the call, many organizations and countries made efforts to develop SDIs and they became an effective tool for assessing progress toward sustainable development (Peterson 1997). There are many SDIs which have been developed around the world and according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD 2017), there are 900 publications related to SDIs on the website of Compendium of sustainable development indicator initiatives.
With respect to SDIs, the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) adopted three editions of Sustainable Development Indicators Guidelines and Methodologies (SDI GM), which guides countries/locals to develop their own indicator sets. In 1996, CSD adopted the first edition of SDI GM. This 'blue book' guides SDI selection based on a causal conceptual framework with 134 indicators Along with the development of SDIs, MDGIs, and SDGIs, there are some Vietnam SDI sets designed based on adapting the CSD indicators to national/local conditions and the Vietnam's SDGIs (VSDGIs) have been developed. This paper aims to review the SDIs and MDGIs/SDGIs in Vietnam and propose recommendations on developing and effectively applying them in practice in Vietnam.

Methodology
In order to consider the advantages and disadvantages of sets of sustainable development indicators issued in Vietnam, they were compared with the SDIs framework of the UN established in 2007. The cover of indicators ranged over the spectrum of sustainable development issues and their replication was indicated along the way. Additionally, based on guiding and applying the indicator sets to track, monitor, and assess sustainable development in Vietnam up to now and the achieved results, their feasibility when used in practice was evaluated.

Sustainable Development Indicators
Based on SDI GM (1996), in 1998, the first draft set of SDIs in Vietnam was promulgated by the Vietnam Environment Administration. The set included 80 indicators which relied on the causal-based/linkage-based framework and classified them into pressure-state-response groups belonging to three pillars: (1) socio-economic (three economic and seventeen social indicators); (2) environment (seven soil, five inland water, four sea, and six air environment indicators, and three solid waste, eleven biodiversity, and eight environmental incident indicators); and (3) environmental management with sixteen indicators. Obviously, the set was inclined to the

Methodology
In order to consider the advantages and disadvantages of sets of sustainable development indicators issued in Vietnam, they were compared with the SDIs framework of the UN established in 2007. The cover of indicators ranged over the spectrum of sustainable development issues and their replication was indicated along the way. Additionally, based on guiding and applying the indicator sets to track, monitor, and assess sustainable development in Vietnam up to now and the achieved results, their feasibility when used in practice was evaluated.

