Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 78 (2017) 878–885

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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Assessment of Latin American sustainability MARK

a,⁎ b a
Olfa Toumi , Julie Le Gallo , Jaleleddine Ben Rejeb
a
LAMIDED, ISG Sousse, University of Sousse, 4000 Sousse, Tunisia
b
CESAER UMR1041, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, 26 Bd Petitjean, 21079 Dijon Cedex, France

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: This paper aims at assessing the sustainability of development in eleven Latin American countries. For that
Sustainable development purpose, we establish an evaluation index system grouped into four subsystems (economic subsystem, social
Entropy method subsystem, ecologic subsystem and institutional subsystem). The weights for the index subsystems of
Evaluation sustainable development are based on the concept of entropy. The empirical results show that the sustainable
Latin America
development strategy in this group of countries is not efficient and is characterized by a lack of coordination
between the four dimensions. This quantitative evaluation provides a new perspective for research in
sustainable development researches and guidance for public policies.

1. Introduction quantitatively the subsequent amendments as well as the stage reached

Given the global degradation of the environment, climate change
due to human activities and trends of environmental, technological and
economic globalization, implementing a sustainable development
strategy has become an important issue. The concept of “sustainable
development” was introduced in the context of the Earth Summit in Rio
de Janeiro in 1992, the purpose of which was to find agreements
between countries on actions and measures to be taken for saving
natural resources and protecting the environment. The concept of
sustainable development not only refers to the durability of environ-
ment quality, but it also points to social, economic and institutional
aims. Later, the Kyoto protocol of United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) (1997) was regarded as the
first global collective effort to address climate change, notably by
ensuring financial support for lean energy projects. The main mechan-
ism included in the protocol is the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM), which requires projects to guarantee sustainable development
to receive financial assistance. More recently, the Conference of Parties
(COP) (2011) resulted in a legally binding agreement on climate.
In this context, correctly assessing the level of sustainability has
become of utmost importance for international organizations, govern-
mental institutions and in also the academic literature [1–5]. The
purpose of these indicators should be to meet the goals, clarify and
define the basic conditions for sustainable development, to assess
in the development and the sources that support it,i.e. the policies of
environmental protection and socio-economic development. A range of
indicators has been suggested to quantify this complex and multi-
dimensional notion. In particular, in order to ensure a good coordina-
tion of the four dimensions of sustainable development mentioned
earlier, various authors (e.g [4].) suggest to use a sustainable develop-
ment index that combines the four systems, namely the economic,
social, environmental and institutional subsystems, including indica-
tors that are relevant, understandable, reliable and available.
The main objective of this article is to assess the level of sustainable
development in Latin American countries. Indeed, Latin American
countries have implemented their own set of national policies and
strategies to achieve sustainable development [6,7]. For instance [8],
distinguishes core areas for sustainable development in Argentina:
food industry, communication and technology, mining, tourism and
forest conservation [9]. focuses the sustainability of aquaculture in
Chile. Case studies for several countries in Central and South America
are presented in [6]. In this paper, using the method set out by [4] and
[2], we measure the degree of importance of each indicator in the
development of each subsystem and the weight of the latter in the
global evaluation to determine the sources of development using the
entropy weight method. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first
time that the sustainability of the whole Latin American region is
quantitatively assessed in this comprehensive and unified way.

