Interesting and thoughtful article:
New Zealand: Changing the Conversation on Well-Being
By Anna Jaquiery
It has a section on Measuring Outcomes in relation to the 2109 budget highlighting:
.......... a number of experts are saying that more work is needed to measure outcomes and empower communities.
“Process matters critically in achieving desired well-being outcomes—and the most important shift in process is the requirement to give communities more voice and resources to drive change,” says Girol Karacaoglu (former chief economist at the New Zealand Treasury and now head of the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington. He is also the author of the book Love You: Public Policy for Intergenerational Wellbeing).
“The types of issues we are dealing with cannot be sorted out from the center—the center needs to play a listening and supporting role.”
The shift toward a more holistic approach means a shift in the way government works on these issues and measures outcomes. A lot of work has to go into this process, and it takes time, says Dominick Stephens, Treasury’s current chief economist.
“We’re thinking more holistically about how to deliver better outcomes for people. But we’re also continuing to build our understanding of well-being. This is hard.”
Emily Mason, who has worked 20 years in social policy and runs a Wellington consulting firm called Frank Advice, says the measurement tools are there but the government isn’t making use of them.
“Well-being as a concept is the right one but you need measures and decision-making infrastructure to make it work. You need the wisdom of community and of what has gone before, and to link that to data measurement, looking at each individual over the course of their lifetime. At its heart, well-being is an individual thing.”
“We have that statistical ability, but we’re not making full use of it.”
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2022/01/26/cf-new-zealand-changing-the-conversation-on-well-being?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
