How to boost well-being - and prove it!

This blog, written by Saamah Abdallah of the new economics foundation (nef), is part of the Wikiprogress series on Human Well-Being and Subjective Well-Being.

 

Photo credit:   mikebaird

The Big Lottery Fund has published the final results from their Well-Being Programme evaluation which nef, alongside colleagues at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), have been carrying out on their behalf since 2006.

The final report is available online. The headline findings are:

• Proportions of people eating five portions of fruit and vegetables daily increased from 48% at the beginning of the project to 57% at the end. Proportions of primary school children saying they helped their parents with cooking almost doubled from 12% to 24%.
• Proportions of people having high levels of physical activity rose from 23% to 32%. This increase went further at follow-up, three to six months after the end of the project.
• Proportions of people reporting substantial depressive symptoms fell from 33% to 22%.
• Average life satisfaction (on a scale of 0-10) rose from 6.5 at the start, to 7.1 at the end of projects. This coincided with significant increases in people feeling good about themselves, relaxed, close to other people, and all other aspects of personal well-being measured.
• The different aspects were all interlinked. Most striking was that projects which involved physical activity lead to big improvements in terms of mental health and healthy eating.
• Keys to successful projects included having a holistic approach, engaging the target group from the start and incorporating co-production, integrating activities into daily life, and ensuring that they are fun and involve social interaction.

For us, the findings are exciting news. They a) show that people’s experienced well-being can be improved and that these improvements can be sustained (something which some theorists have doubted), b) show that well-being can be used to evaluate a wide range of projects from cookery courses, to therapy sessions, and c) begin to provide evidence on the kinds of activities which work best, and about the inter-linkages between different aspects of people’s behaviour and well-being.

The Well-Being Programme was a £160 million programme funding a broad range of community projects improving mental health and increasing healthy eating and physical activity, delivered by partnerships lead by organisations such as the Soil Association,  MIND, Sustrans and the Greater London Authority.

The evaluation involved the administration of a questionnaire for project beneficiaries which they completed when they started being involved in a project, when they finished, and (where possible), three to six months after they left a project. Our colleagues at CLES also carried out extensive qualitative research, including focus groups and interviews with beneficiaries and project staff. 
The Well-Being Programme recently received a boost of another £40 million,   so some of the projects funded are set to continue. We look forward to seeing further increases in well-being as a result. The findings have also attracted particular attention from the Cabinet Office, who will be looking to see what lessons can be learnt from the evaluation to help realise the Prime Minister’s stated goal of focusing policy on improving well-being 

- Saamah Abdallah
Senior Researcher at the Centre for Well-being  at the nef

 This blog first appeared on 3 September 2013 on the nef blog.

How to engineer a “data revolution”? The OECD’s view on post-2015 goals monitoring

This post, written by the OECD’s Charlotte Demuijnck, provides an overview of the OECD’s input on target measurements in the post-2015 development framework and agenda. The OECD paper Strengthening National Statistical Systems to Monitor Global Goals on post-2015 goals monitoring is the fifth thematic paper in a series which outlines the Organisation’s position on the global debate in the lead up to the UN 68th General Assembly which begins on Tuesday, 17 September 2013. This post is part of the Wikiprogress Post-2015 series.

The paper is the fifth in a series of OECD’s contributions to the post-2015 agenda. It proposes steps needed for efficient tracking of the post-2015 development goals. Despite the positive impact the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) process has had on the production and availability of data, as well as on the development of national statistical capacity, the paper highlights the need to agree on a better statistical strategy to overcome the remaining challenges for post-2015 monitoring.

As emphasised in the paper, the MDG process has significantly helped at improving national statistical capacities. Countries have risen to the challenge of delivering high quality, internationally comparable data, mainly using household surveys. As the paper states: “the average number of surveys produced each year in Ethiopia and Ghana almost doubled since 2000”. In addition to domestic funds, development co-operation was a significant driving force in this improvement. Ghana, for example, relies entirely on external support for data production.

However, some issues remain for proper tracking of the post-2015 agenda such as gaps in the data collection and analysis, as well as the exclusion and under-utilisation of national data in the MDG monitoring process. Apart from household surveys, other sources of MDG monitoring have not been sufficiently developed.As a matter of fact, only 6% of Sub-Saharan countries have complete civil registration systems and about 250 million people are missing from existing surveys. According to the authors, inadequate and under-investment in assistance for data production explains the gaps in MDG data. Another issue is that of the exclusion of national data from the global monitoring exercise leading to huge discrepancies between UN-reported data and national estimates. This has become more problematic as Murray*, among others, has questioned the validity of UN estimates and methodologies. The paper explains that the under-use of national data is due to non-compliance with international standards and poor co-ordination. To solve this issue, “better alignment of national and international efforts to strengthen statistical capacity” is recommended. In this regard, prior consultation and nationally-defined indicators should drive the post-2015 monitoring process.