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: olfa_toumi_22@hotmail.fr (O. Toumi), julie.le-gallo@agrosupdijon.fr (J. Le Gallo), Jaleleddine.BenRejeb@esct.rnu.tn (J. Ben Rejeb).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.05.013
Received 10 February 2016; Received in revised form 1 April 2017; Accepted 4 May 2017
1364-0321/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
O. Toumi et al.
The outline of the paper is as follows. The next section focuses on
the different methods used to assess sustainable development in the
economic literature and points out the advantages of the entropy
weight method applied in this paper. The third section details the
methodology adopted. Then we present the set of indicators on which
we apply the entropy weight method and comment our results. The
fifth section provides some policy implications and concludes.
2. Literature review
According to the definition of the World Summit (1987) on
Environment and Development, sustainable development means that
the needs of the generation today should be met without undermining
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The summit
pointed out the need to achieve economic development, to respect
limits of planet and to promote social justice. Reaching sustainable
development requires the combination of four dimensions of sustain-
able development: the environmental, economic, social and institu-
tional dimensions. In spite of various political and strategic commit-
ments and popularity of the sustainability concept, its practical
implementation is difficult [10–12]. Indeed, when it comes to cover
the gap between wishes and implementation, it is necessary to consider
sustainable development as a decision-making strategy [12]. In this
context, we argue that indicators that allow evaluating sustainability in
a quantitative way are important tools of decision-supporting develop-
ment as they play a significant role by replying to three challenges:
information-structuring, interpretation and leverage. However, the
measurement and assessment of sustainable development are very
complex because of its intrinsic holistic characteristics and multi-
dimensionality. Since the 1990s, many substantial and often promising
sustainability assessment and indicators have been made.
For the last three decades, various countries (Germany, Brazil,
China, USA, France…) and international organizations (UN, OECD,
European Union…) have taken the initiative to construct sustainable
development indicators. However, to date, an agreement of the relevant
range of sustainable indicators has not been reached. In 1999, the
inter-institutional working team of the United Nations on Sustainable
Development identified no less than 400 indicators to assess sustain-
ability. Then it urged to reduce this figure to 30 indicators, as assessing
sustainable development in a set of countries with such a large number
of indicators is nearly impossible. Finally, it chose 40 indicators to
assess the United States sustainable development. For the European
Union, these indicators vary from one country to another within a
range of 10–100 [13].
International agencies mainly use qualitative analysis to evaluate
sustainable development without providing a quantitative measure.
However, since the turn of the century, the academic literature in
economics and mathematics has moved towards finding a suitable
method that allows determining a quantitative sustainable develop-
ment indicator. Indeed, as we have argued before, a quantitative
evaluation is important to evaluate the policies adopted to achieve
sustainability. Assessing sustainability is a complex task as it necessi-
tates integrating all dimensions of sustainable development. This
multidimensional concept therefore requires the development of
adequate techniques that are able to aggregate all the indicators in a
meaningful way [14]. We now briefly review some of these techniques.
In their study of forest sustainability [15], use a multi-attribute
programming method to realize the aggregation of indicators while
[16] merged multi-criteria approaches with fuzzy logic theory to assess
the sustainability of some policies related to forest management. They
pointed out that the limit of sustainable development assessment was
caused by of the scarcity and the quality of data. These two tools have
been combined by [17] who also incorporates the spatial dimension. In
order to merge indicators in an acceptable way [18], and [19] follow a
methodology based on mathematical programming [20]. evaluate the
sustainability in Italy by using the indicator compounds method while
879
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 78 (2017) 878–885
[21] applied principal component (PCA) analysis for the National
Assessment. However, as pointed out by [22], the dynamic dimension
of sustainable development is ignored in these studies.
Focusing on the different dimensions of sustainable development
that we mentioned earlier, we find notably the study by [23]. They use a
multi-criteria method for decision making (MCDM) to evaluate the
three subsystems (economic, social and environmental) for the years
2000 to 2011in Lithuania [4]. use the technique of coefficient of
importance (weight) to measure the statistical evaluation of sustainable
development: this method aims at measuring the weight of each
indicator in the overall evaluation without assessing the weight of each
subsystem. Their study covers 11 countries in South East European
region and in former Yugoslavia using cross-sectional data.
It should be noted that the methods of overall assessment based on
the computation of weights for the subsystems often use subjective
weighting methods (AHP, Delphi method, ARAS, etc.). These methods
have some drawbacks [2,24], such as a non-standardized evaluation
index system and results that may not consistent with actual data
because of the subjective weights. Conversely, the so-called objective
methods determine the weights by solving mathematical models with-
out considering the preferences of the decision-maker as they are based
on the inherent quantity of information provided by the indicators.
In order to avoid the problems raised by subjective methods, this
paper is based on the entropy weight method, which is an objective
method, to assess the overall sustainable development of Latin
American countries. This method is based on the Shannon entropy
coefficient [25] that has a number of desirable properties and allows
determining the weights solely based on the amount of information,
from a statistical point of view, provided by the indicators. As such, it is
an appropriate method for assessing sustainable development. Its
application to a set of countries then allows evaluating the policies
adopted by the national and international organizations to achieve
sustainable development [26]. also argue that this method yields
results that are more compatible with the actual situation.
3. Methodology
In this section, we first rely on the definition of sustainable
development to determine the system of indicators required for its
assessment taking into account the dynamic nature of the process.
Then, we present the entropy weight method.
3.1. Selecting the evaluation indicator system
In accordance with the division of development indicators by
Agenda 21 into four subsystems -economic, social, ecological and
institutional subsystems - the indicators used in this study are the
most acceptable according to [4] and [23]. These indicators represent a
wide range of typical socioeconomic, environmental and institutional
indicators and allow measuring the impact of policies on the objectives
aimed by sustainable development.
Table 1 describes all the variables that we collected for 12 countries
in Latin America for the period 1995–2012. As some data were not
available for all countries and for all the years, we averaged each
indicator for each period of three years to six periods to mitigate
measurement errors. The table also indicates the desirable trend of
each indicator to foster sustainable development.
3.2. The entropy weight method
The algorithm of the entropy weight method is based on the entropy
indicator developed by [25]. It has been applied to develop sustainable
indices by inter alia [2]. We detail the steps necessary to implement
this algorithm below.
O. Toumi et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 78 (2017) 878–885

Table 1
Definition of indicators and data sources.

