Zealand communities have informative municipal ‘Annual Reports,’ and pilot communities in India have city ‘report cards’. Annex 2 discusses some of the existing city indicator programs. These include:

- The most important set of urban indicators is the **UN-HABITAT’s** extensive database on Global Urban Indicators, which was initiated in 1996.

- **The World Health Organization** , **WHO** , began a Healthy Cities Project in 1992 and now collects 32 indicators on city health from a variety of cities.

- In 2004 **UNESCO** supported the launch of a ‘Coalition of Cities Against Racism’ and developed a series of ‘Indicators for Evaluating Municipal Policies Aimed at Fighting Racism and Discrimination’

- In 2003 the **European Foundation** proposed ‘European Urban Indicators’ under the European Common Indicators Project.

- **ICLEI**<sup>**12**</sup> was tasked at the 1996 Istanbul-Habitat Conference with assisting local authorities to monitor and evaluate their own performance on ‘Agenda 21’. ICLEI also participated in the development of Global Urban Observatories.

- **‘City Mayors’** is an extensive independent website of international experts who promote strong cities and good local governments. They survey 40 municipal indicators in five categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education, and infrastructure.

- The International Institute for Sustainable Development, **IISD** , has been working on indicators related to sustainable development since 1995. Some of their activities include cities.

- The **International Sustainability Indicators Network** is a web-based network that encourages indicators for sustainability. Similarly, ‘Sustainable Measures’ is an American web-based company that develops indicators to measure progress toward a sustainable economy, society, and environment.

- **The Globalization and World Cities** ( **GaWC** ) Study Group and Network used indicators to create an inventory of ‘world cities’. This does not appear to have been updated since the first analysis in 1999.

- The **Mercer Human Resources Consulting** Firm annually rates cities through a ‘worldwide quality of living’ survey. Cities are rated by: political and social environment; economic environment; socio-cultural environment; medical and health considerations; schools and education; public services and transportation; recreation; consumer goods; housing; and, natural environment. The survey is proprietary and cityspecific ratings need to be purchased.

- **The Economist Intelligence Unit** produces an annual ‘livability ranking’ largely intended to approximate ‘hardship ratings’ for expatriate residents. The survey takes 40 factors into consideration which are weighted across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The survey is proprietary and city-specific ratings need to be purchased.

# **4.3 Canadian City Indicators**

As part of the World Bank city indicator initiative, city indicators in Canada will be reviewed and incorporated where possible – see Annex 4 for a Memorandum of Understanding between Infrastructure Canada and the World Bank. Canada provides a unique set of experiences in developing and implementing city indicators.

The Jacksonville Community Council, 1992 stated that "Indicators are a way of seeing the ‘big picture’ by looking at a smaller piece of it. They tell us which direction we are going: up or down, forward or backward, getting better or worse or staying the same".

> 12 ICLEI – International Center for Local Environmental Initiatives

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