Sustainable Development Indicators
Based on SDI GM (1996), in 1998, the first draft set of SDIs in Vietnam was promulgated by the Vietnam Environment Administration. The set included 80 indicators which relied on the causal-based/linkage-based framework and classified them into pressure-state-response groups belonging to three pillars: (1) socio-economic (three economic and seventeen social indicators); (2) environment (seven soil, five inland water, four sea, and six air environment indicators, and three solid waste, eleven biodiversity, and eight environmental incident indicators); and (3) environmental management with sixteen indicators. Obviously, the set was inclined to the environmental pillar (60/80 indicators), while the socio-economic indicator was not properly considered (20/80 indicators). Finally, the set was not promulgated officially.
In 2003, a scientific group from the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations proposed a SDI set grounded on the causal-based/linkage-based framework. The set consisted of 42 indicators belonging to four pillars: 5 economic, 16 social, 17 environmental, and 4 response indicators. Subsequently it was reduced to 25 indicators including 4 economic, 9 social, 10 environmental, and 3 responses. Although the environmental indicators had decreased, the economic ones still occupied a low ratio. This means that the set had not been balanced and harmonized between the pillars. Like this, the United Nations promulgated the second edition of SDI GM in 2001, and the set was based on the theme framework.
Based on the second edition of SDI GM, some provinces of Vietnam (Ninh Binh, Lam Dong, Quang Nam, Thai Nguyen, and Yen Bai) applied the theme-based framework, including three pillars, to put the sets of SDIs in their own sustainable development strategies of 2006-2010Ninh Binh 2006;Quang Nam 2006;Thai Nguyen 2006;Yen Bai 2006). Although five sets were proposed by the provinces, no documents were promulgated.
UNDP and the Ministry of Planning and Investment published the document "Designing a set of SDIs and building a database for monitoring sustainable development in Vietnam" in 2006. The set relied on the SDI GM in 2001. The document is an important result of the project "Implementation of Vietnam Agenda 21-VIE/01/021" (UNDP and MPI 2006). The set was designed at a national and provincial scale. Nationally, the set was composed of 44 indicators: 12 economic, 17 social, 12 environmental-resource, and 3 institutional, while provincially, 30 indicators (7 economic, 14 social, 6 environmental-resource, and 2 institutional) were proposed (Table A1). Software for managing an indicator database was developed to support the tracking and monitoring of sustainable development.
In 2012, the Vietnamese Prime Minister promulgated decision no 432/QĐ-TTg dated 4th December 2012 on the Vietnam sustainable development strategy period 2011-2020. Following this, a set for monitoring and assessing Vietnam sustainable development period 2011-2020 was approved. It consisted of 3 composite, 10 economic, 10 social, and 7 environmental-resources indicators (Table A2). This was an important step forward in terms of designing a set of SDIs since it was the first time a set of SDIs was promulgated officially by the Government.
At the end of 2013, the Vietnam Prime Minister promulgated a set of SDIs for monitoring and assessing sustainable development in provinces for the period 2013-2020 to make a united legal basis. This resulted in a united and transparent information system from a national to provincial scale to monitor and assess the progress of the implementation of the Vietnam sustainable development strategy (VPM 2013a). The set was designed based on the indicators for monitoring, and assessing national sustainable development and provincial statistic systems, and made sure it closely targeted the development priorities of the Vietnam sustainable development strategy. The indicators were classified into two groups: common and local characteristics. The common indicators included 28 variables: 1 composite, 7 economic, 11 social, and 9 environmental-resource, while the local characteristic group had 15 indicators (1 indicator for mountainous regions, 2 for plains, 2 for coastal areas, 5 for national cities, and 5 for rural regions) (Table A3). Both the government promulgated sets of SDIs did not inherit the theoretical framework of the set of SDIs proposed by the project VIE/01/021.
There is some research on the design of recent SDIs. For example, (Hai et al. 2009(Hai et al. , 2013) developed the SDIs for Quang Tri and Thai Binh province based on a procedure with two steps: (1) proposing a draft of SDIs relying on the theme framework inherited from Indonesia, Thailand, China, and England, as part of the project VIE/01/021; (2) using the Delphi method to finalize the SDIs in 2009 and 2013. However, the SDIs only had a list of indicators and there was no calculation for each indicator; therefore, the feasibility and applicability had not been validated. (Tran ) carried out a full procedure for designing a set of SDIs to monitor and assess sustainable development in Tay Nguyen's provinces. This included designing the indicator framework that was suitable for Tay Nguyen at three scales (77 regional, 70 provincial, and 48 district indicators) (Table A4), collecting data for each indicator; defining target values; calculating, measuring, and assessing the sustainable development; proposing solutions for each section and scale; and developing a software for managing data, supporting the calculation of indicators, and viewing the results. The SDIs were developed based on the theme framework of UNCSD (2007). The first proposed indicators selected relied on seven criteria: (1) be appropriate with the point of view on sustainable development strategy 2011-2020; (2) suitable for the United Nations SDIs and cover a broad range of sustainable development issues; (3) indicators ensure independence and relative balance between themes; (4) suitable for the Tay Nguyen development strategy; (5) inherit selectively sustainable development indicators; (6) have indicators reflecting the Tay Nguyen characteristics; (7) ensure calculation feasibility, it means that the real value of each indicators can be calculated based on statistic indicators system or feasible methods. After the selection of proposed SDIs was completed, they were given a suggestion by provincial managers to finish the proposed SDIs. Sequentially, they were assigned scores ranging from one to five based on their reflection of sustainable development in Tay Nguyen by think tanks who deeply and widely understand sustainable development. Finally, the proposed indicators were processed by the Delphi method to finalize the Tay Nguyen SDIs.

The Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals Indicators
After the Millennium Declaration was approved and the commitment was made to implement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, Viet Nam immediately initiated the implementation process. In 2005, Vietnam had begun developing database systems for 48 MDGIs and 35 Vietnam Development Goals indicators (VDGIs) proposed by the Vietnam Government. Vietnam established 12 development goals of its own which focused on social and poverty reduction goals, in which there were four VDGs (GSO 2005;VN 2015). VDGs fully reflected MDGs and took into account Vietnam's own characteristics and national aims. Some additional sectors were included and stressed in the VDGs such as good governance, reducing gaps between ethnic groups and infrastructure. The VDGs were integrated widely and effectively into national socioeconomic development strategies and further broken down in detail. For example, at the beginning of the implementation process, they were mainstreamed into the Agenda 21 framework, and in the latter years, the VDGs have been integrated into the country's socio-economic development strategy for the period 2011-2020 and the five-year socio-economic development plans. In order to accelerate the realization of the MDGs in the end stage of MDGs, some legal documents were issued, such as Government Resolution 05/NQ-CP on accelerating the implementation of the MDGs for the Health Sector on 13 January 2014 and the "Framework Plan to promote MDGs for ethnic minorities linked to the post-2015 SDGs" (VPM 2014).
In order to monitor and evaluate the implementation of MDGs, MDGIs were integrated into the national statistical indicators system to ensure that the collection of data was harmonized and timely. Legal documents relating to the collection of data on the MDGs such as Decision No. 1755/QĐ-TTg on "Principles and tasks for reporting on the implementation of MDGs" and major reforms in the statistical field as stated in the "Strategy for statistical development in Viet Nam for 2011-2020 and the vision until 2030" created a stepping-stone for comprehensive improvement of the collection of data on the MDGs (VPM 2013b).
According to the country report on 15 years achieving the Vietnam Millennium Development Goals in 2015, the MDGs which Vietnam achieved were: MDG 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger, MDG 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education, MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women, and MDG 5: Improve Maternal Health. One which was nearly achieved was MDG 4: Reduce Child Mortality. The remaining ones which were partially achieved were MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS. Malaria and Other Diseases, MDG 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability, and MDG 8: Global Partnership for Development.
After the sustainable development goals (SDGs) were approved in 2015, Vietnam Agenda Office 21 organized several conferences to report and review SDGIs in Vietnam such as the conference on implementing SDGs: Emphasizing natural capital in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) (Tuan 2015), the report reviewed 17 goals and 169 targets in the Agenda 30 for sustainable development in Vietnam, providing bases for the nationalization of global SDGs (VPPTBV 2016). Legally, in order to implement Agenda 2030, the Vietnam Prime Minister approved the national action plans in 2017 (VPM 2017). The decision mentioned development and issue of the Vietnam sustainable development indicators (VSDGIs). This means that VSDGIs have been developing until now.

Discussion
In order to implement Vietnam sustainable development goals, the Vietnam government has promulgated legal documents since 1998, and some departments and provinces have also concretized the documents. The legal system of sustainable development, improving the quality for governance for sustainable development, has continued in its formulation. Accompanying this have been sets of SDIs for monitoring and assessing sustainable development, completing this both theoretically and practically.
The implementation of sustainable development in Vietnam has been integrated into socio-economic and branch development plans and strategies. Specifically, global principles and goals of sustainable development have concretized Vietnam conditions and integrated them into provincial socio-economic and branch development plans and strategies (MPI 2005;VN 2012;MPI 2013). However, the set of SDIs for monitoring and assessing Vietnam sustainable development was officially promulgated in 2011 (VPPTBV 2014; Tran . Two official sets of SDIs have faced difficulties when they have been applied, although the guidelines were released. Both were proposed based on three pillars: economic, social, and environmental, as well as the composite indicators. They were not based on any theoretical framework and thus there was replication in these sets. More specifically, in the set of SDIs for the period 2011-2020, the "Environmental sustainable development composite indicator" is calculated based on indicators such as air quality, biodiversity, and soil and water quality. Thus, there is partial replication between the composite and other indicators such as air quality. Furthermore, calculation of the composite indicator is not easy and nowadays it is not used and calculated (Lam 2015). This is why the target values of 2015 and 2020 were not mentioned in the set. Additionally, the target values of indicators: "Ratio of protected, biodiversity maintaining areas"; "Degraded land areas"; and "Ratio of days with harmful substances in the air above standard" have not been taken into consideration. This reflects the infeasibility of data for calculation, which leads to a reduced practicability of the set of SDIs.
The absence of indicators related to Vietnam seas and islands in both sets of SDIs is an extremely important shortcoming, although Vietnam is one country with large sea areas and these indicators were also mentioned in the SDI GMs in 2007. No mention of target values in the set of SDIs at a local scale for the period 2013-2020 is an area of concern. Tracking and evaluating the progress toward sustainable development are not implemented for the whole inlands and territorial waters of Vietnam. Application of the local set of SDIs in practice has faced many difficulties, too. For instance, when applied for the North West provinces, only one of the second set of indicators was calculated because no data could be collected (Vuong 2016). This shortcoming reflects the lack of consideration of available data in the design of the SDIs. The infeasibility of data can be for two reasons: firstly, ineffective training of staff; and secondly, metrics cannot be calculated by normal statistic methods or by the Vietnam official statistic system, or are calculated with high costs.
With respect to technical support, two sets of SDIs promulgated by the Vietnam Government have no tools and database to support calculation. Tracking, monitoring, and assessing needs to be managed in a system including a database, software tools to calculate indicators, and viewing tools to analyze the sustainable development progress of the nation, localities, or regions. This shortcoming has also made it difficult to implement the sets in practice.
In the period 2004-2011, three provinces: Thai Nguyen, Quang Nam, and Lam Dong, promulgated provincial sets of SDIs, but with no guidelines. Through 12 workshops in 12 North Western provinces, almost all responsible offices said there have been no guidelines for calculating and reporting the set of SDIs for monitoring and assessing the sustainable development in provinces for the period 2013-2020. The set for monitoring and assessing Vietnam sustainable development period 2011-2020 has no guidelines for calculating and reporting, too. This created barriers for tracking, monitoring, and assessing sustainable development in the provinces.
With respect to organization, the National Sustainable Development Council was founded in 2005 following decision No 1032/QĐ-TTg of the Vietnam Prime Minister, dated 27 September 2005 (VPM 2005). The council consults with the Vietnam Prime Minister to direct the implementation of the sustainable development strategy of Vietnam, and tracks, monitors, and evaluates the implementation of sustainable development goals and targets in Vietnam following approved sustainable development strategies. The sustainable development offices have been found in some ministries and departments, and The Business Council for sustainable development has also been established in Vietnam (VN 2012). Thus, the strengthening of organizations needs to be continued because there are only sustainable development offices in some provinces. This is a remarkable shortcoming for the implementation of sustainable development plans for provinces in general, applying sets of SDIs in particular, although some training has already been carried out (VPPTBV 2013).
As mentioned in the analysis, a comprehensive set of SDIs meets three aspects: firstly, a framework of SDIs including name, definition, meaning, and calculation of each indicator; secondly, real, target/threshold values of SDIs; and thirdly, an information system of SDIs including a database and software. In the future, the very important results of the Tay Nguyen set of SDIs can guide change, although it is only a study, not a legal framework. The set was designed based on a clear theoretical framework with a full consideration of data availability of indicators, and assures comprehensive, full monitoring of themes of sustainable development and local characteristics. This is the unique SDI set implementation which developed software to manage a database and support for calculations. Although it still has some limitations such as: (1) a design limited to Tay Nguyen, not all Vietnam provinces; and (2) the target values of provinces have not probably been reached, but this promising approach will bring advantages for tracking, monitoring, and assessing the progress toward sustainable development in Vietnam.
Consequently, there are both MDGIs and SDIs which have coexisted in Vietnam since 2012. They have been used for two different purposes. Vietnam used 48 MDGIs and developed 35 VDGIs to monitor the MDGs implementation in the Millennium Declaration. Additionally, the SDIs have been used to monitor and assess the Vietnam sustainable development strategy for the period 2011-2020 and the sustainable development in provinces for the period 2013-2020.