INDICATORS Measure Resources Desirable trend

Economic subsystem
PIB/H Gross domestic product per capita ($) World Bank (1995–2012) +
CPIB GDP growth (%GDP) World Bank (1995–2012) +
DT Debt (%GDP) World Bank/ Factbook –
INF Inflation rate (%) World Bank –
GINI GINI index World Bank / Human Development Report –
EXP Export ($) World Bank +
INV Investment (%GDP) World Bank +
INDG Industrial growth Factbook +
EXTDT External debt ($) World Bank –
ROAD Road (1000 kM) www.cia.gov/cia/factbook/geos/ +

Social subsystem
EV Life span World Bank /UNESCO +
POV Population below poverty line Human Development Report –
POP Population (Number/million) World Bank +
ALPH Literacy rate (%) UNESCO +
POPURB Urban population rate (%) World Bank +
TCH Unemployment rate (%) World Bank –
TN Birth rate (%) World Bank +
TM Mortality Rate (%) World Bank –
ABINT Internet network (user/1000) World Bank +
ABTEL Phone network (user/1000) World Bank +
IHD Human Development indicator Human Development Report +

Ecologic subsystem
FC Fertilizers consumption Faostat –
CO2 Emission of carbon dioxide (metric tons) Faostat –
FG Fertile grounds (%) Faostat +
Methane Emission of methane (1000 metric tons) www.cia.gov/cia/factbook/geos/ –
EU Energy consumption (eq. tons) Faostat +/-
AF Forestration (km2) Faostat +
IR Irrigation (km2) Faostat +/-
PG Ploughed ground (%) Faostat +
OS Sol under organic (%) Faostat +
PS Usage of pesticides Faostat –
EAUP Renewable internal freshwater resources per capita (m3) World Bank +

Institutional subsystem
ID Index of democratically (index) Polity IV +
IPF Index of Political Freedom Polity IV +
CR Corruption www,transparency,org +
IH Investment on health care (%GDP) world Bank +
WP Woman in parliament (%) www.cia.gov/cia/factbook/geos/ +
DM Military spending (%GDP) world Bank +
V&R Voice and Accountability (index) www.govindicators.org +
SPAV Political Stability and Absence of Violence (index) www.govindicators.org +
GE Public power efficiency (index) www.govindicators.org +
RQ Regulatory quality www.govindicators.org +
RL Rule of law www.govindicators.org +

m
3.2.1. Standardization of original data matrix
Hj = −k ∑ f ji × lnf ji
Suppose that we have n evaluation indicators for m periods that are
i =1
grouped in the original data matrix, noted X=(xji) of dimension (m,n).
1 Rij
Since there are many differences among the indices in dimension, where k = lnm
and fij = ∑im=1 Rij
.
magnitude and expected impact on sustainability, it is necessary to Note that when f ji = 0 or f ji = 1 then f ji × ln f ji = 0 . This can be
standardize this original data matrix. In particular, as we have shown corrected using the following transformation:
before, some indicators have an expected negative impact on the final
1 + Rji
results while others have an expected positive impact. Hence, the f ji = n
method should be based on the values of Rji, which are elements of ∑ j =1 (1 + Rji )
normalized vector R defined as follows:
⎛ ⎞⎛ ⎞
If the indicator playsa positive role:Rji = ⎜Xji − minXij⎟/⎜maxXji − minXij⎟
⎝ j ⎠⎝ j j ⎠ 3.2.3. Definition of the weight of entropy
⎛ ⎞⎛ ⎞
If the indicator playing a negative role: Rji = maxXji − Xij / maxXji − minXji⎟
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ Let's define the utility of the jth indicator as: dj = (1 − Hj ). This
⎝ j ⎠⎝ j j ⎠ notion is necessary for the definition of the entropy weight of the jth
where: i=1,…,m periods and j=1,…,n indicators.
indicator:
n n

3.2.2. Definition of entropy

wj = (1 − Hj )/(n − ∑ Hj ) = dj / ∑ dj
j =1 j =1
For the n indicators and m periods, the definition of the entropy of
n
the jth indicator is defined as following, for j=1,.., n: where 0 ≤ wj ≤ 1 and ∑ j =1 wj = 1.

