Module 6: Measuring wellbeing
‘Wellbeing elsewhere’
Most of the work on measuring wellbeing so far focuses on measuring wellbeing within a certain country, region or city. Impacts on wellbeing elsewhere are often not included in government wellbeing frameworks, even though their importance is recognised in guidelines such as the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) recommendations on measuring sustainable development [1].
‘Wellbeing elsewhere’ refers to the positive or negative impacts of a country’s decisions, policies and resource use on social and environmental wellbeing in other countries, in the past, present and future [2]. More work is needed to strengthen the measurement of impacts on wellbeing elsewhere, especially given the impact of the production and consumption patterns in GDP-rich countries on the Majority World and how global justice demands that those systems are transformed.
Did you know that:
The term “Majority World” was first coined in the 1990s by Bangladeshi photographer and social activist Shahidul Alam: “In the early 1990s, I began advocating for a new expression 'majority world' to represent what has formerly been known as the 'Third World'. The term highlights the fact that we are indeed the majority of humankind” [3]. The term Majority World, is now increasingly used. It defines the community in terms of what it has, rather than what it lacks. It challenges the West's rhetoric of democracy as well as the notion of ‘developed’ versus ‘developing’ countries.
Assessing impacts
Several countries have made a start at better assessing impacts on wellbeing elsewhere, including:
the Wales National Indicators on ‘a globally responsible Wales’
Indicators Aotearoa, developed by New Zealand’s National Statistics Office
the Scottish National Performance Framework
the Dutch Wellbeing Monitor, developed by the Netherlands Bureau of Statistics
Click on the Case Study cards to learn more about how impacts on wellbeing elsewhere are measured in Wales, New Zealand, Scotland and the Netherlands.
These initiatives are not perfect nor complete. Particularly the measurement of impacts on global social wellbeing is under-developed. However, they are an important first step towards the inclusion of a global perspective in the way governments measure wellbeing. Some of the suggested indicators by these four countries may be readily available in other countries or places, such as ‘country overshoot day’ data and the International Spillover index, which measures positive or negative effects of trade, finance and security-related indicators on other countries' abilities to achieve the SDGs. Other indicators will need to be developed. Even if measurements do not yet exist, including a placeholder for these indicators in wellbeing frameworks is important to encourage work towards gathering the relevant statistics.
Share your thoughts.
Does the government organisation you work for measure its impacts on wellbeing elsewhere? If so, how? Share your thoughts on the discussion board.
References
[1] Conference of European Statisticians (2014). Conference of European Statisticians recommendations on measuring sustainable development, New York and Geneva: United Nations, https://unece.org/DAM/stats/publications/2013/CES_SD_web.pdf
[2] Butt, A.P., Berkhout, E., Zaghbour, C.M., Bush, A., Verma, R., & Pheko, L.L. (2023). Radical Pathways Beyond GDP: Why and How We Need to Pursue Feminist and Decolonial Alternatives Urgently, London: Oxfam
[3] Alam, S. (2008). Majority World: Challenging the West's Rhetoric of Democracy. Amerasia Journal, 34 (1): 87-98.