Brief

Engaging Decision-Makers in Moving Beyond GDP and Toward Wealth

This brief outlines how decision-makers can be brought into the discussion around comprehensive/inclusive wealth (C/IW). The goal of this discussion is to encourage countries to move beyond GDP and begin using C/IW as a means of assessing national progress.

By Robert Smith, Zakaria Zoundi, Livia Bizikova on February 15, 2022
  • Decision-making processes and rewards to decision-makers have been based on the short-term benefits driving GDP for many decades.

  • Until countries move beyond GDP and its short-term market focus, no serious answer to the question “Is our level of well-being sustainable?” will be possible.

  • A transition from GDP to comprehensive/inclusive wealth (C/IW) measures will require capacity building among decision-makers to help them understand the differences and uses of the two indices. Decision-makers will be better able to balance short-term imperatives with the long-term environmental, social, and economic determinants of well-being.

Decision-making processes and rewards to decision-makers have been based on the short-term benefits driving GDP for many decades. A transition from GDP to comprehensive/inclusive wealth (C/IW) measures will require capacity building among decision-makers to help them understand the differences and uses of the two indices. In addition, national statistical offices will need to begin measuring wealth in all its dimensions. Making these measures available alongside traditional indicators would lead to better, more sustainable outcomes. Decision-makers will be better able to balance short-term imperatives with the long-term environmental, social, and economic determinants of well-being.