Appendix: Sources of methods and measures of wellbeing and progress
In this appendix we provide links to:
Cross-national measures of wellbeing and progress, such as the UN Human Development Index, OECD's Better Life Index and Gallup's World Poll;
Cross-national developments and methodologies, including the Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi Commission recommendations and work coordinated by Eurostat across the European Union;
National, regional and local measures of wellbeing and progress, either under development or in regular production.
We are sure we will not have identified every initiative! We have drawn particularly on a list of 75 ‘indicator projects’ around the world compiled by Australian Statistician, Brian Pink, and presented at the OECD World Forum in India in 2012. The Australian Bureau of Statistics also kindly provided a list of a further 55 indicator projects within Australia, at national, state, city and community levels. This leads us to suggest that readers search out initiatives by their own national statistical office, universities and colleges, national, regional and local government and non-governmental and civil society organisations. Do please tell us about initiatives we have not included here (email to [email protected]) or if links need updating – we accessed them all during 2013, mainly between September and December.
MDGInfo 2012 database published by the UN Statistics Division contains the official UN statistics used in monitoring the world's progress towards the Millennium Development Goals http://www.devinfo.org/libraries/aspx/Home.aspx
International Classification of Diseases (ICD): The current version is ICD-10. Development of the 11th revision will conclude in 2015 http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/
Two years after the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report: What well-being and sustainability measures? Conference (12 October 2011) presentations at http://www.oecd.org/site/ssfc2011/
4th OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy: Measuring Wellbeing for Development and Policy Making, October 2012 http://www.oecd.org/site/worldforumindia/
Busan Action Plan for Statistics (2011), to drive statistical developments in countries receiving international aid http://paris21.org/busan-action-plan
The e-Frame Project (European Framework for Measuring Progress) is fostering the measurement debate, developing a European network and supporting national measurement initiatives http://www.eframeproject.eu/
World Economic Forum is an independent, international organisation committed to improving the state of the world http://www.weforum.org
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is a network of world megacities committed to addressing climate change http://www.c40.org
Global Green Growth Institute aims to put green growth at the heart of economic planning in developing and emerging countries http://gggi.org/
Community Indicators Consortium's website is a resource for individuals and organizations working to improve the use of indicators for better planning, decision-making and communities' quality of life http://www.communityindicators.net/
Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative's purpose is to build a multidimensional economic framework for reducing poverty grounded in people's experiences and values http://www.ophi.org.uk/
Equality Trust has information and resource material on why more equal societies are happier, more stable and more successful http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk
Natural Capitalism, the resources and ecosystem services provided by nature, features at http://www.natcap.org
The Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics promotes a number of principles, including that the pursuit of self-interest in economic behaviour can impact adversely on both society and the environment http://www.neweconomicthinking.org/index.htm
Among journals publishing papers about measuring wellbeing and progress are:
National, regional and local measures of wellbeing and progress
Links to the websites of all national statistical offices are held on the UN Statistics Division website at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/inter-natlinks/sd_natstat.asp. We list here some initiatives particularly about social progress, wellbeing and sustainable development, both in national statistical offices and elsewhere.
Territorial Indicators: system of demographic, social, environmental and economic indicators, including sustainable development http://sitis.istat.it/sitis/html/index.htm
Understanding Society, the UK household longitudinal study has been tracking life satisfaction and other wellbeing measures https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/
The former EasyData site has been decommissioned. This page lists a number of website on which up-to-date local level data on a range of socio-economic indicators is available: http://www.southaustralia.biz/why_south_australia/easydata
Options for a Local Government Framework for Measuring Liveability – prepared for Penrith City Council and the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government http://www.acelg.org.au/downloadUpdate.php?docId=155