Why did the Executive Director of the Google Foundation, the President of Iceland, the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Commission, the Director General of the World Health Organization, the Executive Vice-President of IBM, the Prime Minister of Turkey, the Minister of Home and Cultural Affairs of Bhutan, the Editor in Chief of Bloomberg News, Congo's Minister for Energy and Water, Mexico's Supreme Auditor, Brazil's Minister of Planning, Budget and Management, the High Commissioner for Planning of Morocco, the Founder of Ashoka (a global organization that identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs), the Secretary-General of the OECD and another 200 world class speakers from developed, emerging and developing countries, spanning the public, private and citizen sectors, academia and the media decide to spend four days in Istanbul, at the end of June? And why will 700 people from all over the world join them?

They are coming together to attend the OECD World Forum on "Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies" (27-30 June 2007) . They see this as a unique opportunity for in-depth discussions about the measurement of progress, as well as some of the most important concerns facing the world, such as climate change, health and economic globalisation.

The event is growing in scope and importance. More than 3000 people have chosen to subscribe to this newsletter over the past months, with numbers still increasing by several hundred each month.

For more information, see the draft agenda
and our website http://www.oecd.org/oecdworldforum.

Some recently confirmed speakers:

• Esko Aho, former Prime Minister of Finland
• Lynda Fairbanks Atkins, US community Indicators Consortium Executive Director
• Gary Banks, Australian Productivity Commissioner
• Paul Brest, President, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
• Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org
• Joao Paulo Ribeiro Capobianco, Secretary for Biodiversity and Forests in the Brazilian Ministry of Environment
• Margaret Chan, Director General, World Health Organization
• Len Cook, Former Chief Statistician of New Zealand and the United Kingdom
• Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka
• Cynthia Glassman, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, US Department of Commerce
• Arturo Gonzales de Aragon, Supreme Auditor of Mexico
• José Manuel Gonzales Paramo, European Central Bank
• José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of Organisation of American States

• Bruno Jean Richard Itoua, Minister for Energy and Water, Congo
• Alan Krueger, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
• Ahmed Lahlimi, High Commissioner for Planning, Morocco
• Robert Manchin, Director, the Gallup Organisation - Europe
• Ilber Ortayli, Director of Topkapi Palace
• Mamphela Ramphele, Co-chair, Global Commission on International Migration
• Roy Romanow, Founding Chair, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing
• Paulo Bernado Silva, Minister of Planning, budget and management, brazil
• Jimgi Y Thinley, Minister of Home and Cultural Affairs, Bhutan
• Dennis Trewin, former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Darren Walker, Vice President, Rockefeller Foundation
• Yasuto Yoshizoe, President, Statistics Council, Japan

Click here to view the full list of confirmed speakers

This exhibition will take place during the OECD World Forum.

Some confirmed exhibitors include: DevInfo, IBM, Eurostat, the State Planning Orgnisation of Turkey, The World Bank, Gapminder, the OECD, the Health Metrics Network, the Korean National Statistical Office, the World Database on Happiness - the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Population Studies Center of the University of Michigan...

For more information about the exhibition, please visit: http://www.oecd.org/oecdworldforum/exhibition

Regional Conferences and international workshops have been - and will be - run to help prepare the OECD World Forum.

• International conference: “Is happiness measurable and what do those measures mean for policy?”
  The OECD, the Bank of Italy, the Centre for Economic and International Studies (CEIS) of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission hosted a conference to address the question “Is happiness measurable and what do those measures mean for policy?” The event took place April 2 and 3 at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, and the outcomes of this conference will flow through to influence the OECD’s World Forum.
• Rome seminar on Dynamic Graphics for Presenting Statistical Indicators
  The OECD and the Italian statistical Institute (ISTAT) organised a seminar on "Dynamic Graphics for Presenting Statistical Indicators" on 5-6 March 2007 in Rome, Italy. The meeting was about the art of making statistical indicators understandable and appealing to modern audiences.

Regional Conference for Asia Organised in co-operation with the Korean National Statistical Office (KNSO), it was held 8-9 February 2007 at the Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul. KNSO has created a very nice website which includes all presentations and follow-up information. http://conference.nso.go.kr/	Regional Conference for Africa Hosted in collaboration with Rwandan authorities, Statistics South Africa, OECD and PARIS21 this conference was held in January 2007. You can download the agenda and a summary of conclusions.	Regional Conference for the Middle East This conference is one of the regional events the OECD is co-ordinating as part of the OECD Global project on "Measuring the Progress of Societies". It will be held in Sanaa, Yemen, on 19 April 2007.

Through the regional preparatory meetings in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Middle-East we have made many links with hundred of the initiatives around the globe that are aiming to measure the progress of countries and local communities.

If you wish to share information concerning the initiatives in which you are involved, please send an e-mail to oecdworldforum@oecd.org with more information about them. We will be pleased to post them on our knowledge base.

Statistical information plays a vital role in shaping the expectations and behaviour of individuals, the operation of markets and the democratic process. Much less attention has been paid to what people - including politicians and government officials - actually know about the situation of their country and how such knowledge (or ignorance) influences public debate and policies.

The IFO Institute, the European Commission, the Istituto di Studi e Analisi Economica and the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan are working together with the OECD on developing surveys in several countries that examine both people’s knowledge of key figures for their country and the extent to which public debate is based on solid statistical evidence. The first results of this work are now available. More results will be presented at the World Forum in Istanbul.

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