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Mission statement
Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies exists to foster the development of sets of key economic, social and environmental indicators to provide a comprehensive picture of how the well-being of a society is evolving. It also seeks to encourage the use of indicator sets to inform and promote evidence-based decision-making, within and across the public, private and citizen sectors. The project is open to all sectors of society, building both on good practice and innovative research work.
Is life getting better? Are our societies making progress? Indeed, what does “progress” mean to the world’s citizens? There can be few questions of greater importance in today’s rapidly changing world. And yet how many of us have the evidence to answer these questions?
The concept of progress (Latin: pro-gredi) was first used by ancient Greeks. And it is a concept that has exercised philosophers from many cultures ever since. Progress may refer to improvement. But to improve what? Since the enlightenment people have widely accepted that progress means an improvement in the overall well-being of humanity. But for a good portion of the 20th century there was an implicit assumption that economic growth was synonymous with progress: an assumption that a growing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) meant life must be getting better. But now the world recognizes that it isn’t quite as simple as that. Despite high levels of economic growth in many countries many experts believe we are no more satisfied with our life (or happier) than we were 50 years ago; that people trust one another - and their governments - less than they used to; and that increased income has come at the expense of increased insecurity, longer working hours and greater complexity in our lives. Much of the world is healthier and people live longer than they did just a few years ago, but environmental problems like climate change cast a shadow over an uncertain future. Definitions of Progress
Indeed, it sometimes seems that for every action to demonstrate societal progress, an equal but opposite reaction demonstrates precisely the opposite. And when the experts disagree, what hope do the citizens have to engage in democratic debate about their future and make the right choices at the ballot box? Access to accurate information is vital when we come to judge our politicians and hold them accountable. But access to a comprehensive and intelligible portrait of that most important of questions - whether or not life has got, and is likely to get, better - is lacking in many societies.
Concerns about this have been growing. And over the past 10 years or so there has been an explosion of interest in producing measures of societal progress. Measures that go beyond GDP to represent a broader view of the ways in which societies are progressing and regressing. Measures which are based on the values of a society, not those of a single political party or an elite few. Such sets of progress measures can help governments focus in a more joined up way on what really matters: they can foster a more informed debate on where a society actually is, where it wants to head, and – crucially – the choices it needs to make if it is to get there. By measuring progress we can foster progress.
The Global Project’s goals
The Project Mission Statement says that “the project is open to all sectors of society” and the Istanbul Declaration urges “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”.
See more about "Who signed the Instanbul Declaration"
Activities and outputs
Here is the list of our plans of action which we hope to implement over the next two years. Overview of Research Activities
• What to measure?
Encouraging discussions about the what? To measure progress one needs to know what it looks like. Progress undoubtedly means different things to different societies, and we will encourage and assist societies to have a dialogue about what progress means to them.
A good deal of the Global Project’s outputs involves discussions around the measurement of progress and its constituent parts. Most people working in this area recognise that progress, and allied terms like well-being, quality of life, sustainable development, comprise various aspects of including economic, social and environmental factors. But there is much less agreement on which aspects are vital to assessing progress, nor on how to label them. This is quite natural: work has been undertaken independently, by different societies, with different cultures, histories, landscapes and issues of concerns. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that every society should share some common view of progress.
However, although different views of progress are to be expected, the differences can be a hindrance to those working in this field. Differences in terminology – what one person means when they talk about poverty can be quite different from what another person means – can lead to confusion that is an obstacle to fruitful discussion. Such differences can also hinder research: someone wanting to investigate best practice in measuring “social cohesion,” say, might need to consult many different subject areas, depending on how “social cohesion” is defined.
The draft taxonomy or framework is an attempt to address these problems. In particular, it seeks to:
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Establish some common language for dimensions (aspects) of progress that are often labeled in different ways.
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Sections of the website, for example, will be developed to describe best practices in measuring aspects of progress and the framework will follow this taxonomy’s structure.
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The Knowledge Base – our online database containing hundreds of articles in the field – is organised according to the subjects of the papers. We plan to use this taxonomy to define the knowledge base structure.
• How to measure?
Working with experts from around the world the Project will develop a better understanding of how progress can be measured – especially in emerging and complex areas not yet covered by statistical standards. There is consensus that these areas (such as safety, human rights, different aspects of quality of life, etc.) are important but much less consensus about how progress in them should be understood and assessed.
Developing an accurate and representative set of progress measures for a society can be challenging, especially for developing countries. The Project will prepare a handbook and deliver training courses and other support for those who need it. If information on progress is to be used, it must be trusted and seen as accurate and objective: therefore, the Project will develop quality principles for a set of progress measures and will use them to judge whether or not to accredit a set of measures that wants to be associated with the Project.
• Ensuring that the measures are used
When good statistics exist they too often go unnoticed or misunderstood by a broad audience. New ICT tools have the potential to bring dramatic improvements: the Project will foster the development of new tools and approaches to help decision makers and citizens develop a better knowledge of their society using statistical information. Overview of Research Activities
Events
Every two years the Global Project, in co-operation with a host country, will organise a World Forum, prepared through regional and thematic events.
The partners to the global project have agreed to form a scientific committee to help prepare the agenda and select speakers for the 3rd World Forum Korea 2009 which will be hosted by the Korean National Statistics Office (KNSO). The Forum should last 4 days and we expect 1 500 people to attend from around 140 countries. The Global Office will co-ordinate the invitation of speakers and participants, as well as arranging support for people to attend from developing countries. The conference will be run in parallel with an exhibition.
The Indian Statistics Office has confirmed its intention to host the 4th World Forum in India in late 2011 or early 2012.
Future Events
Past Events
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