880
O. Toumi et al.
3.2.4. Overall indicator of sustainable development
After computing the entropy weight for each indicator, we can
determine the index of each subsystem:
n and in Uruguay in 2002), which had tremendous economic and social
sih = ∑ wj × Rij
j =1
Where h =1,…,4 since we defined four subsystems.
To summarize, we have the following notations:
j → indicator
i → period
sh → subsystems (economic, social, ecologic and institutional)
sih → subsystem for i th period
si1 → economic subsystem
si2 → social subsystem
si3 → ecologic subsystem
si 4 → institutional subsystem
In the same way, with the corresponding methods and steps it is
possible to measure the weights of the individual indicators in the
economic subsystem, social subsystem, ecologic subsystem and institu-
tional subsystem (zh ).
Finally, to obtain a comprehensive overview of the overall level of
sustainable development, we can compute an overall sustainable
development level: the sustainable development index (SDI):
4 accompanied by inflation of over 60% in 2014. Venezuela, which
SDIi = ∑ zh × sih 0 ≤ SDIi ≤ 1
h =1
This overall indicator allows defining a 5 grade evaluation criteria of
the overall sustainable development level referring to the evaluation
criteria of the resources sustainable development level [27. This
coefficient reflects the situation and trend of development of a region
or country. These 5 grades are shown in Table 2.
4. Results
In this section, we apply the steps described above. The weights of
the indicator of sustainable development in the level of development
for each subsystem are summarized in Table 3 while the results of
weight, sustainability level for the four subsystems and overall devel-
opment are shown in Table 4. We organize our comments along the
four dimensions of sustainable development and then provide some
insights for the overall sustainability achievements.
4.1. Economic stage of sustainable development
Latin America is accountable for 7% of the Gross World Product
with a strong heterogeneity between countries [28]. It continues to be
one of the most uneven regions in the world in terms of income
distribution [29]. Table 4 shows that the overall assessment of
economic development indicators by the entropy weight method can
be described as a progressive decrease of the level of economic
development of Latin American countries for the three first ones
periods (1995–1997, 1998–2000 and 2001–2003), which is mainly
due to the increase of their debts (DT and EXTDT) and the inequality of
Table 2
The overall sustainable development standards.
LEVEL [0;0.4] [0.4;0.6]
STATE No sustainable development Weak sustainable development
stage stage
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 78 (2017) 878–885
income (GINI). Indeed, during this period, the Latin American region
has known a succession of economic and financial crisis (particularly,
the crisis in Brazil in 1999, in Ecuador in 2000, in Argentina in 2001
costs and led to a decline in growth. The period from 1998 to 2002 has
even been considered as 'half a decade lost' [30].
However, between 2003 and 2012, most countries of the region
experienced an economic recovery due to the favorable international
environment and the increase of exports of raw materials as well as the
prices of these products. Peru's economic development has been one
the strongest in Latin America between 2010 and 2012. This country
has achieved an important progress in its macroeconomic performance
in this decade [31], with dynamic GDP growth, low inflation, and stable
currency exchange rates, which gave the country the privileged ranking
of one of the fastest-growing economies in this part of the region. These
results were enhanced with the financial liberalization of the economy
and have been stimulated by the rise in world commodity prices and
market policies beneficial to investors.
Conversely, Venezuela has recorded the lowest level of economic
development in this region. Since the 2009 crisis, the economic
situation of this country is also very delicate. According to the
Economic commission of the United Nations for Latin America and
the Caribbean [30] Venezuela's Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
declined by 3% in 2013 and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
expects a fall of the order of 7%. This economie's decline was
imports the major of its consumer products, is currently faced with
large shortages of essential products. This situation worsened with the
fall of oil price.
These results also reveal that Chile has recorded the lowest level of
economic development in this region. Chile has been one of Latin
America's fastest-growing economies over the past decade. Following
the economic expansion between 2010 and 2010, Chile's Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) fell to 1.9% in 2013, as a result of the
deceleration in the mining sector due to the end of the investment cycle
and the decline in private consumption and copper price.
All these assessments can be visualized in Fig. 1 below.
4.2. Social stage of sustainable development
Latin American countries are characterized by their high and
persistent socioeconomic inequalities in the world. Between 1980s
and the late of 1990s, poverty and inequality worsened substantially:
the average Gini index reached more than 58.13 [30]. Since the 1990s,
most Latin America countries have undertaken redistributive policies
and social reforms to address the weak achievement in relation to
human development and inequalities. Beginning in the 2000s, these
policies have started to exert a positive effect in social sector. These
results can be illustrated with the sustainability indicators depicted in
Fig. 2.
They reveal that, for the ten countries of our sample, the majority of
trends during the period from 2004 to 2012 are positive, enabling them
to achieve the last stage of development of sustainability in this
dimension. This can mainly be explained by the increase of the
population rates oriented towards new technology (ABTEL and
ABINT). However, the global risk of poverty persists in spite of the
[0.6;0.8] [0.8;0.9] [0.9;1]
Basic sustainable development Sustainable development Strong sustainable development
stage stage stage
881
O. Toumi et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 78 (2017) 878–885

Table 3
Weights of indicators in each of sustainable development subsystem.

Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Mexico Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela

Economic subsystem
PIB/H 0.1824 0.1987 0.1358 0.158 0.2247 0.1216 0.0923 0.1170 0.2079 0.1562 0.1824
CPIB 0.0945 0.0567 0.1037 0.136 0.0691 0.0611 0.0956 0.1170 0.0684 0.0711 0.0945
DT 0.0869 0.1097 0.0666 0.159 0.0787 0.1037 0.2148 0.0648 0.0982 0.1153 0.0869
INF 0.0582 0.1219 0.0547 0.052 0.0955 0.0776 0.0639 0.0657 0.0601 0.0584 0.0582
GINI 0.0688 0.0885 0.1307 0.148 0.0914 0.0888 0.1057 0.1112 0.0594 0.0761 0.0688
EXP 0.1187 0.0658 0.0675 0.073 0.1312 0.1198 0.1049 0.1505 0.0715 0.0820 0.1187
INV 0.1376 0.0750 0.1903 0.092 0.1155 0.1042 0.0862 0.1054 0.1219 0.0947 0.1376
INDG 0.0900 0.0738 0.1004 0.07 0.0656 0.0900 0.0791 0.0964 0.0579 0.0745 0.0900
EXTDT 0.0671 0.0916 0.0583 0.05 0.0632 0.0596 0.0617 0.0528 0.0552 0.1116 0.0671
ROAD 0.0958 0.1183 0.0920 0.057 0.0651 0.1735 0.0959 0.1191 0.1994 0.1602 0.0958

Social subsystem
EV 0.0708 0.0690 0.0729 0.0695 0.0670 0.0600 0.0683 0.0696 0.0600 0.0619 0.0855
POV 0.0748 0.0945 0.0738 0.0752 0.1089 0.0918 0.0520 0.0824 0.1331 0.1145 0.1288
POP 0.0700 0.0706 0.0729 0.0761 0.0729 0.0728 0.0691 0.0759 0.0632 0.0479 0.0745
ALPH 0.0837 0.0682 0.0617 0.0731 0.0666 0.0561 0.1688 0.0517 0.0989 0.0771 0.0745
POPURB 0.0670 0.0698 0.0625 0.0780 0.0719 0.0778 0.0757 0.0738 0.0661 0.0587 0.0650
TCH 0.1013 0.1170 0.1313 0.1025 0.0619 0.0496 0.0820 0.0548 0.0892 0.1035 0.0678
TN 0.1047 0.0823 0.0836 0.1230 0.0780 0.0732 0.0777 0.0949 0.0789 0.0776 0.0768
TM 0.0701 0.0639 0.0661 0.0636 0.0646 0.0592 0.0574 0.0707 0.0561 0.0640 0.0620
ABINT 0.1746 0.1899 0.1889 0.1621 0.2159 0.2513 0.1963 0.2606 0.1578 0.2017 0.1832
ABTEL 0.1287 0.1251 0.1252 0.1110 0.1351 0.1344 0.0954 0.1065 0.1472 0.1254 0.0984
IHD 0.0543 0.0497 0.0612 0.0658 0.0571 0.0739 0.0574 0.0590 0.0495 0.0676 0.0836

Ecologic subsystem
FC 0.1081 0.0598 0.1630 0.1056 0.0853 0.0646 0.0584 0.1991 0.1135 0.1155 0.0614
CO2 0.0918 0.0549 0.0399 0.0479 0.1042 0.0850 0.0662 0.0575 0.0633 0.0593 0.0666
FG 0.1454 0.0625 0.0794 0.1003 0.1023 0.1029 0.1073 0.0531 0.1849 0.0669 0.0965
Methane 0.0732 0.0484 0.0722 0.1781 0.0820 0.1264 0.1700 0.0679 0.1393 0.0446 0.0817
EU 0.0920 0.1333 0.0510 0.1000 0.0636 0.1206 0.0900 0.0607 0.0532 0.0646 0.0484
AF 0.0844 0.0688 0.0726 0.0555 0.0916 0.0840 0.0860 0.0827 0.0702 0.0760 0.0593
IR 0.0828 0.1369 0.0763 0.0881 0.1308 0.0651 0.0773 0.0860 0.0697 0.0794 0.1072
PG 0.0554 0.1151 0.0722 0.0542 0.0827 0.0494 0.0932 0.0859 0.0583 0.0644 0.0770
OS 0.0989 0.1863 0.2004 0.1392 0.0807 0.1458 0.0686 0.1578 0.0685 0.2264 0.3162
PS 0.0800 0.0587 0.0971 0.0607 0.0770 0.0588 0.0955 0.0669 0.1086 0.1323 0.0329
EAUP 0.0879 0.0752 0.0760 0.0704 0.0997 0.0974 0.0873 0.0824 0.0705 0.0707 0.0527

