Invitation
Wikiprogress Latin America Online Discussion
26 September 09:00 until 7 October 16:00 (GMT)
Wikiprogress Latin America, La OCDE Centro de México , Académica,
ImaginaMéxico, TelmexHub and Wikiprogress would like to invite you to take part in an online discussion on “Public Policy for ‘Buen Vivir*’ and Well-being in Latin America ”. This will be a unique opportunity to reflect and exchange best practices, research and experiences. The debate, which will be conducted in Spanish (but comments in other languages are welcome), will focus on the following questions:
- Should Latin America evaluate social performance with measurements that go beyond GDP?
- If so, which other indicators should we consider to measure social progress and the wellbeing of people?
- What consequences would there be for public policy, social programmes and development strategies in Latin America?
- Are there examples in Latin America of public policy that consider the well-being and happiness of people?
Background
“The growing calls for reconsidering the way we assess the progress of societies and public policy reflects a profound reassessment of what well-being is and of its epistemological foundations: about how a person’s well-being can be known.
The call to re-evaluate the predominance of economic indicators such as GDP in the assessment of well-being comes from several fronts: politicians and public officers find that their success in achieving economic growth and mass consumption are not equally appreciated by citizens. Citizens, in their turn, do not fully identify with all the benefits that they are assumed to be getting; in addition, citizens experience some costs which are not reflected in the political discourse nor in the academic constructs. Furthermore, new well-being approaches support the longstanding scepticism some academic communities have regarding the accuracy of the GDP as an indicator for progress in societies.”
Source: Rojas, M. (2011) “Más allá del ingreso: progreso y bienestar subjetivo” en M. Rojas (coord.) La medición del Progreso y del Bienestar. Propuestas desde América Latina. Foro Consultivo Científico y Tecnológico, México DF
You are invited to leave your comments in the section “Contribuye”on the discussion page. As indicated above, comments in languages (ie. Spanish, English, French or Portuguese) are welcome.
Here is the link: http://bit.ly/1anYPyj and the hash tag for Twitter #Bienstar and #PoliticasPublicas.
* Buen Vivir - According to the indigenous peoples of the Andean region, and the Aymara people in particular, ‘buen vivir’ is a solid principle which means life in harmony and equilibrium between men and women, between different communities and, above all, between human beings and the natural environment of which they are part.
Equipo Wikiprogress America Latina
Further reading:
- René Millán. Well-being as the new “object” of progress. Five reflections.
- Eduardo Gudynas y Alberto Acosta. The good life or the dissolution of the idea of progress.
Both publications can be found here.
