Good practices:communicating and disseminating statistics

Asia – Pacific Conference

Measuring Well-being and Fostering Progress of Societies held in Tokyo in December 2011

2 of the conclusions:Need to coordinate efforts Need to communicate better to new

audiences

Why now?

Data deluge – new technologies, secondary sources

New audiences – generation y, social networks

Capacity of official statistics to meet demand alone is unrealistic

The OECD approach

1. OECD Better Life Initiative

2. Your Better Life Index

3. Global well-being networks - Wikiprogress

Why did the OECD embark on this project?

• Context– GDP insufficient to measure what matters to people– Need for new economic and societal thinking

• Our mission and values– Long standing work on measuring well-being & progress– Mission: develop better indicators for better policies for better

lives

…the result is Your Better Life Index and Wikiprogress, experiment on making well-being something that is collaboratively constructed by all stakeholders.

OECD Better Life Initiative at a glance

Your Better Life IndexA tool for informing policy making

to improve quality of life

How’s Life reportFirst attempt at the international level to

present the best set of comparable and comprehensive well-being indicators

WikiprogressPlatform for global discussion on well-being

Objectives

• Connect government policies to people’ lives

• Express the primary concerns of the public and generate support for needed policy measures

• Allow citizens to compare how countries are performing based on their priorities

• Empower public by improving their understanding about and civil participation in policy-making

• Make OECD information more accessible, interactiveand interesting to stakeholders

Your Better Life Index

Top drivers of well-being

What we have learned in the last year?

• Tremendous global interest in project and findings– Visitors from 180+ countries

• Emerging well-being priorities– Life satisfaction, Education and Health important no matter

where you come from or where you live.– Men and women share priorities…for the most part.

• Emergence of BLI community– Cases of individuals using BLI to spark discussion and launch

own local projects

…Civic engagement in action (28,000+ indexes shared)!

Global participation

Top 11United States

France Canada

Germany United Kingdom

ItalyAustralia

Spain Mexico

SwitzerlandJapan

Nearly one million total visits from 184 countries

Top drivers of well-beingWeight given by users (in %)

What’s new and why?

• Strengthened topics in response to user feedback– Education now includes reading, math and science and

education expectancy.

• Introducing gender inequality comparison to give a more complete picture

• Looking at socio-economic inequalities

• Welcoming two new countries– Brazil and Russia

• Enhancing user experience to encourage participation– Users can now compare themselves to each other

Wikiprogress and global networks

Wikiprogress Goal

• Goal: To build a community around the vision of measuring the progress of societies by nurturing a place where user- driven progress data and research can be loaded, visualised and analysed so good decisions about societies can be made at the local, national and international levels.

• Purpose: To invite citizens, policy makers and civil society to the debate on progress related statistics and policies by feeding a robust participatory wiki of progress related research, timely and relevant stories and statistics.

A growing network

• Over 70,000 unique visitors per month ;

• The number of registered users has doubled in the past 12 months to over 3000 registered users;

• An average of 200 new articles are created each month

• There are currently over 30,000 subscribers to the monthly Wikiprogress eBrief and Prog Blog

Global Networks

Wikigender• Launched in 2008, has grown as one of the

key online resources in the area of gender equality, with an average of 40,000 unique monthly visits in 2012

Wikiprogress on Child Well-Being• Focuses on sharing knowledge, news and

developments for the global child well-being community.

Global Networks continued

• Is an international multidisciplinary network of individuals committed to promoting research and debate, and building knowledge, understanding and collaboration, on societal progress, its meaning, measurement and development

• Is a community of academics, analysts, opinion leaders, and citizens, on well-being measurement in Latin American countries

Dissemination Products

What are the networks discussing

• 4th OECD World Forum on "Statistics, Knowledge and Policy“How indices of well-being are leading change”

• UN Commission on the Status of Women“rural women and discriminatory social institutions”

• Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Gendernet meeting “gender equality and climate change”

Further Data Visualisation (user generated)

Data Visualisation

Data Visualisation

Data Visualization

Conclusion

OECD current aim:To engage users so statistics will be used:

Forging public/private partnerships (networks)Creating content that is relevant to everyday life (stories,

user generated visuals)A two-way communications plan - inviting participation

(Better Life Index and Wikiprogress)

Thank you

Angela HaricheHead of Unit,

Global Well-being Networks, OECD