 A quote from the PARIS21 webpage

Acknowledging the call for a “data revolution” by the High Level panel (HLP) of Eminent Persons onthe post-2015 development goals, the paper emphasises the OECD’s expertise and experience in creating a global statistical strategy and partnership. Indeed, the OECD, and more specifically, the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) offers a ready-made structure on  which to found this global statistical strategy. PARIS21 was mandated to act as the Secretariat for the implementation of the Busan Action Plan for Statistics (BAPS) in 2013, a global initiative to support National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDSs). Several recommendations are given to support the “data revolution”. First, the post-2015 statistical strategy should include more data sources such as the use of mobile technology, social media etc. It should also aim at developing national statistical capacity for more reliable and relevant data in the monitoring process. In this regard, the BAPS represents “an explicit and high-level political commitment” to prioritise national statistics development. Finally, the HLP also recommends the creation of a Global Partnership on Development Data for which, according to the paper, “the logical starting point” would be PARIS21 - as the only international initiative for inclusive data co-operation.

For more information on the side event: http://www.paris21.org/node/1593

In conclusion, the post-2015 agenda needs to rely on existing initiatives and framework for an effective “data revolution” and global goals monitoring. To that end, the paper supports the OECD’s position as the Best Supporting Actor in the global development debate, with its highly valuable expertise and experience.  

- Charlotte Demuijnck

*Murray, C.J. (2007), “Towards good practice for health statistics: Lessons from the Millennium Development Goals health indicators,” The Lancet, 3/369, pp. 862-873.

Improving Wellbeing Should Be Our Global Priority

This post is written by Mark Williamson, Director of Action for Happiness*. This blog is  part of the Wikiprogress Series on Subjective Well-being. 

People's daily experiences and concerns differ enormously around the world. While a farmer in Angola prays for a good harvest, a manager in Greece worries about losing her job. And while a mother in Egypt comes to terms with life in a conflict zone, a doctor in Denmark struggles with work-related stress.

But there is one thing that unites people's experiences in every country: they all involve human beings who want their experience of life to be good rather than bad. We share a universal desire for wellbeing. This is more than just a survival instinct; we want to be happy and have the best possible lives for ourselves and those we love.

Whether we're aiming to alleviate poverty in Africa, end conflict in Syria or reduce stress in US workplaces, the fundamental reason we care about these things is that they are bad for human wellbeing. They cause suffering and pain. Similarly, if we're aiming to boost economic activity, reform our education system or cut public sector spending, we should only do so if we believe this will ultimately be good for people's wellbeing. Wellbeing provides a common lens through which we can look at the many challenges and opportunities in our world and decide on our collective priorities.

This is the central idea behind a groundbreaking report published today - the World Happiness Report. Launched in the midst of a major debate about what the world's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be for 2015-2030, the report argues that people's 'subjective wellbeing' - their self-reported sense of happiness with life - should be a central measure of progress for every nation. It is a substantial piece of work edited by, among others, the influential development economist Jeff Sachs.

Recent years have seen a huge growth in wellbeing research and we now have valuable data from all around the world about people's levels of life satisfaction. Not only can wellbeing be measured in a reliable and meaningful way, the findings have great relevance for public policy and global priorities. What was once seen as a sideshow is now a mainstream movement, with support from influential figures such as UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon and former head of the UK civil service, Lord Gus O'Donnell.

To illustrate how relevant the wellbeing data is for global issues, let's return to those four examples in my introduction, as they all relate to countries with interesting findings. Firstly, the farmer in Angola. Although Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the lowest wellbeing (it is home to 9 of the bottom 10 countries, the other being Syria), there are a few green shoots. Over the last five years, Angola has actually seen the largest improvement in wellbeing globally, as it continues to regain stability after its terrible 27 year civil war.

However, for the manager in Greece and mother in Egypt, the trends are less encouraging. Unsurprisingly, these are the two countries that have seen the largest falls in wellbeing over the last five years. Of all the countries affected by the Eurozone crisis, Greece has been the hardest hit. Its drop in wellbeing is greater than would be predicted simply from falls in income, reflecting wider problems from loss of trust and social cohesion. And in Egypt, the significantly lower wellbeing surely reflects the Egyptian people's suffering under the Mubarak regime and the ongoing struggles since the 2011 uprising.

