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OECD COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard
How does your country fare in building back a stronger and more inclusive, green and resilient economy and society?
As countries begin to emerge from the most acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers and citizens need tools to monitor efforts to revive economic activity and fulfil the shared commitment of OECD Member countries to build back better. This means addressing structural inequalities, accelerating the green transition, and strengthening resilience in the face of future challenges. A quality recovery would help set the world on course for mid- and long-term agendas and facilitate progress towards the SDGs.
The OECD COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard features twenty indicators to monitor the quality of the recovery – whether it is strong, inclusive, green and resilient, with gender inequalities highlighted throughout. It features up-to-date and trusted OECD statistics complemented by novel data approaches. The timeliness, granularity and accuracy of its statistics are constantly improving as new sources become available.
This dashboard has been developed by the OECD Centre on Well-being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity (WISE) as part of an OECD-wide collaboration. It is inspired by the OECD approach to measuring progress and considers outcomes that matter for the economy, for people, and for the environment. The WISE Centre generates new data and approaches to secure equal opportunities for all and seeks to better understand the impact of policies and business actions on people’s well-being today and in the future. For more information, visit: www.oecd.org/wise or contact us at: [email protected].
How was the OECD COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard developed?
The COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard was built at the request of OECD Ministers to keep track of national efforts to build back better. Its development was led by an advisory group of representatives of national statistical offices from OECD countries alongside policy experts and representatives of several OECD committees. The indicators were carefully reviewed and selected through a consensus-based process in which various Ministries from across all OECD countries were consulted. The report welcomed by Ministers at the 2021 Meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial Level is available here.
In line with the OECD’s multi-dimensional approach to measuring progress, the Dashboard features 20 outcome indicators across four dimensions that matter for people, the economy and the planet. In this spirit, the indicators are not aggregated or ranked according to their importance. Instead, they are presented alongside each other to convey a comprehensive picture of how a country is doing in the context of the recovery.
The choice of indicators followed some key considerations:
Relevance from the perspective of capturing the four priorities of the recovery (strong, resilient, green and inclusive) and countries’ ambitions to “build back better”
Timeliness and frequency of data collection as well as the ability to capture dynamics of change
International comparability and accuracy of data, recognising that official statistics in some areas fall short of needs, requiring the use of complementary data sources such as experimental data or survey data coming from private data providers
Country coverage, ensuring that indicators cover a majority of OECD countries
Interpretability, ease of visualisation and communication for a variety of users, making the dashboard useful and relevant to different audiences
Consistency, reusability and complementarity with existing OECD data as well as with indicators and measurement frameworks from the OECD and other relevant organisations
What are the four dimensions of the Dashboard?
The dimensions of the Dashboard correspond to the four key priorities that OECD Members agreed should characterise the COVID-19 recovery. Each of these dimensions features five indicators to track progress:
The Strong dimension assesses the impact of the pandemic on the economic prosperity of households and businesses and monitors immediate signals of the state of the health crisis and the revival of economic activity.
The Inclusive dimension focuses on how the crisis has affected the income and jobs of the most vulnerable, and whether efforts to build back better are ensuring that economies and societies create equal opportunities for all.
The Green dimension focuses on progress towards achieving a people-centred green transition, consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda.
The Resilient dimension focuses on the factors that can help countries to better withstand the crisis and prepare for future challenges.
Where does the data come from?
Data for most of the indicators are collected by national statistical offices following internationally-agreed measurement standards. In instances where the availability of official statistics is not timely enough to measure the quality of the recovery, the Dashboard uses data from the Gallup World Poll, a private survey provider. These measures are similar to those used by national statistical offices, although there are methodological differences.
The COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard also features experimental data, such as weekly estimates of year-on-year GDP growth from the OECD Weekly Tracker of GDP growth. These estimates are based on machine learning and Google Trends data and can therefore provide a more real-time picture of economic activity during the recovery. In the future, the OECD intends to add further experimental data to the dashboard in areas where there are persistent lag times and where more timely estimates can be developed.
How will the COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard evolve going forward?
The OECD will continue to work on improving the following features of the Dashboard’s statistics:
Timeliness: the OECD is collaborating with international partners and national statistical offices to include more timely estimates of income inequality and greenhouse gas emissions.
Granularity: disaggregating indicators by regions, sectors and population groups requires further harmonisation of underlying concepts to enable comparisons between countries and regions. This is important to fully capture inequalities between people and places, and identify areas of the economy that need attention.
Accuracy: more timely and granular official statistics can strengthen self-reported measures of well-being, providing a richer and more accurate picture on developments in people’s perceived well-being.
Scope: the pandemic has affected many other dimensions of people’s lives which are not fully featured in the Dashboard, from learning outcomes to mental health. While these aspects of the crisis are worth monitoring in the context of the recovery, robust official statistics that allow for country comparisons do not yet exist in some of these areas.
Links to other relevant OECD work
