Applying „SMART” criteria for selecting indicators to measure sustainable development in Vietnam

Indicators are the most commonly essential measurement tool of choice for many sustainability projects worldwide. They can be used to assess the progress toward sustainable development and understand the interlinkages within each component and between components of sustainability. The selection of indicators to measure sustainable development is an extremely complex and difficult task. Through an overall assessment and pointing out the limitations of existing sets of indicators for measuring sustainable development in Vietnam, this paper focuses on the way to create indicators that can be used to measure Vietnam’s sustainable development at both the national and subnational (provincial) level. Firstly, a framework of elements for economic, social, and environmental component was established and a list of indicators of 12 national and international agencies in the world was compiled. Then the research applied SMART criteria (SMART is an acronym of Specific, Measurable, Available, Relevant, Time-related) to select a set of relevant core indicators for Vietnam. Finally, 24 indicators which fully satisfy the SMART criteria were constructed with 8 indicators for each component. This indicator system can be applied to measure sustainable development at both national and provincial level of Vietnam.