This blog post was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Avatar photo

Nick Bridge

Special Representative for Climate Change

Part of UK in France

24th October 2012

Measuring Wellbeing – OECD & Indian government host World Forum

Dr O’Dell fell down a well,
And broke his collarbone.
But doctors should attend the sick,
And leave the well alone.

(Indian-born) Spike Milligan

 

I was in Delhi last week for the “World Forum on Measuring Progress and Wellbeing” organised by the OECD and the Indian Government. Participants included Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Joe Stiglitz, Jeffrey SachsRichard Layard and a statistically significant sample of Government Chief Statisticians, including the UK’s Jil Matheson.

Here’s what I and others said about the conference on the OECD website.

Most people can tell you what an enjoyable and purposeful life means for them. But it is a much harder thing to measure, especially across different countries and cultures.

But measurement matters. As Stiglitz said in Delhi, “If countries measure the wrong thing, then they’ll do the wrong thing”. He noted that in Canada GDP has risen by 31% since 1994 but quality of life has increased less than a third as quickly (and quality of the environment has decreased). UK Prime Minister David Cameron sent a video message to the conference in which he talked of the need to go “beyond GDP”. And Lord Layard reminded us of Robert Kennedy’s famous comment that GDP can only tell us so much about whether overall economic activity is good for jobs, the environment and life satisfaction.

We need new ways of measuring progress and wellbeing.

The conference discussed development of new metrics of what matters to people, so that governments can prioritise policy efforts in those areas. Ian Wood’s guest blog in August explained recent UK work in this area. In Delhi, governments in Mexico, Australia, Japan, France, Italy, Bhutan, India and elsewhere outlined their efforts. All are drawing on OECD leadership.

There’s clearly a long way to go before the work is fully developed. I see three main challenges: increased awareness; better measurement; and application to policy-making. But I came away from Delhi convinced that efforts to generate better ways of measuring our quality of life are essential, and could genuinely revolutionise our approach to public policy.

About Nick Bridge

The Foreign Secretary appointed Nick Bridge as Special Representative for Climate Change in May 2017. He was previously Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the OECD from 2011 to…

The Foreign Secretary appointed Nick Bridge as Special Representative for Climate Change in May 2017.

He was previously Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the OECD from 2011 to 2016.

Mr Bridge was previously Chief Economist at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and head of Global Economy Department. He has served for over a decade in diplomatic postings to the China, Japan and the United States.

Mr Bridge previously worked in the Treasury, where he co-led a $4 billion facility to immunise half a billion people in the developing world, and was an economist in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Born in 1972 in Yorkshire, Mr Bridge graduated in economics from the University of Nottingham.

Follow Nick