Putting the Individual at the Center of Development: Indicators of Well-Being for a New Social Contract

Abstract

For decades, development has focused on the economy and the national scale of organization, and economic indicators such as GDP have provided measures of progress. Even UNDP’s Human Development Index includes GDP/capita and is based on national averages. To show that people are at the center of the post-2015 agenda, measures of environmental, economic and social sustainability need to be balanced with indicators of the advancement and well-being of each individual human being, including material, social, cultural and spiritual dimensions of human progress. Such disaggregation would highlight disadvantaged minorities, gender and class differences, and other priority needs of specific populations. Governments, businesses and civil society organizations could identify how their policies and activities facilitate or hinder human progress at all stages of life. Every member of society and component group could see that development actions are just and equitable in objective and will be motivated to support them and to feel responsible for their implementation. The indicators would provide both measures of legitimacy and tools to evaluate the effectiveness of governance mechanisms. Development success would be measured by the extent to which society maximizes the fulfillment of each individual’s human potential at each stage of life.

Arthur Lyon Dahl is President of the International Environment Forum, and a retired Deputy Assistant Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He has been consultant to the World Bank on indicators of development.