The Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy Jon Hall, World Forum Project Leader, OECD

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The Global Project on Measuring the Progress of
SocietiesOECD World Forum on Statistics,
Knowledge and Policy Jon Hall, World Forum
Project Leader, OECD
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Introduction

• Is life getting better?
• In which ways are societies progressing? Where is
  there cause for concern, and where is they reason
  for optimism?
• Indeed, what does progress mean in the 21st
  century?

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Some megatrends

• Around the world, societies are increasingly
  concerned with their quality of life and a
  consensus is growing around the need to develop a
  more comprehensive view of progress rather than
  focussing on the economic one (GDP).
• Mistrust in national governments (and therefore
  in national statistical offices).
• Growing number of agents in the society (NGOs,
  etc.).
• Individuals are asked to take decisions that in
  the past were taken by the government (pensions,
  school, etc.).
• In an age of unprecedented, and overwhelming,
  information flows, the common understanding
  necessary for informed public discourse is often
  inadequate.

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The Istanbul World Forum

• 1200 people from 130 countries
• Presidents, ministers, leading academics and
  civil societarians, private sector and media
• What is Progress?
• What information do we need to assess progress in
  key global concerns?
• From outputs to outcomes - how can we get
  measures used by a broad audience?

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The Istanbul Declaration

• A culture of evidence-based decision making has
  to be promoted at all levels of government, to
  increase the welfare of societies.
• We affirm our commitment to measuring and
  fostering the progress of societies in all their
  dimensions and to supporting initiatives at the
  country level.
• We urge statistical offices, public and private
  organisations, and academic experts to work
  alongside representatives of their communities to
  produce high-quality, facts-based information
  that can be used by all of society to form a
  shared view of societal well-being and its
  evolution over time.

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The Istanbul Declaration

• encourage communities to consider for themselves
  what progress means
• share best practices and increase the awareness
  of the need to do so using sound and reliable
  methodologies
• stimulate international debate, based on solid
  statistical data and indicators, on both global
  issues of societal progress and comparisons of
  such progress

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The Istanbul Declaration

• produce a broader, shared, public understanding
  of changing conditions, while highlighting areas
  of significant change or inadequate knowledge
• advocate appropriate investment in building
  statistical capacity, especially in developing
  countries, to improve the availability of data
  and indicators needed to guide development
  programs and report on progress toward
  international goals, such as the MDGs.

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The Istanbul Declaration

• produce a broader, shared, public understanding
  of changing conditions, while highlighting areas
  of significant change or inadequate knowledge
• advocate appropriate investment in building
  statistical capacity, especially in developing
  countries, to improve the availability of data
  and indicators needed to guide development
  programs and report on progress toward
  international goals, such as the MDGs.

Please sign it www.oecd.org/oecdworldforum
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The Global Project

• Advocate for more initiatives that measure
  progress
• Assist those wanting to measure progress
  through developing best practice and providing
  support
• Achieve results through improving the
  effectiveness and use of sets of progress
  measures
• A network of networks
• We want every society to develop its own set of
  progress measures and use them through National
  Roundtables

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• Towards a Global Project on Measuring the
  Progress of Societies (1)
• Meet the demand coming from our societies
• Measure what matters
• Help citizens to focus on key shared facts
• Reduce information asymmetries between who knows
  and who does not know, a key divide in the
  information age
• Make politicians accountable
• Show where the world/countries/regions/communities
  are going
• Build a global partnership with international
  organisations, national and local public
  institutions, foundations, NGOs, media partners,
  academic networks, corporations, etc.

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• Key deliverables (1)
• Statistical research
• Recommendations on how to measure the progress of
  societies using different approaches
• Development of recommendations on how to measure
  specific phenomena

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• Key deliverables (2)
• ICT tools to transform statistics into knowledge
• Development of innovative software to improve
  users capacity to visualise and analyse
  statistical indicators
• Development of partnerships with national and
  global media to improve the dissemination of
  statistical information to citizens

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• Key deliverables (3)
• Advocacy and institutional building
• Recommendations on how to build initiatives aimed
  to measure the societal progress through the
  involvement of different components of the
  society (government, opposition, civil society,
  etc.)
• Organisation of working groups in the different
  regions of the world, where experience on these
  issues can be shared and discussed, good
  practices identified, etc.
• Support to countries and regions who want to
  establish initiatives to measure progress,
  providing training courses, scientific advice,
  software to present indicators, etc.

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• Key deliverables (4)
• Global infrastructures to measure and foster
  world progress WIKIPROGRESS
• A global 2.0 web-based technical infrastructure
  where
• Progress indicators would be made accessible to
  citizens all over the world
• Users could interact with indicators using
  attractive graphical interfaces and other
  analytical tools, and launch global conversations
  based on solid and comparable statistical
  information, etc.
• World and regional events
• To stimulate statistical and policy discussions
  on societal progress
• To promote the development and use of progress
• indicators.

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Global Leadership

• Consider moving over the long term to promoting a
  common framework for measuring the Worlds
  Progress
• Considering developing a set of criteria to judge
  whether measuring progress initiatives would be
  ratified by the OECD project
• But would this work?

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• In conclusion, the Project aims to
• Change culture, helping citizens and policy
  makers to pay attention to all dimensions of
  progress
• Develop new statistics in emerging domains
• Improve citizens numeracy, strengthening
  peoples capacity of understanding the reality in
  which they live
• Improve citizens knowledge, becoming more aware
  of risks and challenges of today world
• Improve national policy making, through a better
  measurement of policy and societal outcomes
• Improve international policy making, through the
  a world progress monitoring system, covering all
  countries
• Improve statistical capacity in each and every
  country
• Strengthen democracy respecting historical and
  cultural differences
• Foster a global and open conversation about the
  state and the progress of the world
• IMPROVE WELFARE

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Some Questions for Discussion

• Do you support the Global Projects ideals?
• What are your priorities?
• How can we make it work?
• Can you contribute and can we help?
• www.oecd.org/oecdworldforum