Institutional subsystem
ID 0.0521 0.1430 0.0462 0.1056 0.2764 0.1122 0.0854 0.0873 0.0494 0.0667 0.0476
IPF 0.0385 0.1081 0.0610 0.0592 0.0909 0.2370 0.0482 0.0829 0.0494 0.0831 0.2788
CR 0.0932 0.1028 0.0540 0.0854 0.0717 0.0811 0.0575 0.1178 0.0959 0.1345 0.0491
IH 0.1113 0.0561 0.1099 0.0627 0.0819 0.0845 0.0659 0.1489 0.1491 0.0707 0.1003
WP 0.1009 0.0550 0.0462 0.0408 0.0345 0.0393 0.3637 0.0549 0.0494 0.0569 0.2009
DM 0.1182 0.0597 0.1466 0.0526 0.0981 0.0711 0.0530 0.1216 0.1398 0.0621 0.0477
V&R 0.0440 0.1201 0.0749 0.3506 0.0575 0.0825 0.0463 0.0788 0.0661 0.1113 0.0573
SPAV 0.0453 0.0853 0.1402 0.0642 0.0770 0.0747 0.0898 0.0788 0.0661 0.1113 0.0573
GE 0.1013 0.0887 0.1220 0.0776 0.0495 0.0701 0.0683 0.0869 0.0848 0.0974 0.0605
RQ 0.1264 0.0887 0.1003 0.0521 0.0637 0.0652 0.0631 0.0609 0.1532 0.0969 0.0412
RL 0.1688 0.0926 0.0988 0.0491 0.0987 0.0824 0.0588 0.0813 0.0969 0.1091 0.0594

decrease of unemployment rates. The proportion of unemployed poor
has therefore not been treated.
Despite the importance of social development of the majority of the
Latin American countries, the situation of Bolivia remains very
delicate, as shown by Fig. 2. This country still has high-income
inequalities (56.1 in 2012), poor living conditions (approximately
45% of the Bolivian population lives in poverty) and it has the highest
rate of illiteracy. Furthermore, Bolivia has suffered from important
political conflicts, in particular throughout the last few decades that
have only made it deal with poverty reduction. Nevertheless, the
government is tempting to show its devotion to these issues by
implementing various poverty reduction projects and programs, espe-
cially the World Bank supported Reduction of Extreme poverty in
Rural Areas Project.
4.3. Ecologic stage of sustainable development
Despite the importance granted by international institutions to
ecosystems, the results visualized in Fig. 3 show that the Latin
American region has known a very significant environmental deteriora-
tion, which requires a rapid and effective intervention. In fact, this part
of the world has globally evolved in a negative way in the field of energy
use since the 80 s and has suffered from a large emission of greenhouse
gases, which explains the ecological deterioration. Even if we observe
that some countries such as Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela
have caught up with their situations during the last period thanks to
their participation to the international conventions on environmental
protection and climate change, efforts remain insufficient. The exten-
sion of urban fabrics, industrial areas, commercial and units of
transport more and more affect natural areas. Although they are vital
sectors, they exert a strong pressure on the environment. Therefore, the
fruits of the world efforts to prevent forest degradation and the
protection of green have not appeared yet.
In conclusion, from Stockholm in 1972 till Rio in 2012, empathy for
ecologic problem has been missing [32]. Latin American governments
have pointed that the solution to the ecologic problem does not consist

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Table 4
Indicator of sustainable development in Latin America countries.

Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Mexico Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela

Economic indicators of sustainable development

Zeco 0.1656 0.1033 0.1082 0.0471 0.1726 0.1995 0.1867 0.1890 0.2341 0.1984 0.1094
1995–1997 0.6347 0.3348 0.5841 0.6063 0.4022 0.2604 0.5469 0.5868 0.3262 0.4524 0.3681
1998–2000 0.4556 0.3796 0.3966 0.3606 0.2719 0.2452 0.7600 0.2845 0.2826 0.3926 0.4976
2001–2003 0.1985 0.4294 0.329 0.399 0.3846 0.3316 0.2705 0.1945 0.3089 0.1929 0.2575
2004–2006 0.4767 0.2825 0.4806 0.4655 0.6403 0.6047 0.6012 0.4533 0.4374 0.4882 0.6773
2007–2009 0.5197 0.6927 0.4532 0.4073 0.7029 0.5571 0.3577 0.4325 0.6127 0.6295 0.6657
2010–2012 0.6668 0.6214 0.6835 0.4089 0.7461 0.7418 0.5167 0.6894 0.8570 0.7623 0.4909

Social indicators of sustainable development

Zsocial 0.3988 0.6349 0.5223 0.3479 0.6169 0.4379 0.6556 0.3813 0.6057 0.6406 0.4839
1995–1997 0.1842 0.642 0.2148 0.2255 0.1115 0.1294 0.0777 0.1497 0.1103 0.0929 0.113
1998–2000 0.2712 0.0472 0.2293 0.2322 0.1733 0.2084 0.2652 0.2287 0.1927 0.181 0.2177
2001–2003 0.2791 0.0961 0.3271 0.3685 0.2807 0.2875 0.3594 0.3193 0.254 0.2853 0.2539
2004–2006 0.4672 0.133 0.473 0.5506 0.4757 0.4382 0.4987 0.4639 0.3568 0.3135 0.4785
2007–2009 0.6961 0.1814 0.7017 0.6794 0.6846 0.5952 0.7246 0.61 0.6789 0.6523 0.7885
2010–2012 0.8205 0.255 0.8979 0.8395 0.922 0.9268 0.8353 0.8758 0.9211 0.8945 0.916

