7th OECD World Forum on Well-Being

Over the last 20 years since the 1st OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge, and Policy, huge progress has been made in the development of multidimensional measures of progress that encompass economic, social, relational, personal and environmental dimensions of people’s well-being. 

Since 2015, the UN 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals have provided further momentum to international efforts to improve the measurement of inclusive, sustainable well-being. But significant challenges still remain for providing decision makers and citizens with the people-focused and outcome-oriented information they need to foster well-being, promote sustainability, and reduce inequalities. In the fast-moving context of political and organisational decision-making, data for informing policy and societal action need to be timely, accurate, comparable, comprehensive, and granular. This implies not only improving the production and quality of statistical information, but also embracing innovation to fill data gaps in real-time. In this respect, the rapid development of A.I and machine learning applications is changing the landscape of data production, demand, analysis, and impact, bringing both new opportunities and risks. 

In addition, ensuring that well-being data are mainstreamed in policy processes requires more integrated evidence and analytical tools that can help join the dots across different well-being data sources and domains. In an era of increasing misinformation, strengthening high-quality and fit-for-purpose evidence is more important than ever.

The Forum will take stock of recent achievements, present innovative practice examples, and explore the future steps necessary to advance data collection and use for better monitoring, analysing, shaping, and responding to well-being outcomes and trends.

Related sessions

More information on relevant Forum sessions and speakers will be added as details are confirmed. Provisional example sessions related to this theme include:

• Plenary Roundtable on “Next frontiers for well-being measurement and data”
• Parallel Session on “Innovations for more timely well-being data and analysis”
• Parallel Session on “Co-producing well-being data”
• Parallel Session on “Joining up data production and analysis for well-being”