Finally, what about the Danish doctor? Well, she's at least fortunate to live in Denmark, the country which once again tops the world wellbeing league, closely followed by Norway. With Sweden also in the top 5, we might well ask how these Northern European nations always seem to deliver world-beating levels of wellbeing. Yes they have fairly high GDP per capita, but they're far from the top of that league. More tellingly, they have some of the highest levels of interpersonal trust and lowest levels of inequality.

The World Happiness Report also provides another extremely compelling reason to prioritise wellbeing, and the research here is really quite startling. It shows that happier people tend to be healthier, recover from illness more quickly and live longer. At work, they perform better, exhibit more creativity, are absent less often and are better at cooperation and collaboration. And in wider society, they have better relationships, exhibit more pro-social behaviour, have greater self-control, engage in less risk-taking behaviour and are more likely to have a positive impact on others. So happier people are not lazy, naïve, inward-looking or selfish, as some sceptics suggest; they are actually more economically productive, healthy, socially-minded and generous.

So what practical changes might we make if we adopted wellbeing as a global priority? Of all the suggestions in the report, the most notable is the call for a fundamental shift in our approach to mental health. Worldwide, depression and anxiety disorders account for up to a fifth of the entire burden of illness. This causes huge misery and involves massive costs due to lost output and worse physical health. Yet even in rich countries, less than a third of people who are mentally ill receive the treatment they need - and in poorer countries the proportion is lower still. This is really shocking, especially considering we now have cost-effective therapies that have been proven to help. Do politicians focus more on physical health, employment or income because they feel uncomfortable talking about mental health? If so, this has to change. Making treatment for mental illness more widely available may well be the single most reliable and cost effective way to improve national wellbeing.

What then should be the world's development goals for the coming years? Making wellbeing our global priority would surely underpin, rather than undermine, existing sustainable development aims. It would also provide a consistent means to track how successful countries are in delivering improvements in people's quality of life. The reason that existing goals like universal education, gender equality, maternal health and sustainability matter so much is because they are all fundamental to human wellbeing. 

Wellbeing isn't some luxury for the privileged few, it's the thing all of us want most for ourselves and the people we care about - whether in a field in Angola or an office in London. It should be at the heart of every discussion of local, national or global priorities.

Mark Williamson is Director of Action for Happiness.

This article was first posted 9 September on the Huffington Post website, here. 

*Action for Happiness is a movement of people taking action in their personal lives, homes, workplaces and communities - to help create a happier society. The movement has tens of thousands of members from a wide range of backgrounds including community leaders, parents, teachers, business leaders, students, policy makers, researchers, health experts and more. Action for Happiness provides information, inspiration and resources to help its members make a difference, all based on the latest empirical scientific evidence relating to happiness, wellbeing and resilience.

Week in Review

Welcome to this Week in Review. Below is a selection of news articles and a video that caught our eye from our Media Review, Facebook and Twitter accounts.  We hope you enjoy the read. 

Can 'happiness economics' provide a new framework for development? (Guardian 03.09.2013)

Measuring wellbeing shows quality of life and helps explain its determinants. But can it be useful in post-MDGs policy? Christian Kroll’s new study reveals that three very important development goals, namely income, health and education, for people's life satisfaction varies significantly across nations.

Science Times Special Section: Learning What Works (New York Times)

A varied selection of informative articles on education.

Stats and the city (OECD Insights Blog 02.09.2013)

The Metropolitan Explorer is a nifty tool from the OECD that lets you explore statistics for 268 metropolitan areas in OECD countries.

Video

Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

10 commandments for new teachers (Guardian 03.09.2013)

From the power of Google to ditching the monotone, secondary teacher Lulu Kuper shares her proven tips on how NQTs can get the best from their students.

When life means school again (Education Today blog 02.09.2013)

Children are starting school at an ever younger age, OECD’s recent Education at a Glance 2013 shows that in 2011 on average over 84% of all four year-old children were enrolled in some form of formal education, which is 5% more than in 2005.

Wikigender’s online discussion on “How do discriminatory social norms relate to the gender dynamics of international migration?” is now open! We invite you to join the discussion, to read and leave your comment.  Here is the link: http://bit.ly/16TdlNJ and the hashtag used in Twitter is #migration. 

This month Wikiprogress and networks will focus on Education and Skill.

