How to get involved in the global discussion on child well-being

Wikichild is an open resource. Its core mission is to create a global information tool supported by a worldwide partnership of organisations and individuals wishing to participate in the collection, analysis and dissemination of data on child well-being. The ultimate aim is to provide a platform that facilitates the accessibility of child well-being statistics and information on child well-being issues in general, including information on events, publications and case-studies, and facilitates collaboration and networking opportunities in the area.

In recent months there has been a substantial amount of new material posted on the Wikichild portal.  Weekly spotlighted publications, blogs, new and amended seed articles and daily postings of child well-being relevant media have been added further contributing to make Wikichild an important global resource for research and advocacy in the field of child well-being.

In addition to this the Wikichild community is growing with Save the Children coming on board as a partner in May and the Wikichild team has noted an increasing number of visitors to the site from a wider variety of countries.

Wikichild is available for the global community to contribute to, learn and benefit from. If you have something to add, Create an account and become a User on the portal page. Alternatively join the discussion around child well-being by commenting on blogs posted on this ProgBlog.

The Real Story on Wellbeing: A Canadian Example

There are times in history when destabilizing world events turn into defining moments for change and innovation. We may be at the forefront of one of those defining moments.

Following the Great Depression and World War II – global events that destabilized entire nations – a consensus emerged. The world needed a good dose of peace and prosperity. Governments set out to pursue those objectives, and to determine ways of measuring progress. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) became the standard way to assess economic prosperity. Since then nations have come to rely on GDP as a primary indicator of how a country is prospering, but as robust a tool as it is, GDP only tells us about the state of the economy. It provides no understanding of the health of a population, the vibrancy of a democracy, the growing inequality within and between countries, or the quality of life for a country’s people.

Today we again find ourselves in uncertain times. The 2008 global recession and the years of economic and social turmoil that have ensued, have brought us to the point where average people are joining demonstrations around the world, occupying banking districts around the world. Their common cry: What about the rest of us? They bring into sharp relief GDP’s limitations as a measure of wellbeing. A new consensus is emerging – we want a fairer world. Again we find ourselves in need of a new way to measure how our country is faring and now we have the way to do it.

A decade ago, some of Canada’s leading thinkers answered the call to create a composite index that could do what GDP was never designed to do. The result is the launch of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW). Drawing from a deep well of data the CIW uses 64 separate headline indicators within eight interconnected domains central to the lives of Canadians: Community Vitality, Democratic Engagement, Education, Environment, Healthy Populations, Leisure and Culture, Living Standards, and Time Use. We can now use these indicators to monitor each domain over time, starting with the base year of 1994.

Since 1994, we now know Canada’s wellbeing has seen an overall improvement of 11 per cent, which pales in comparison to the 31 per cent growth in the country’s GDP over the same time frame. The CIW shows us what GDP cannot, it shows us what the average citizen has understood intuitively: Canadians are not reaping all of the benefits of economic growth. Quality of life has actually gone down in areas such as the environment, leisure and culture, and time use, with only modest gains in health. And even in areas where growth has been strong, research shows that it was the top 20% of Canadians that received the lion’s share of rising income and wealth during the boom years, while the gap down to the bottom 20% grew even larger. That’s the Canadian reality.

Unlike GDP, designed only to measure the output of countries goods and services, the CIW allows us to dig deeper, providing a more complete picture of which aspects of wellbeing improved and which got worse. By providing an accurate snapshot of how the country is faring over time, the CIW gives Canadian governments the tools needed to better understand the impact of their policy and program decisions, and gives citizens, what they need to hold governments accountable – to ensure quality of life grows along with GDP.

We find ourselves in uncertain times. Governments around the world face push back from citizens who say they’re no longer willing to bear the brunt of actions and decisions they perceive to be taken by the elite few. Fortunately we have choices about how we want the future to look. It is hoped that the CIW will help advance the cause to find better ways to measure societal progress that respond to the global call for greater fairness.

By: The Honourable Roy Romanow, Chair of the Advisory Board, and The Honourable Monique Bégin, Deputy Chair, of the Advisory Board for Wikiprogress Correspondents, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing.

For complete Canadian Index of Wellbeing findings or enjoy our short video and infographic: www.ciw.ca

Looking at well-being indicators in the middle of a crisis…yes we are.

Last week's conference at the OECD brought together the celebrities of the well-being world along with representatives from national statistics offices to discuss well-being. Normally, these two worlds would not collide; however, now that the experts are wrestling with the idea the GDP isn't a good measure of well-being, they are forced to deal with each other at the coffee break. Though, I will say that for a room full of statisticians and economists, it was a rather lively day (they can be loads of fun!). I would also say that with #occupywallstreet movements and the Arab Spring, the time certainly is ripe to debate turning the corner from seeing people as production machines (like GDP does) to understanding people as multifaceted creatures that have priorities for today and for the future (education, health, safety, life satisfaction, jobs). The point of this conference is to look at some of the national initiatives that have come to the fore since the SSF report came out in 2009 which recommended new measures of societal progress reflecting these priorities and also to look at future areas of research. 

There seemed to be question as to whether we need to be even talking about this in a crisis. That maybe we should just rest with what we do well and get even more serious about that. Let's just look at growth or let's look at the more holistic idea of progress. The people in the room at the OECD and the thousands of people on Wikiprogress seem to agree that growth (higher GDP) is not enough.

The OECD Secretary General said that as countries are applying strict austerity measures, "cuts should not happen where citizen well-being will be affected". The OECD very clearly stated that more of the same is not going to help with anything and may make things worse. We are "turning a corner" now, and new ways of working, measuring, policy making are urgent. If we don't (yes, that sounded like a warning), there will be consequences. The OECD urged that national statistics offices around the world take heed of the recommendations in the SSF report.

Joseph Stiglitz spoke early on in the day and talked about his perceptions of the report 2 years on. He communicated his surprise at how the recommendations of the report were taken up. He said that a national measure has to relate to well-being of the citizens. He cited the example that most citizens in the US saw their standard of living decreasing year after year. Today, most Americans are worse off than they were in 1997. The typical American male worker is making less than in the 1970s. Most Americans feel less secure as well. He also mentioned that the terrible job numbers in the US are actually worse in reality. 25 million Americans who would like a full time job can't get one. What does that do to someone's sense of self worth? GDP doesn't capture any of this. Inequality, inequality, inequality…the gap between the rich and poor in many countries …was echoed throughout the day and is something that has to be addressed.

Stiglitz recommended the following four items for continued work in the area.

•  Inequality is THE issue of the day. "We are the 99%" from the Wall Street protestors is an important agenda. The top 1% holding a country's wealth is a serious problem and should be addressed.
•  Research on well-being. What is the effect of unemployment on well-being? What is a sense of social connectedness? Does it relate to whether there is a pub in the town? What makes people well-off?
•  Risk and vulnerability. The vulnerable of our world are exposed to risk. What are the risks and how do we mitigate them?
•  All of the above has to translate into policy. We need to measure what matters and policy should be about what matters.

He also pointed out that Scotland has produced an impressive report on how Scotland can better measure and ensure the well being of its citizens based on the findings of the SSF report. I dug it out here for you http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/getattachment/edc70373-49a0-48bb-84a3-5b0a253a5a6f/More-Than-GDP--Measuring-What-Matters.aspx. 

 The OECD has held up their side of the bargain and produced a report called "How's Life" which was launched at the conference by OECD Chief Statistician Martine Durand.  The focus of this report is on:

• households and people, not national production (i.e. GDP),
• outcomes, not inputs not outputs (those measures that affect the well-being of actual people in a country and not just the ranking of a country at 30,000 feet),
•  assessing inequalities alongside averages (this will help to better understand for example how the 1% in the US got there and how to fix it),
• objective (i.e. traditional economic measures) and subjective (reported life satisfaction) aspects of well-being.

Inside the report is a guide for governments to use based on the recommendations of the SSF report. OECD Chief Statistician, Martine Durand called it "a beginning". Though, it seems generally agreed that this is a good start. For statisticians, these soft measures are difficult to stomach I think (rumblings around the halls the next day) so we look forward to the work coming out of the OECD on how to gather and even officialise the softer measures.  

