Fighting for wellbeing at the OECD conference in Rome

As CEO of a policy organisation, going out and about in the world often requires me to strap on my armour of evidence and take up my position in the battle of ideas.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing; we should all be prepared to test our thinking and put our visions for the future up against other perspectives. But sometimes we need to do the very opposite and immerse ourselves deeply in the expertise and practice of those whose quest is very similar to ours, and who are all pulling in broadly the same direction.

Thus I found myself heading to Rome earlier this month for the 7^th OECD World Forum on Wellbeing, along with around 1200 other members of the wellbeing movement from across the world.  Since 2008, the OECD has taken a lead role in the development of indicators that measure the well-being of society, future generations and the planet, helping to monitor social progress “beyond GDP”.

The Forum brought together policymakers, politicians, academics and civil society organisations, all of whom who believe that this is an important and necessary endeavour for the world today.

This was my first Forum; the previous one was held in Korea in 2018 and we’ve not been short of global shocks to wellbeing since.  Indeed, the urgency and importance of embedding wellbeing approaches has only been accentuated and accelerated in that time. The Covid pandemic; the cost-of-living crisis; the intensification of the climate emergency; global conflict. Governments need to embrace multi-dimensional wellbeing approaches now more than ever.

Discussions in Rome revealed a wellbeing agenda which is evolving and maturing.  Great strides have been made in developing wellbeing metrics and measurement models over the past decade, but there was a broad consensus that the most intensive and focussed efforts must now be applied to building governmental capacity and capability to meaningfully put wellbeing at the heart of decision making. In this vein, lots of good practice case studies were shared, including from New Zealand; the Netherlands; Finland and the Republic of Ireland.

This isn’t to say that the data job is quite done yet.  In particular, more granular data is needed to illuminate inequalities and “break the statistical silence” surrounding some marginalised population groups. Innovations from the Covid era are inspiring statistical authorities around the world to develop new ways of getting timely data that meet the need of users (including the cool-sounding “now-casting”), and work is being done at an institutional level to put a conceptual framework in place for social data, alongside those that already exist for economic and environmental data.

Many contributors acknowledged that the legitimacy of frameworks, measures and associated policy choices relies on trust. These must reflect what matters to those with poor wellbeing, with opportunities for people to engage with and add to official statistics, either directly or through the advocacy of civil society organisations. I was pleased to have an opportunity to share with the Forum what we are learning about this at Carnegie UK through exploring our Life in the UK Index data in partnership with the Poverty Truth Network.

The Forum ended with a sober reflection that for all the progress celebrated, the prevailing dominant economic model remains remarkably resilient. If the OECD wellbeing programme motto is “better data for better lives”, then delegates had to acknowledge that for all the data, too many people’s lives are not yet better.  Time to get back out onto the battlefield and make the case for a better way, for Collective Wellbeing. 

*Photo Credit: 7th OCED WORLD FORUM ON WELL-BEING