Wikiprogress Team

Sanitation in schools

This blog, written by Wikichild co-ordinator Melinda Deleuze, is a part of the Wikiprogress September spotlight on "Education and skills". Also, in conjunction with the OECD's 2013 World Water Week, the post discusses the need for improved water and sanitation in schools and various organizations' efforts.

It is important to focus on improving school’s sanitation standards, because children are often the most vulnerable to diseases, according to wateraid.org. Children also take new ideas and habits back to their homes and families, increasing programs’ impact. 

Only 49% of schools around the world provide drinking water to its pupils and 11% of schools provide water for handwashing. In Kenya, although 63% of schools provided drinking water, only 27% had treated water. Also, while 63% of schools in Kenya have handwashing water available to its students, only 8% of schools have soap. Studies show that handwashing with soap can reduce the risk of diarrheal disease by more than 42% (Curtis and Caincross, 2003). 

Over the past few years, multiple organizations have been working hard to increase the number of schools with drinking water, sanitation facilities and handwashing stations. According to the Sanitation and Water for All project update (April 2013), in the past year, Nigeria mobilized private sector resources for provision of WASH facilities in over 700 schools.

Sustaining and Scaling School Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Plus Community Impact (SWASH+), also known as "WASH in schools", is a project established to identify, develop, and test innovative approaches to school-based water, sanitation and hygiene in Kenya. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Water Challenge, the project has been running since 2006 with the help of CARE, Emory University’s Center for Global Safe Water, the Government of Kenya, Kenya Water for Health Organisation, Water.org, and SANA. SWASH+ has worked in 185 primary schools in four districts in Nyanza Province, gathering data, learning about challenges and testing solutions for school water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). SWASH+ provides a base package, which includes:

1. Provision of water for drinking in safe storage containers
2. Daily treatment of drinking water with an appropriate technology
3. Provision of water for handwashing
4. Daily provision of soap

After the 5-year project, SWASH+ found that:

• Absenteeism is significantly reduced among girls, with an average of 6 days fewer absences per year.
• There was a 45% overall reduction of ascaris, and an even greater decrease among girls. Also, the intensity of hookworm infection significantly declined among boys.
• Unfortunately, there were higher quantities of E. coli bacteria on pupils’ hands who received hygiene, water treatment and sanitation facilities. A study by the European Journal of Tropical Medicine and International Health (2009) found that only 32% of Kenyans wash their hands after fecal contact.

Sapling handwashing, Malawi. Photo: Plan Malawi

Another program working towards increasing drinking water, sanitation facilities and handwashing stations in schools is the Pan African School Led Total Sanitation (SLTS) program. This program is targeting 742 schools in 6 sub-Saharan countries (i.e. Sierra Leone; Ethiopia; Uganda; Kenya; Zambia; Ghana; Niger; Malawi). In each country, the SLTS program follows the same process to facilitate the necessary activities to trigger the schools’ and communities’ progress:

1. Discuss with the government’s Health and Education sectors, plan at different levels and reach an agreement;
2. Train teachers who then train students how to use the school latrine and surrounding water and sanitation areas, as well as playing games which help internalize sanitation and hygiene concerns;
3. Register households for monitoring;
4. Conduct a school sanitation campaign, cleaning the whole school compound;
5. Group community into Development Units and establish these groups’ meeting places and times (meetings take place at schools);
6. Establish a committee of six for each Development Unit who facilitate discussion and prepare a report;
7. Monitor progress with these reports.

The SLTS program’s 5-year period runs through next year (2014), and this process can be reviewed and changed before the next Pan Africa program begins.

Water and sanitation needs to improve in schools in order to increase school attendance among girls and decrease sickness among all children. Top-down and bottom-up forces are needed to help children become more educated and safer around the world. 

  

 Melinda Deleuze

Zambia: What Comes After Universal Primary Education?

During the month of September 2013, Wikiprogress and networks are focusing on 'Education and Skills', building upon 'International Literacy Day' on 8 September 2013. This blog post, written by Global Voices' Gershom Ndhlovu, discuses education in Zambia as well as what the OECD proposes for post-2015 education goals.

Looking at African literacy rate rankings shared by The African Economist last month, 37 of Africa's 52 countries now score above 50 percent, while 17 countries now score above 70 percent.

For a continent that is ranked the poorest to have such relatively high scores, there is hope that education and literacy levels could keep soaring with sustained efforts after the 2015 deadline passes for achieving eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including universal primary education.

