Challenges in measurement

• Civil Unrest

  • Process: Lack of capacity to collect data could be due to disruption of data collection with civil wars or political changes 
  • Outcome: there are gaps in the data which affects the timeliness of data collected or comprehensiveness of data 
• lack of technology

  • Process: some environmental indicators need specialised equipment/technology to track (air/water pollution trackers)
  • Outcome: Lack of capacity of governments due to lack of technology to collect data WILL LEAD TO collecting specific and accurate data difficult
• lack of funds

  • Process: Money is needed to support manpower and other infrastructure/technology to collect data, and the lack of which means that data is either not collected or not collected comprehensively 
  • Outcome: Lack of capacity to fund the collection of data especially in large or poor countries. Data is either collected infrequently or incomprehensibly
• changing priorities in government/other pressing needs

  • Process: The government might decide to prioritise other needs such as education or healthcare, or economic growth instead of environmental needs, causing the data for environmental needs to be stalled and therefore,
  • Outcome: data collection is incomplete
• lack of skilled personnel

  • process: lack of skilled personnel to plan for the exact data to be collected and plan for the appropriate method of collecting data
  • outcome: result in unreliable or inaccurate data
• size of countries

  • process: when the countries’ size is larger, it makes timely collection of data difficult because it can be difficult to collect data from all parts of the country at the same time 
  • outcome: results in outdated data by the time all data has been collected the whole country