Ecologic indicators of sustainable development

Zenv 0.2022 0.0286 0.1461 0.3034 0.0529 0.2457 0.1203 0.0279 0.1179 0.0467 0.0432
1995–1997 0.7438 0.598 0.6526 0.6867 0.5965 0.7504 0.6446 0.4846 0.7003 0.5982 0.4993
1998–2000 0.6071 0.432 0.5318 0.5693 0.6145 0.6947 0.5109 0.5041 0.7154 0.5359 0.3818
2001–2003 0.6181 0.4632 0.4143 0.4029 0.5891 0.5051 0.5161 0.5007 0.4881 0.4487 0.2913
2004–2006 0.3771 0.4033 0.2851 0.2425 0.4503 0.3575 0.3018 0.4361 0.4305 0.3415 0.3229
2007–2009 0.2857 0.4215 0.3632 0.1643 0.3864 0.3721 0.339 0.3532 0.4258 0.3895 0.402
2010–2012 0.2914 0.3469 0.3608 0.3779 0.3967 0.1458 0.4148 0.351 0.2968 0.4797 0.4912

Institutional indicators of sustainable development

Zi 0.2334 0.2332 0.2234 0.3015 0.1575 0.1169 0.0374 0.4018 0.0423 0.1143 0.3636
1995–1997 0.7282 0.6828 0.3002 0.1767 0.4361 0.7086 0.4067 0.3872 0.413 0.3386 0.8034
1998–2000 0.6839 0.8204 0.4255 0.2465 0.2903 0.6232 0.3238 0.2 0.4568 0.4458 0.9265
2001–2003 0.3206 0.6098 0.7762 0.4526 0.1868 0.2997 0.4922 0.1633 0.6103 0.6501 0.6598
2004–2006 0.312 0.2724 0.3337 0.7245 0.3597 0.3969 0.3582 0.369 0.3903 0.3547 0.5488
2007–2009 0.3311 0.2627 0.4184 0.333 0.5505 0.3322 0.3409 0.5449 0.5727 0.6233 0.3086
2010–2012 0.3154 0.2374 0.6294 0.4984 0.5074 0.4338 0.3664 0.9223 0.599 0.7228 0.0846

Overall indicator of sustainable development

1995–1997 0.4989 0.6185 0.3378 0.3687 0.2385 0.3758 0.2458 0.3371 0.2432 0.2159 0.4086
1998–2000 0.4660 0.2729 0.3354 0.3448 0.2321 0.3837 0.3893 0.2354 0.2865 0.2698 0.5131
2001–2003 0.3440 0.2608 0.4404 0.4058 0.3002 0.3512 0.3666 0.2381 0.3095 0.3163 0.4035
2004–2006 0.4143 0.1887 0.4153 0.5055 0.4845 0.4468 0.4889 0.4230 0.3858 0.3542 0.5191
2007–2009 0.4987 0.2600 0.5621 0.4058 0.6508 0.5020 0.5953 0.5431 0.6291 0.6322 0.5839
2010–2012 0.5702 0.2914 0.7362 0.5763 0.7985 0.6404 0.7077 0.8446 0.8189 0.8293 0.5489

Overall indicator of sustainable development with equalization weight

1995–1997 0.5727 0.5644 0.4379 0.4238 0.3866 0.4622 0.4189 0.4021 0.3874 0.3705 0.4459
1998–2000 0.5044 0.4198 0.3958 0.3521 0.3375 0.4429 0.4649 0.3043 0.4118 0.3888 0.5059
2001–2003 0.3540 0.3996 0.4617 0.4058 0.3603 0.3560 0.4095 0.2944 0.4153 0.3942 0.3656
2004–2006 0.4082 0.2728 0.3931 0.4957 0.4815 0.4493 0.4399 0.4306 0.4037 0.3748 0.5069
2007–2009 0.4581 0.3896 0.4841 0.396 0.5811 0.4641 0.4406 0.4851 0.5725 0.5736 0.5412
2010–2012 0.5235 0.3652 0.6429 0.5311 0.6430 0.5620 0.5333 0.7096 0.6685 0.7148 0.4956

Fig. 1. Economic indicators of sustainable development.

Fig. 2. Social indicators of sustainable development.

