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The project’s work program is developing quickly and some of the work being undertaken by the project are listed below. For more information on any of the following activities please contact us at progress@oecd.org.
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”.
Therefore, the aims of the initiative are to assist societies with questions around:
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. Work related mainly to this area will include:
o Establishment of the Global Project web site and development of other communication tools (newsletter, blogs, etc.)
o Establishment of regional working groups in Africa, the Arab region, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, OECD, Russia
o Organisation of regional and thematic conferences with experts, policy makers, civil society representatives, etc.
o Guidelines on how to build progress initiatives at national and local levels so that societies have the tools to discuss for themselves what progress means.
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. Work related mainly to this area will include:
o Taxonomy Framework of societal progress dimensions linked to existing proposals for their measurement
o Handbook - Measuring the Progress of Societies: An Introduction and Practical Guide (DRAFT: NOT FOR CITATION) on “Measuring Progress”
o Guidelines on how to measure particular dimensions of progress
o Launch the “Journal of the Progress of Societies”
o Knowledge Base
which contains hundreds of documents on measures of progress (for example sustainability, wellbeing or quality of life etc. - all terms closely linked to meauring progress initiatives). Selection by Countries / international initiatives and by list of topics.
o Training material and courses on how to measure progress and establish progress roundtables.
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. Work related mainly to this area will include:
o Report on what makes a set of key indicators successful
o Survey module to measure what citizens know about the progress of their society
o Knowledge base on ICT tools
o Guidelines on how to design websites to communicate indicators selected by progress roundtables and interact with users
o Release and promotion of ICT tools to communicate data and indicators
o Launch “Wiki-Progress”, a global platform to serve all people in the world to understand and debate, using statistical indicators, whether the world itself, or a particular country or region, is making progress. Please read more about Global Project ICT projects.
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