The OECD World Forum on “Measuring and Fostering the progress of Societies”: The Way Forward

1. The OECD World Forum on “Measuring and Fostering the progress of Societies”: The Way Forward Enrico Giovannini OECD Chief Statistician June 2007

2. The Istanbul Forum at a Glance • 1189 participants • 211 speakers from 51 countries • Journalists from 14 countries • 35 exhibitors • 10 plenary sessions and 39 parallel sessions • Fantastic hospitality • Ideal venue • Professional organisation • Perfect team

3. Statistics, knowledge and policy: a broken chain We have to fix it

4. The Istanbul Declaration (1) • A culture of evidence-based decision making has to be promoted at all levels of government, to increase the welfare of societies. • We affirm our commitment to measuring and fostering the progress of societies in all their dimensions and to supporting initiatives at the country level. • We urge 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.

5. The Istanbul Declaration (2) • To take this work forward we need to: • encourage communities to consider for themselves what “progress” means; • share best practices and increase the awareness of the need to do so using sound and reliable methodologies; • stimulate international debate, based on solid statistical data and indicators, on both global issues of societal progress and comparisons of such progress; • produce a broader, shared, public understanding of changing conditions, while highlighting areas of significant change or inadequate knowledge; • advocate appropriate investment in building statistical capacity, especially in developing countries, to improve the availability of data and indicators needed to guide development programs and report on progress toward international goals, such as the MDGs.

6. The Istanbul Declaration (3) • Press release • Posted on the World Forum web site • Disseminated to the six Organisations’ networks • Open to additional signatures • Dissemination to other networks

7. Towards a Global Project on “Measuring the Progress of Societies” Four key goals: • Foster a global conversation about what progress actually means • Galvanise people and institutions to action • Improve the effectiveness of indicator work and their use for policy making • Make a key contribution to the international discussion in the run up to 2015 when the current set of Millennium Development Goals and Indicators will be re-discussed

8. Towards a Global Project on “Measuring the Progress of Societies” (1) • Meet the demand coming from our societies: • Measure what matters • Help citizens to focus on key shared facts • Reduce information asymmetries between who knows and who does not know, a key divide in the information age • Make politicians accountable • Show where the world/countries/regions/communities are going • Build a global partnership with international organisations, national and local public institutions, foundations, NGOs, media partners, academic networks, corporations, etc.

9. Towards a Global Project on “Measuring the Progress of Societies” (2) • New keywords for a new approach: • From output to welfare • From “information brokers” to “knowledge builders” • From top-down to bottom-up • From “statistique” to “sociestique” • Time frame: 2007 - 2015 • Four pillars: • Statistical research • Development of ICT tools to help in transforming statistics into knowledge • Advocacy and institutional building • Development of a global infrastructure about progress

10. Key deliverables (1) • Statistical research • Recommendations on how to measure the progress of societies using different approaches; • Development of recommendations on how to measure specific phenomena; • Establishment of a knowledge base on existing measures of progress at international, national and sub-national level; • Publication of comparative analyses of existing progress measures and projects to identify commonalities, differences, innovative frameworks and approaches, etc.; • Publication of comparative results based on an international survey on what citizens know about the progress of their society.

11. Key deliverables (2) • ICT tools to transform statistics into knowledge • Development of innovative software to improve users’ capacity to visualise and analyse statistical indicators; • Development of a knowledge base about innovative ICT tools to facilitate the access to and the understanding of economic, social and environmental indicators; • Development of partnerships with national and global media to improve the dissemination of statistical information to citizens; • Organisation of international exhibitions on innovative tools to transform statistics into knowledge, during the World Forum events, every two-three years.

12. Key deliverables (3) • Advocacy and institutional building • Recommendations on how to build initiatives aimed to measure the societal progress through the involvement of different components of the society (government, opposition, civil society, etc.); • Organisation of working groups in the different regions of the world, where experience on these issues can be shared and discussed, good practices identified, etc.; • Support to countries and regions who want to establish initiatives to measure progress, providing training courses, scientific advice, software to present indicators, etc.

13. Key deliverables (4) • Global infrastructures to measure and foster world progress: WIKIPROGRESS • A global 2.0 web-based technical infrastructure where: • Progress indicators would be made accessible to citizens all over the world; • Users could interact with indicators using attractive graphical interfaces and other analytical tools, and launch global conversations based on solid and comparable statistical information, etc. • World and regional events: • To stimulate statistical and policy discussions on societal progress; • To promote the development and use of progress indicators.

14. New tools, new culture, new opportunities • Aims: • - Upload data and metadata • Explore data • Compare and review proposed solutions • Discuss about the results • Build consensus Number of users Passionate people, local communities, media, etc. Wikiprogress Existing initiatives • Outcomes: • Engage people, especially • new generations • - Increase knowledge • Unlock statistics • Improve transparency • Change culture • Increase numeracy • improve democracy A minority Experts Information about societal progress

15. In conclusion, the Project aims to: • Change culture, helping citizens and policy makers to pay attention to all dimensions of progress • Develop new statistics in emerging domains • Improve citizens’ numeracy, strengthening people’s capacity of understanding the reality in which they live • Improve citizens’ knowledge, becoming more aware of risks and challenges of today world • Improvenational policy making, through a better measurement of policy and societal outcomes • Improve international policy making, through the a world progress monitoring system, covering all countries • Improvestatistical capacity in each and every country • Strengthen democracy respecting historical and cultural differences • Foster aglobal and open conversation about the state and the progress of the world IMPROVE WELFARE

16. Global Project on “Measuring the Progress of Societies”: next steps • Strengthen the existing network • Newsletter • Website • OECD Expert Group • Research activities • Handbook • Comparative analyses • Follow-up events • Meeting for CIS (September 2007) • Meeting for EU (November 2007) • INTOSAI (November 2007) • ISQOLS (December 2007) • Organise the third World Forum (2009)

17. Global Project on “Measuring the Progress of Societies”: next steps • Build a truly global partnership and mobilise people • International partners • Regional partners • National partners • Local partners • Define governance • Global office • Regional co-ordinators • Management Board/Advisory Council • Secure funds • Global activities • Regional/national/local activities