The OECD World Forum on
“Measuring and Fostering the progress of Societies”:
The Way Forward
Enrico Giovannini
OECD Chief Statistician
June 2007
The Istanbul Forum at a Glance
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1189 participants
211 speakers from 51 countries
Journalists from 14 countries
35 exhibitors
10 plenary sessions and 39 parallel sessions
Fantastic hospitality
Ideal venue
Professional organisation
Perfect team
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Statistics, knowledge and policy: a
broken chain
Trust in official statistics (diff tend to trust - tend not to trust)
100
80
60
NL
DK
FI
LU
40
EE
20
TR
EL
SK
0
IT
BG
CY
RO
MT
LT
AT
ES
EU27
LV
IE
BE
CZ
PL
SI
PT
SE
We have to fix it
DE
HU
-20
UK
FR
-40
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Political decisions are made on the basis of
statistical information (diff yes-no)
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100
The Istanbul Declaration (1)
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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 (2)
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To take this work forward we need to:
– 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;
– 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 (3)
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Press release
Posted on the World Forum web site
Disseminated to the six Organisations’ networks
Open to additional signatures
Dissemination to other networks
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Towards a Global Project on “Measuring
the Progress of Societies”
Four key goals:
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Foster a global conversation about what progress
actually means
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Galvanise people and institutions to action
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Improve the effectiveness of indicator work and their
use for policy making
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Make a key contribution to the international
discussion in the run up to 2015 when the current set
of Millennium Development Goals and Indicators will
be re-discussed
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Towards a Global Project on “Measuring
the Progress of Societies” (1)
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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
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Build a global partnership with international
organisations, national and local public institutions,
foundations, NGOs, media partners, academic networks,
corporations, etc.
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Towards a Global Project on “Measuring
the Progress of Societies” (2)
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New keywords for a new approach:
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From output to welfare
From “information brokers” to “knowledge builders”
From top-down to bottom-up
From “statistique” to “sociestique”
Time frame: 2007 - 2015
Four pillars:
– Statistical research
– Development of ICT tools to help in transforming statistics into
knowledge
– Advocacy and institutional building
– Development of a global infrastructure about progress
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Key deliverables (1)
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Statistical research
– Recommendations on how to measure the progress of
societies using different approaches;
– Development of recommendations on how to measure
specific phenomena;
– Establishment of a knowledge base on existing measures
of progress at international, national and sub-national level;
– Publication of comparative analyses of existing progress
measures and projects to identify commonalities,
differences, innovative frameworks and approaches, etc.;
– Publication of comparative results based on an
international survey on what citizens know about the
progress of their society.
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Key deliverables (2)
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ICT tools to transform statistics into knowledge
– Development of innovative software to improve users’
capacity to visualise and analyse statistical indicators;
– Development of a knowledge base about innovative ICT
tools to facilitate the access to and the understanding of
economic, social and environmental indicators;
– Development of partnerships with national and global
media to improve the dissemination of statistical
information to citizens;
– Organisation of international exhibitions on innovative
tools to transform statistics into knowledge, during the
World Forum events, every two-three years.
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Key deliverables (3)
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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)
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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
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indicators.
New tools, new culture, new opportunities
Aims:
Number of users
- Upload data and metadata
- Explore data
- Compare and review proposed solutions
- Discuss about the results
- Build consensus
Passionate people,
local communities,
media, etc.
Outcomes:
A
minority people, especially
- Engage
new generations
- Increase knowledge
- Unlock statistics
- Improve transparency
- Change culture
- Increase numeracy
- improve democracy
Wikiprogress
Existing
initiatives
Experts
Information about societal progress
In conclusion, the Project aims to:
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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 people’s 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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Global Project on “Measuring the
Progress of Societies”: next steps
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Strengthen the existing network
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Newsletter
Website
OECD Expert Group
Research activities
• Handbook
• Comparative analyses
– Follow-up events
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Meeting for CIS (September 2007)
Meeting for EU (November 2007)
INTOSAI (November 2007)
ISQOLS (December 2007)
Organise the third World Forum (2009)
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Global Project on “Measuring the
Progress of Societies”: next steps
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Build a truly global partnership and mobilise
people
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International partners
Regional partners
National partners
Local partners
Define governance
– Global office
– Regional co-ordinators
– Management Board/Advisory Council
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Secure funds
– Global activities
– Regional/national/local activities
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