Conclusions
SDIs and MDGIs/SDGIs are employed for two different purposes, and do not conflict with each other. They could complement each other if the relationship between them and national/territorial region characteristics are taken into consideration when developing them.
National and local sets of SDIs and VSDGIs have gradually been developed scientifically, practically, and legally. The strengthening of organizations to implement tracking, monitoring, and assessing sustainable development through sets of SDIs and MDGIs/SDGIs has also developed step by step and enhanced capacity. The Vietnam government promulgated two sets of SDIs (national and local); however, they have still had very important shortcomings: the absence of indicators related to sea and islands, a low feasibility, and the replication of composite indicators. The reasons which lead to the shortcomings result from the fact that the lack of a necessary theoretical framework, the availability of data to calculate values of indicators, and the training have not properly been taken into consideration when designing sets of SDIs. Both national and local sets of SDIs have not had technical tools (Information Technology) to support the tracking, monitoring, and assessing of progress toward sustainability. The Tay Nguyen set of SDIs is a new and important advance for designing sets of SDIs in Vietnam, which assures the comprehensibility and adequacy of sustainable development relying on the theme-based framework of the United Nations, and comes with the software for the calculation of indicator values and effectively tracking, monitoring, and evaluating sustainable development in the provinces. The approach can be applied for designing sets of SDIs in Vietnam to provide a scientific basis for the Vietnam government to modify the promulgated sets of SDIs.
The experiences gained when developing the procedure and methods which resulted in a set of SDIs for Tay Nguyen could be applied for designing VSDGIs in the future.

Acknowledgments:
The authors would like to thank the National Science and Technology Program for sustainable development of the Tay Bac region (project code: KHCN-TB.25X/13-18) for its support during preparing this paper. We would like to express our gratitude to Simon Watkinson who reviewed the English of the manuscript.
Author Contributions: Tri Ngo Dang was responsible for providing, reviewing SDIs, MDGIs/SDGIs, and giving ideals to edit the paper. Chi Tran Thuy and Y. Tran Van were responsible for providing and reviewing SDIs, SDGIs. Y. Tran Van was responsible for giving ideals to edit the paper. Tuan Nguyen Thanh designed the paper, created an outline, and maintained the direction of the paper. Tuan Nguyen Thanh was responsible for revising SDIs, MDGIs/SDGIs and integrating the ideals from the authors.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funding sponsor supported the design of the study, in the collection and analyses, interpretation of literatures, and in the writing of the manuscript. Table A1. Set of sustainable development indicators designed the project "Implementation of Vietnam Agenda 21-VIE/01/021".      Appendix D