Dynamic Sustainability Assessment: The Case of Russia in the Period of Transition (1985-2007)

Russia has experienced twenty years of economic and social change, which has had a substantial impact on the regional and sectoral patterns of the development of its economy, infrastructure, the quality of the environment, and the well-being of its people. The current economic revival offers new opportunities and presents new challenges for the sustainable development of Russia. The paper employs the UN Sustainable Development Framework of Indicators and assesses the sustainability of Russia using multi-criteria evaluation methods, namely the uncertainty randomization multi-criteria evaluation method "Analysis and Synthesis of Parameters under Information Deficiency" (ASPID). The analysis covers economic, environmental, and social trends in Russia's development between 1985 and 2007 and assesses the sustainability of this development from the point of view of multiple criteria. The results show the potential of multi-criteria methods for sustainability assessment at the macro level and offer useful insights into the multidimensional nature of sustainability and the role of priority setting in the evaluation process. Such an analysis reveals the degree of harmony in sustainable development policy. It shows how different sets of priorities determine the outcome of multidimensional analysis of sustainability and could potentially help in assessing progress and designing new policy instruments. This paper is one of the first to apply multi-criteria methods to macro sustainability analysis in a dynamic setting.