Certainly Zambia, which ranks 17th in Africa with just over 80 percent literacy levels, could climb the ladder if the current efforts of government, non-governmental organisations and individuals to improve education bear fruit.

Despite educational advances and an increase in the number of universities in Zambia, the lower education ladder is still problematic with many pupils failing to move up in the educational system.

School, and then what?

An OECD paper outlining recommendations on education for a post-2105 development framework suggests that educational targets and measurements are important once more universal access to primary and secondary schools has been achieved. The OECD notes that despite gains in school enrolment and attendance around the world since the MDGs were launched in 2000, many young people still leave school without the knowledge and skills they need to find jobs and thrive.

In Zambia last year, around 60,000 pupils failed grade seven out of 337,706 who sat for the exams.
Commenting on a story about grade seven results in the Lusaka Times, a reader, Chongo B.C, wrote:

The grade seven results for 2012 have been very impressive as compared to the past years. This has been a tremendous improvement. However,the Government through the Ministry of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Childhood should make sure that it provides adequate classrooms for these pupils to learn effectively. Above all, it should reduce the pupil-teacher ratio in classrooms in order to provide conducive learning environment. This will ensure quality education and productive citizens who will be useful in the society.

Another reader, Xhoisan X questioned one of the most touted policies by successive governments:

Please educate me. I was made to understand that Zambia now has compulsory education up to secondary school. So what are these results [the education minister] is announcing?

While the primary school progression rate may look bad, it is the sieve at grade nine that sends the most pupils into the wilderness. According to the Times of Zambia, only 100,824 candidates passed out of the 291,018 who sat for the examinations in 2012.

There are a number of factors that affects pupil progression to higher education but the biggest problem appears to be lack of classroom space at the lower levels with a teacher/pupil ratio in Zambia of 1 to 63 for 2011 according to the World Bank.

The government has embarked on building more classroom space at primary, secondary and tertiary levels to absorb as many pupils and students as possible. Opening a school in rural Zambia last year, President Michael Sata said:

Our aspiration is to put together a well-organized, valuable and reliable public education system through substantial investments in educational infrastructure. As Government we have an obligation to structure and shape the future of our general populace, particularly the younger citizens, who constitute a greater part of our population.

President Sata also laid out his government’s plans to build the universities in an inaugural speech to parliament in 2011, and he has so far commissioned the construction of Palabana University, formerly a dairy training institute, Chalimbana University, formerly a teacher in-service training school, and Robert Makasa Univesity, formerly Lubwa Mission. These new universities will exist in addition to three existing public universities, University of Zambia, Copperbelt University and Mulungushi University.

Although the government is making an effort, there are many challenges that make gaining access to education impossible for many people, among them the severe poverty that afflicts many households.

Looking to the future

As the OECD notes, while the importance of universal access to primary education would be retained, a post 2015 education-related goal is likely to incorporate the secondary education level and include a stronger focus on learning. The OECD itself supports a Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) where countries can measure results in comparison with one another.

While its not clear what the Zambian government would do to meet such standards, at least infrastructurally a start has been made. The construction of primary and secondary schools would ideally match the level at which public universities are being created, coupled with the training and recruitment of more teachers.

At the individual level, realising the predicament of children from poverty-stricken homes, a Zambian living in the United States, Isabella Mukanda Shamambo, has established an education centre called Beyond Universal Primary Education for All going by the acronym, BUPE (meaning “gift” in some Zambian languages). Introducing the project on the Community Prayer Centers website, she writes:

The near success of one of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals has left a generation of kids with 7th grade education roaming the streets of many major cities, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, the need has arisen for a universal Secondary education which most cannot afford. Kids roam the street of Ndola [city in Zambia] selling plastic bag in the hope of going back to 8th grade. Others wander the streets, hope of a better future completely lost.

The most progressive policy the Zambian government announced in 2012 were plans to upgrade 1,570 so-called community schools which are run mostly by NGOs to cater for vulnerable groups from poorer areas of urban and peri-urban areas. This is likely to help contribute to the attainment of MDGs and beyond.

Optimistically speaking, with the achievement of universal primary education around the corner, in Zambia in particular and Africa in general, we should prepare to take a confident leap beyond the 2015 Millennium Development Goals to focus on improving the curriculum and promote higher levels of learning.

This post is part of a series by Global Voices bloggers for the OECD engaging with post-2015 ideas for development worldwide. The OECD is not responsible for the content in these posts.

See the Wikiprogress post-2015 portal for more on this topic.

Written by Gershom Ndhlovu

This post first appeared 22 July, 2013 on the Global Voices blog.