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Fig. 3. Ecologic indicators of sustainable development.
Fig. 4. Institutional indicators of sustainable development.
to decreasing economic growth but argue that the solution to this
problem is to provide ways that modify the unequal distribution of
authority and wealth in the entire world.
4.4. Institutional stage of sustainable development
The Latin American region has known a long period of political
instability since the end of World War II until today with a high degree
of corruption.
The results shown in Fig. 4 indicate that the trend regarding the
institutional theme for this region is less favorable, even unfavorable.
Only Paraguay has known an improvement in its level of institutional
sustainability indicators to reach the highest level. This result can be
explained by the increased spending in military and health sectors
while all other countries have known a deterioration of their institu-
tional level in particular Bolivia and Venezuela. These governments
appear to lack the necessary strategies to cope with the increase in
violence and insecurity, despite the revision followed in criminal law, in
particular the debate about death penalty with increased budgets
allocated to law enforcement and militaries spending.
The results of institutional indicators of sustainable development
show that Latin American governments prove they don’t have yet
democratic and satisfactory answers. The proliferation of private
security institutions further complicates the action of the state.
Therefore, this situation of instability and insecurity can affect all
previous areas.
4.5. Overall stage of sustainable development
The entropy weight method applied to the four groups of indicators
identifying sustainability allows us to determine the weight of each
indicator and the weight of each subsystem in the overall level of
development with the aim of evaluating the policies conducted by the
Latin American countries. The results of this method are displayed in
Fig. 5 and show that all countries in the Latin American region are
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 78 (2017) 878–885
Fig. 5. Overall indicators of sustainable development.
adopting sustainable development policies that do not respect the
aimed objectives.
The economic and social developments are responsible for the
largest increase to achieve proximity to the ideal situation. Their weight
exceeds 70% of global development for Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador,
Mexico, Paraguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. These
results can be explained by the increase in the size of the population
and the concentration of efforts to reduce the rate of unemployment
and poverty through the creation of new jobs and investment in the
industrial sector without considering its effects on the environment,
which, as we have shown, results in a poor quality of sustainable
development.
Considering sustainability as a whole still indicates the highest level
of sustainable development in Paraguay above all thanks to institu-
tional development. This dimension has the highest weight in the
overall development. Paraguay has made significant progress in the
field of human rights, such as the ratification and entry into force of the
Rome Statute on the international Criminal Court, and the setting-up
of the Truth and Justice Commission through the adoption of a law.
Concerning the Corruption Perception Index of Transparency
International, its relative position improved between 2004 (140th)
and 2006 (111th). In terms of investment on healthcare, public sector
expenditures as a percentage of GDP ranged from 5.8% in 1995 to
10.3% in 2012.
When equalizing the weights (Fig. 6) we note that only Brazil,
Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay reach the stage of sustainable
development in the last period followed by Ecuador, Mexico, Chile,
Argentina and Venezuela, which remain in a weak stage of sustainable
development with a somewhat slow pace of development. Bolivia
records a decline of development on three dimensions: economic,
ecological and institutional. It constitutes a political hotbed of in-
stability and poverty and faces a very serious environmental degrada-
tion, which requires a rapid intervention by the international institu-
Fig. 6. Overall indicators of sustainable development.
O. Toumi et al.
tions to rescue the Bolivian and regional environment and intensify the
efforts to fight against terrorism, corruption and control smuggling and
border protection.
5. Conclusions and policy implication
The coordination between all the economic, social, environmental
and institutional dimensions in the Latin American region remains a
challenge for national and international institutions, as it requires
monitoring and continuous evaluation of all sustainable development
indicators simultaneously.
To assess the overall sustainability of 11 countries of the Latin
American region and to put forward strategies, which favor them, we
rely on a system of 43 standardized indicators grouped into 4 sub-
systems. As these indicators change every year, it is useful to monitor
these indicators annually. Hence, we collected the indicators for a
period of 18 years from 1995 to 2012 grouped on average into six
periods of 3 years. We use the entropy weight method where each
indicator and each subsystem has been attributed a weight coefficient
in the overall development to determine the index of sustainability for
each period was compared with the most ideal situation.
Our main conclusions are twofold. First, we show that the socio-
economic indicators are priority targets of the national strategy of the
Latin American countries as the majority of the countries display a
positive trend of sustainable development for these dimensions.
However, some obstacles must be overcome such as the high levels
of social inequality and poverty that still constitutes major challenges
for this region. Second and conversely, the Latin American govern-
ments are facing major environmental and institutional challenges in
particular greenhouse emissions, pollution, political instability and
insecurity, which can threaten the economic sustainable development.
This situation requires an urgent action to find effective solutions that
can be performed only with cooperation between all these governments
without exception and revise every policies of environmental protec-
tion.
The present study should be helpful for future researches as it
provides some suitable theoretical and practical implications of the
indicators under the study in the sustainable development scenario.
This investigation can be extended in the future by incorporating the
dynamic interaction between the four dimensions of sustainable
development.
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