CanWaCH at The 7th OECD World Forum on Well-Being: Recap and takeaways

Event overview

When: November 4-6, 2024
Where: Rome, Italy
Hosted by: OECD

The 7th OECD World Forum on Well-being convened global experts, practitioners and thought leaders to explore how multidimensional well-being can be better integrated into policy, measurement, and societal action. With key themes spanning health, data and statistics, climate change, artificial intelligence and inequalities, the Forum underscored the importance of addressing complex, interconnected challenges to improve societal outcomes.

As a founding OECD member, Canada has a vital role in these discussions. At CanWaCH, we are energized by the focus on well-being and the right to thrive in full health as a cornerstone of economic and policy frameworks. We are actively listening to these global conversations, reflecting on how Canada can adapt these insights to advance equity and well-being at home.

Major themes and discussions

• We need to see a shifting away from measuring outputs towards outcomes.
  • (we have prioritized efficiency over equity; size over sustainability; and competence over character)

• Integrated (poly) crises need integrated analysis. Therefore, we need integrated data.
  • We need statistics that go beyond measurement, that are inclusive of multidimensional approaches to measuring wellbeing. We need to be moving beyond GDP as a measure of progress. After all, war can be good for GDP but is clearly bad for social well-being.
  • How you conceptualize inequality relates directly to who you believe to be responsible for addressing that inequality. What happens when we de-link economic progress and social progress? Who is left behind? Where are there gaps in our information (“statistical silence”)?
  • How can machine learning and AI be used to make better sense of large amounts of data more quickly (nowcasting, social mood, multi-language analysis)? Examples were shared.

• We need a longer time horizon. What do we owe future generations?
  • For example: combining SDG indicator packages (health and gender) and taking a life-course perspective can create a more robust picture of well-being.

• We need to invest in lifelong learning and upskilling for communities.
  • Education cannot end at early adulthood, and this will be necessary in the face of emerging technologies to address everything from unemployment to misinformation to rising populist rhetoric.

Standout speakers and sessions

“The earth is a fact. The world is an idea.” ~ Dr. Subramanian (Subi) Rangan

These were powerful words, spoken at the event’s opening plenary roundtable, which really captured the theme of the event, which was to interrogate status-quo ways of thinking about how we strengthen wellbeing, prosperity and sustainability. Speakers across sessions encouraged participants to reimagine outdated epistemologies and pushed all actors — governments and policy makers, private sector and civil society — to move beyond simplistic measures such as GDP towards more holistic and meaningful measures of well-being that centre both human needs and planet capacity. To do this, we need different frameworks for conceptualizing what well-being means, recognizing that despite the abundance of resources available, access to those resources remains unequal.

Our take

While we heard a reassuring amount of discussion about the importance of equity and centering community voices, particularly that of children, adolescents, youth and the future generations, it would be great to dive more deeply and explicitly into the intersections of gender equality and the perceptions of women in regards to defining well-being for themselves and their communities. 

Health (and particularly, the health of women, children and youth) is underpriced. We know what is needed and how central good health is to an individual’s perceived sense of well-being, and yet we continue to see urgent disparities and face obstacles to securing the necessary political investments, given that we are often looking at a ROI that won’t be seen for many years. 

However, investments made today in health (particularly in women and children’s health, CanWaCH would argue) are vital to ensuring equitable experiences of well-being. There is a role for Canada to play in making sure that this remains front and centre. 

In order to clearly and effectively communicate the results of Canada’s investments, we need to prioritize learning-based approaches focusing on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of investment outcomes, rather than the ‘what’ of outputs.

There were some conflicting views on whether or not policy and regulation can keep pace with the many changes in environment, technology and social norms. However, it was interesting to hear how some partners are looking to leverage existing regulations and legislation to provide some useful guardrails in order to protect the most vulnerable.

Policy and programmatic change have to happen in tandem. These are different levers at our disposal — program change is smaller and more focused in scope, while policy change is necessary to secure wide-spread and lasting protections.

We should not be afraid to engage communities as data producers and analysts. This framing positions them as active participants rather than passive users of data. We heard some interesting examples of projects that specifically looked at issues of SGBV and  LGBTQ+ discrimination with specific examples of how to engage communities. Our Project Explorer does this in an interesting way — sourcing partner knowledge and perspectives directly from partners rather via an institutional or government funder.

People are more likely to trust data they contribute to or have participated in gathering. This is a key strategy for combating misinformation and rising public distrust in data, and for consensus building in terms of priorities.

It’s important to not be extractive with our data processes. Part of this should be building in funding for reporting back to communities and sharing results, and supporting data sovereignty principles and ownership. Data is an asset that (often) becomes more valuable with time so we need to think about how we value the data that we collect and how we acknowledge that value to those who give it to us.

Further reading/viewing

• Official forum webpage
• Daily highlights