Some key findings include:

•  No country performs best in all dimensions.
•  Australia and Canada are the best performers in 12 out of 22 dimensions.
•  Estonia comes out as the worst.
•  In the area of work/life balance, satisfaction with work-life balance is lower for women and goes  down with number of children.

In a week or so, there will be a Prog Blog post from the lead author of this report who will get more into the nitty gritty of it. For more information in the meantime go to: http://www.oecd.org/document/39/0,3746,en_21571361_44315115_48858599_1_1_1_1,00.html

Also, you can check out your Better Life Index, where you can choose what is most important to you to see if your country is making policy that reflects your preferences. Be sure to share your preferences.

Of course, you can always go to Wikiprogress and participate in the debate on progress via this blog, help to communicate ideas of progress to everyone via data visualisation, write an article, help us to make sure the quality of the articles is good, submit some data, etc. Let me know at info@wikiprogress.org if you would like to participate.

You can look forward to more on this conference and other issues concerning citizen well-being in coming Progblog posts.

Angela

The Sustainable Society Index

This is a comment from Geurt van de Kerk in response to Jon Hall's last blog post titled From homo economicus to homo edoctus: evolution in the information age. We thought the comment was so interesting we would publish it as a new post.

You have written an appealing and challenging blog, Jon. It provokes me to write a reaction. You have posed a question about measuring and I happen to know the answer to that question. But first of all, what do you want to measure? Success? Progress? Progress to what? Happiness? Or ‘just’ to replace GDP by a better measure?

Of course we can measure everything that is important or at least interesting. But should our main concern not be about progress to sustainability? Without living within the ecological limits imposed by our planet and the social limits set by the community of mankind, life cannot be continued. Happiness is less important than sustainability. If we are talking about progress, it should be about progress on the way towards sustainability.

We can use the famous Brundtland definition for expressing what we mean by sustainability and add a third sentence to this definition to make explicitly clear that Environmental wellbeing and Human wellbeing are both included. The extended Brundtland definition may run as follows:
A sustainable society is a society

• that meets the needs of the present generation,
• that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,
• in which each human being has the opportunity to develop itself in freedom, within a well-balanced society and in harmony with its surroundings.
  

There is overwhelming proof of the risks we run by the ever increasing GHG emissions, by the social inequalities worldwide, by the loss of biodiversity, by damaging our environment. Let’s not quarrel about the question which indicator or set of indicators is best. Any set of indicators that covers the main aspects of sustainability and is built upon reliable data is OK.

Let’s not fool ourselves by measuring things like happiness. Of course, it is awfully nice if everybody is happy. Apart from the question how to measure happiness, what does it tell us? What does it mean in the long run?

Allow me a sideline. You say that you’re “pretty sure that enforcing a massive cut in CO2 emissions, would make most Westerners decidedly less happy at the moment”. I am not pretty sure, but absolutely sure that this is not necessary. Will you be less happy if your electricity is produced by solar or wind energy than by fossil fuels? Will you be less happy if you buy local or regional food, having travelled less kilometres before it ends up in your stomach? Will you be less happy if you live in an well insulated house, requiring only some quart (or less) of the present energy consumption? I am sure your answers will be negative. And if we turn it round, how can you be happy if temperature rise will pass the tipping point and will cause yet unknown environmental and social damage? For the sake of happiness, we’ll have to cut the GHG emissions.

I admire Bhutan for having replaced the GDP by their own index, the Gross National Happiness. It is an audacious step. It would be even better to replace GDP by a set of indicators that measures the conditions for the possibility of being happy, not only today, but also on the long run. That is a set that measures the main aspects of sustainability in its broad sense, as expressed by the extended Brundtland definition. And for those who prefer a single figure, the scores of all indicators may be aggregated into one overall figure.

Oh sorry, I nearly forgot to answer your question about measuring. One of the possible solutions may be the Sustainable Society Index (SSI), a set of 24 indicators, covering all main aspects of Human, Environmental and Economic Wellbeing. And showing one overall score for sustainability as well as the scores of each indicator separately. So it’s up to you which one you prefer.

Let’s act. It requires all our efforts to prevent mankind to evolve from homo sapiens to homo stupidus.

Geurt van de Kerk