DOSM and UNSD Jointly Launch SEEA Roadmap
Putrajaya, 27 November – The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) and United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) have jointly launched the Roadmap for System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (RM-SEEA) to lay a foundation for the development of national statistics, thereby improving policies related to sustainable development and green economy.
SEEA intends to monitor the relationship between environment and economy and to enable relevant authorities to make informed decisions. It is a collaborative project of DOSM and UNSD, with the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) research team as a consultant.
Chief Statistician, Dr. Mohd Uzir stated that there is a growing need to develop and combine statistics and indicators such as green GDP that are more inclusive of environmental and social aspects in order to cover the full realm of sustainable development. Therefore, the integration of environmental statistics into the economy would support countries in monitoring the management of their economies and resources.
During the SEEA launching ceremony, he pointed out that this roadmap will improve national capability in managing economy and resources—“SEEA is a new system to prepare official statistics for the measurement of national development sustainability.”
THREE POTENTIAL ACCOUNTS
He mentioned that the roadmap has identified three potential accounts, which are energy, water and land. The key indicators for sustainability in these accounts are resource efficiency, carbon emissions and water footprint.
“With this roadmap, Malaysia is able to measure sustainable development like other developed countries, to preserve the environment for our next generation.”
Other attendees are Nazaria Baharuddin (Deputy Chief Statistician for Social and Demography), Roslawati Yahya (Director of Agriculture and Environment Statistics Division), Alessandra Alfieri and Sokol Vako from UNSD, Gan Pek Chuan from United Nations Development Programme and UPM project consultant, Dr. Mohd Yusof.
Translated from the original publication: