Beyond GDP: international developments and emerging frameworks 26 September 2023

1. Beyond GDP: international
developments and
emerging frameworks
26 September 2023
Slido.com #27781

2. Welcome
Paul Allin
Honorary Officer for National Statistics, Royal Statistical
Society (RSS)
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3. Agenda
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14:00 – 14:05 Chair’s welcome and ‘housekeeping’
Paul Allin, Honorary Officer for National Statistics, RSS
14:05 – 14:20 The UN's 2022 Beyond GDP report
Anu Peltola, UNCTAD
14:20 – 14:30 The work of the UN Network of Economic Statisticians
Richard Heys, ONS
14:30 – 14:40 The European Horizon Project
Rutger Hoekstra, ESCoE and Leiden University
14:40 – 14:50 Questions to plenary speakers
14:15 – 15:30 Panel and audience discussion: Grant Fitzner, ONS; Wafa Aboul Hosn, UN
Lebanon; Karen Ellis, WWF-UK; Sarah O'Connor, Financial Times
15:50 – 16:00 Closing remarks and event closes

4. Valuing What Counts
UN-initiative on Beyond GDP
Beyond GDP: international developments
and emerging frameworks
26 September 2023
Anu Peltola
Acting Director of Statistics
UNCTAD

5. Why do we
need to go
beyond GDP
and why
now?
We need a new policy paradigm and metrics to
tackle today’s challenges and secure our future:
• Crises: climate change, environment,
pandemic, conflict, inequalities - GDP alone is
not enough
• Assess progress from environmental, social,
digital, distributional and vulnerability aspects
• Go beyond income, beyond today, beyond
averages
• Put people and the planet at the centre, be
guided by balanced metrics, harness data
revolution and new technologies

6. CEB
deliberated
on the topic of
progress beyond
GDP in November 2021
and tasked HLCP to develop a
United Nations system-wide
contribution on Beyond GDP
SDG 17
Target 19:
“develop
measurements of
progress on sustainable
development that complement
gross domestic product”
Our
Common
Agenda report
called for action to
“urgently find measures
of progress that complement GDP”
Mandate/
Background

8. SDGs
1​ 2​ 3​ 4​ 5​ 6​ 7​ 8​ 9​ 10​ 11​ 12​ 13​ 14​ 15​ 16​ 17​
Respect for life and
the planet
From vulnerability
to resilience
Participatory
governance and
stronger institutions
Innovative and
ethical economies
Wellbeing and
agency
Reduced
inequalities and
greater solidarity
Links to SDGs

9. Links to Our Common Agenda
12 Areas of Action
Leave no one behind
Protect our planet
Promote peace and prevent conflicts
Abide by international law and ensure justice
Place women and girls at the center
Build trust
Improve digital cooperation
Upgrade the UN
Ensure sustainable financing
Boost partnerships
Listen to and work with youth
Be prepared
Respect for life and
the planet
From vulnerability to
resilience
Participatory
governance and
stronger institutions
Innovative and ethical
economies
Wellbeing and agency
Reduced inequalities
and greater solidarity

10. SDG
indicator
framework
Links to other processes 2025 SNA
update,
SEEA and
statistical
frameworks
MVI and
other
indicator
initiatives
Beyond
GDP
D
a
t
a
u
n
i
v
e
r
s
e

11. Criteria for
assessing
Beyond GDP
metrics
• Country-owned.
• Comparable across time and countries,
well-established and trusted.
• Universally applicable.
• Able to convey strong and clear messages
that are actionable and intuitive.
• Iterative and dynamic, based on what
exists, while allowing for the addition of
new indicators, as relevant.

12. SG's policy brief
a) Renew political commitment
on a conceptual framework
anchored in the 2030 Agenda
to “value what counts”;
b) Launch a robust technical and
scientific process, resulting in
a United Nations value
dashboard of a limited
number of key indicators that
go beyond GDP;
c) Undertake a major capacity-
building and resourcing
initiative for Member States.

13. Thank you!
UN SG’s POLICY BRIEF
https://www.un.org/en/common-
agenda/policy-briefs
LONG REPORT:
https://unsceb.org/topics/beyond-gdp

14. The UN Network of
Economic Statisticians,
and its progress on Beyond
GDP
Richard Heys
Deputy Chief Economist,
Office for National Statistics
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15. What is the UN Network of Economic Statisticians?
The 52nd session of the Statistical Commission (2021) established the new United Nations
Network of Economic Statisticians (Network) to:
• facilitate networking, co-ordination and communication on new innovations, experiments
and best practices for the purpose of making progress on priorities to keep economic
statistics relevant
• requested that its mandate be clearly defined and provide a transparent and collaborative
horizontal coordination mechanism for all existing groups
• recognised the need for the network of economic statisticians to co-ordinate with other
statistical committees and groups, as appropriate, for the purpose of measuring the
multidimensional relationships between the economy, environment and society of
the 2030 Agenda

16. Background
The UN’s Our Common Agenda
• Makes explicit reference to the needs to take collective actions to meet the challenges of our time
• Mobilises stakeholders to identify a complement or complements to GDP that will measure inclusive and
sustainable growth and prosperity
• Challenges member states to identify and agree on pathways for national and global accounting systems to
include additional measurements
The network has been working towards bringing together the Our Common Agenda with recommendations of the
Friends of the Chair Group on economic statistics through:
• establishing a closer partnership with social statisticians (Social Friends of the Chair)
• bringing together a strong knowledge-sharing network of NSIs, academics and other institutions through a ‘Sprint
Series’ of meetings, which aim to:
o map and document the international conceptual and practical guidance on methodological standards
o provide collective capacity building and training around the latest developments in the Beyond GDP field
o identify gaps and opportunities to develop these further, in a way that will fit and support Our Common
Agenda

17. Our Journey
Draft
architecture
proposed to
UNSC 2025
Establishment
of working
teams to
develop
thematic
notes
Roadmap
proposal for
2024 UNSC
2023 Sprint
Series How
are we
delivering
Beyond
GDP?
The Research
Prospectus
2022 Sprint
Series – What
is Beyond
GDP?
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18. 2022 Beyond GDP Sprint – objectives and
findings
• Broad aim was to scope the work done internationally, identify best practices, and propose areas of high priority
for research on an integrated statistical system.
• Key findings
1. There is a rich and long history which shapes our options
2. There has been a huge amount of work – the problem is not a shortage of available options, it’s a failure to come
together behind a core set of metrics, particularly in two core dimensions
3. But we are held back from identifying a core set of metrics by
1. Variation in available data – very few countries consistently produce everything
• Lack of a common language
o “Wellbeing is not a subset of health” (Nancy Hey)
o “I never realised my work on wellbeing was part of what you call Beyond GDP” (anonymous sprint
attendee)
• Very different ways of viewing the question of how to measure Beyond GDP
o Wellbeing / Inclusiveness / Sustainability
o Dashboards / composite indices
o Subjective wellbeing / objective drivers of wellbeing
4. Users would like to see a map / have a means of navigating through the options
2022 Sprint
Series – What
is Beyond
GDP?
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19. 2022 Beyond GDP Sprint – building on strong
existing foundations
There are well-established and high-quality social and demographic-economic accounting
methodologies and practices that existed prior to the Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi Report (2009).
1948 - 1968:
Development of
System of
National
Accounts (SNA)
1968-1974:
Development of
System of
Demographic and
Social Statistics
(SDSS), and
acceptance by
UNSC,
comprising ten
‘domains’
1974-1990s:
Attempts to deliver
SDSS stall due to
data challenges.
Evolution of
indicators drawn
from system
2010:
Stiglitz, Sen and
Fitoussi report
highlights need for
extended indicator
sets, multi-
dimensional
dashboards and
re-invigorates
debate, without
being prescriptive
in terms of
approaches
1993 - 2008:
SNA (partially)
incorporates six of
the ten SDSS
domains as
‘satellite accounts’
1987:
Brundtland Report
defines
‘sustainable
development’ and
highlights the
three dimensions
of wellbeing –
‘here and now’, ‘in
the future’ and
‘elsewhere’
2022 Sprint
Series – What
is Beyond
GDP?
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20. The 2022 Research Prospectus
• Sprint led to a series of concrete proposals summarised in a Prospectus
• Identified the need for an integrated system for inclusion and sustainable well-
being.
• Complement and build on existing standards (the System of National Accounts
and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting) with a System of
Population and Social Accounts and a Framework for Inclusive and
Sustainable Wellbeing.
• Proposals fit with other work done by the ISWGNA and the Advisory Expert Group on NA
on enhancing and broadening of the national accounts framework to better account for
elements related to well-being and sustainability.
The Research
Prospectus

21. The 2022 Research Prospectus
Development of a System of Population and Social Accounts (SPSA), which can be integrated with the
SNA and SEEA, that brings together the various extended SNA accounts and other existing socio-
demographic accounts and promotes their potential use.
The Research
Prospectus
Framework
for Inclusive
and
Sustainable
Wellbeing
(FISW)
System of
Population
and Social
Accounts
(SPSA)
System of
Economic-
Environmental
Accounts
(SEEA)
System of
National
Accounts
(SNA)
• Development of a Framework for Inclusive and Sustainable
Wellbeing including:
• a comprehensive dashboard, linked to the SDGs, of core
wellbeing indicators and potentially new composite indices,
drawn from a coherent framework
• distributional breakdowns of aggregated and disaggregated
accounting and wellbeing indicators
• measures of flows and stocks, considering a wider
landscape of capitals than those covered by the SNA, with a
focus on consistency of measurement for the derivation of
‘objective’ composite indices
• Presented in the Network’s Report to the UNSC’s 54th meeting: 'The
Commission supported the “exploration of the feasibility of a research
agenda for a new integrated statistical framework for measuring
inclusive and sustainable well-being in accordance with the research
prospectus, in collaboration with the [Social] Friends of the Chair
group”.'

22. 2023 Beyond GDP Sprint – objectives and
(draft) early findings
• Deeper dives into key topics, focussing on how existing methodologies and
guidance exist to support the development of a framework of inclusive and
sustainable wellbeing measurement, building upon the SNA, SEEA, and
SPSA.
Early findings
• A rich variety of models of national wellbeing Dashboards, ranging from 10-
20 metrics to 60+, but these are often shaped around local frameworks,
tailored to domestic need. The majority of these are focussed on wellbeing
in the here and now, but we need to consider how to capture private sector
Environment, Social and Governance performance (ESG) data better.
• There is a growing acceptance of the measurement of subjective wellbeing
as a developed scientific discipline.
Subjective
wellbeing
Policy-facing domains –
measures and inclusive
dispersions
Sustainable capitals
2023 Sprint
Series - How
are we
delivering
Beyond
GDP?
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23. 2023 Beyond GDP Sprint – objectives and
(draft) early findings
• There are three front-running distributional frameworks (DNA, DINA and NTA) which have clear
similarities but subtle differences, which give us a perspective of inclusive wellbeing here and
elsewhere (domestically)
• There are three front-running measures of capital - national accounts, comprehensive wealth and
inclusive wealth, which do exhibit material differences, but which are often caused by transparent
differences in methods and scope. This provides a perspective on wellbeing now and in the future.
• Both dashboards and composite indices struggle with the common challenge of understanding and
presenting trade-offs. New research on the synergies between viable weighting metrics may assist.
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2023 Sprint
Series - How
are we
delivering
Beyond
GDP?

24. Next steps
 The network will develop a roadmap to deliver on the proposed new System of
Population and Social Accounts (SPSA) (in partnership with the Social Friends of
the Chair group), and the Framework for Inclusive and Sustainable Wellbeing
(FISW), ideally to commence work following the 2025 SNA launch, so this can
serve as a ‘jumping off point’.
 The roadmap will consist of two parts: one focused on the SPSA, and the other
on the Central Framework; the format of these is under discussion and
suggestions are welcome.
 The documents will cover the ‘what’ needs to be achieved, as well as the ‘how’
(resources) we propose to achieve this – The Network does not have staff or the
capability to ‘own’ this process and will recommend many different organisations
could take ownership of specific strands to deliver a coherent whole.
 Once the documents are drafted, the Network will conduct consultations with key
stakeholders.
 The objective is to bring the roadmap to the Commission, for its review, in 2024.
Roadmap
proposal for
2024 UNSC
Establishment
of working
teams to
develop
thematic
notes
Draft
architecture
proposed to
UNSC 2025
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25. RUTGER HOEKSTRA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
INSTITUTE OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (LEIDEN UNIVERSITY)
COORDINATOR OF WISE HORIZONS
A SYNTHESIS OF
BEYOND-GDP METRICS

26. WISE Horizons
SPES, ToBE, WISER, REAL, MERGE

27. Doughnut Economics
Adjusted Net Savings
Augmented Human Development Index
Benefits and Costs Experienced
Benefits and Costs of Present Economic Activities
Better Life Index
Better Wellbeing Index
Commission on Sustainable Development indicators
Composite Measure of Wellbeing
Comprehensive Wealth
Ecological Footprint Economic Aspect of Welfare Index
Environmental Performance Index
Environmental Sustainability Index
Environmental Vulnerability index
Environmentally Sustainable National Income
European Social Progress Indicator
FEEM Sustainability Index
Gender Development Index
Gender Equality Index
Gender Inequality Index
Genuine Progress Indicator
Genuine Savings
Global Gender Gap Index
Green Growth Indicators Framework
Happy Income Index
Happy Life Years
Happy Planet Index
Human Development Index
Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI)
Index of Economic Well-being (IEWB)
Index of Social Health
Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW)
Inequality adjusted HDI
Legatum Prosperity Index
Life evaluation Index
Measure of Economic Welfare
Millenium Development Goals
Multidimensional Poverty Index
Multidimensional Poverty Measure
Planetary pressures adjusted HDI
Quality of Life Index
Satisfaction with Life Index
SDG Index
Sustainable Development Goals
Social Progress Index
Sustainable Development Index
Sustainable Measure of Economic Welfare
Sustainable Net Benefit Index
Sustainable Society Index
Sustainable Wellbeing Index
Thriving Places Index
Transformation Performance Index
U-index
Well-being Index
Well-being Index (WI)
Beyond-GDP metrics
Hundreds of measurement systems
• Competition between scientific disciplines
• Competition between institutions
Problem
• Lack of interdisciplinarity
• Lack of institutional collaboration
• Lack of clarity of message
Barrier
• Lack of a common language/terminology

28. Wellbeing, Inclusion and Sustainability
Wellbeing
Average wellbeing of
the current
generation
Sustainability
Wellbeing of future
generations
Inclusion
Distribution of
wellbeing within and
between countries
Nouns: Wellbeing Inclusion and Sustainability
Adjectives: Inclusive and Sustainable
Beyond-GDP = Inclusive and Sustainable Wellbeing
UNNES

29. Synthesis of Metrics

30. WISE database
• Structure
• Interdisciplinary
• Interinstitutional
• Linked to WISE
• Update
• >30 Indexes
• >100 Indicators
Index Name Countries Oldest Year Latest Year
Composite Measure of Wellbeing (Historic Series) 193 1820 2000
Comprehensive Wealth 149 1995 2018
Comprehensive Wealth per capita 149 1995 2018
Gender Equality Index 27 2013 2022
Augmented Human Development Index 153 1870 2020
Ecological Ceiling-Co2 Emissions 148 1992 2015
Ecological Ceiling-Ecological Footprint 148 1992 2015
Ecological Ceiling-Land-Use Change 148 1992 2015
Ecological Ceiling-Material Footprint 148 1992 2015
Ecological Ceiling-Nitrogen 148 1992 2015
Ecological Ceiling-Phosphorus 148 1992 2015
Coefficient Of Human Inequality 165 2010 2021
Gender Development Index 172 1990 2021
Gender Inequality Index 170 1990 2021
Human Development Index 191 1990 2021
Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index 165 2010 2021
Planetary Pressures-Adjusted Human Development Index 155 1990 2021
Multidimensional Poverty Index 129 2010 2022
Life Evaluation Index 165 2005 2021
Benefits And Cost Experienced 15 1995 2018

31. www.Beyond-GDP.world

32. www.wisehorizons.world

33. Final Remarks
• WISE Metrics
• Synthesis of metrics allows for harmonization of narrative
• Replace “Beyond-GDP” by “Inclusive and Sustainable Wellbeing”
• WISE Accounts
• Richard Stone: Accounting is Stock-Flow units (mass, people etc)
• Environmental, Social and Economic Systems
• WISE Models
• Projections of wellbeing, inclusion and sustainability (just like GDP)?
• Interdisciplinarity is key

34. Questions to plenary
speakers
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35. Panel discussion
Chair: Paul Allin
Honorary Officer for National Statistics
Royal Statistical Society
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36. Panellists
• Wafa Aboul Hosn, Chief of Economic Statistics, UN House,
Lebanon
• Grant Fitzner, Chief Economist, ONS
• Karen Ellis, Chief Economist, WWF-UK
• Sarah O'Connor, Columnist, Financial Times
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37. Closing remarks
Paul Allin
Honorary Officer for National Statistics
Royal Statistical Society
Slido.com #27781