Measuring the kind of progress we want
Citizens, researchers and
government working together
Mike Salvaris
Adjunct Professor
Applied Human Rights and
Community Wellbeing
RMIT University, Melbourne
salvaris@optusnet.com.au
Establishing an
Australian National
Development Index
What kind of
Australia do
we want?
A business prospectus prepared by
OECD 4th World Forum, New Delhi
18th October 2012
A duty to build new visions of progress
We are facing both an opportunity and a duty to rethink what progress
really means and to build stronger and more inclusive visions for the
future of our societies … We need committed citizens, scientists and
well-informed leaders ready to engage the whole of society in an
assessment of the challenges ahead. Adequate measurements are
essential in helping our societies to define their goals ..
rd
(Angel Gurria, Secretary General, OECD, 3 OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy
‘Charting Progress, Building Visions, Improving Life’, Busan, South Korea, 27-30 October 2009.
Seven key lessons of the global movement to redefine progress
· The GDP an inadequate measure of societal progress, even of economic well-being.
· Societies need to develop holistic measures of their progress : economy, society, culture,
environment and governance.
· We need to include qualitative and not just quantitative dimensions of progress, including
subjective well-being, community belonging, relationships, life satisfaction and happiness.
· Essentially the problem we are facing may not primarily be one of the wrong measures but
of the wrong model of societal progress.
· A better formulation of true progress than ‘increases in economic production’ would be
‘increases in equitable and sustainable well-being’.
· The task of developing a new progress paradigm and new measures is a political and
democratic issue, as much as a technical issue, and requires the engagement of citizens and
communities, working with academics and policy-makers.
· We need to consider urgently what are the implications of these new progress measures,
and how they can be best put into practical application, use and understanding.
Global Convergence towards a new paradigm of progress
Global Inequalities
‘Beyond GDP’ and
‘Measuring Progress
of Societies
Technical
reconstruction
of GDP
Sustainable
Development
movement
‘Equitable and
sustainable
development’
Environmental
Change
Gross National
Happiness, Holistic
wellbeing
WHO Integrated
Health Model
Global Financial
Crisis
Millennium
Development Goals
post 2015
ANDI: progress domains for sub-indexes
ANDI will produce an index and a progress report each year in twelve
‘progress domains’, such as:
Children and young people
Environment and sustainability
Community/regional development
Fairness and justice
Culture and creativity
Health
Democracy and good governance
Housing
Economy
Indigenous wellbeing
Education
Subjective wellbeing
Employment and work-life
Transport and infrastructure
Citizen progress measures a ‘reassertion of democracy’
New measures of progress should be part of a larger process of civic
renewal. As corporatism has grown, citizens have gradually
metamorphosed into customers. Somewhere along this path, and
despite the increase in our material well-being, modern civilization has
lost its reflective capacity, the ability to ask the Socratic question “What
is the way we ought to live?”.
It is by asking this question, and by making specific claims for the
standards of a decent society against the dominant corporate goals,
that we can re-assert the lost legitimacy of a democracy of citizens.
(summarised from John Ralston Saul, 1997, The Unconscious Civilization, Penguin, Ringwood, Australia)
Further information
• Presentations from OECD World Forum:
http://www.oecd.org/site/worldforumindia/
• Excellent short video from Roy Romanow of
Canadian Index of Wellbeing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY4I3i4mRf4