Progress in the news - September 2011

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Recent progress in the News

…at least according to this study out of Cornell, it looks like most people would choose money over happiness.


With the release Tuesday of the 2011 Kids Count Data book came some disturbing statistics for Alabama, which ranked 48th nationally in child well-being.


With Americans’ confidence in government at historic lows, it may not be surprising to learn that people are so fed up with politicians and politics that even talking about them makes people feel worse about their lives.


According to Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, creating jobs amidst today’s low-demand, high-debt environment is a tall order. It will require viable structural employment policies, unemployment insurance for laid off people, and -- in the case of the US – facing up to the inevitable shift out of the manufacturing sector into services.


The United Nations Development Programme works to build foundations of democratic civic society across the Arab world.


Greeks expect their lives in five years to be worse than they are today


There seems to be a pattern in which women's rights are granted in principle but never in practice


The United Nations declared this summer that happiness should play a greater role in its member nations’ goals.



In recent years, a number of nations—from Bhutan to Britain, France, China and Brazil —have begun to incorporate measures of happiness into their benchmarks for national progress. Even in the United States— where the Declaration of Independence promises all citizens the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”— policymakers are beginning to consider the merits of measuring happiness


The Utah Foundation recently released its first biennial Quality of Life Index, based on a rigorously designed survey of what a representative cross-section of Utahns consider most important to their well-being


The Princeton economist Angus Deaton was puzzled by some of the trends in a Gallup poll that gauged “subjective well-being,” among other things.


Of all the efforts to improve China’s environment, there are probably none as arcane and potentially important as the statistical re-evaluation being pioneered by Niu Wenyuan.


The men who lined the potholed road were so overjoyed that they cheered, sang, danced and wept as Libyan fighters from the country's new leadership for the first time rolled into this impoverished hamlet deep in the southern deserts.


Canada trails only Iceland at No. 1 and second-place Sweden, and is also the only non-European country in the top seven.


Germans are more satisfied today than they have been for the last 10 years, a latest survey sponsored by the Deutsche Post showed on Wednesday.


Last year in July, the UN General Assembly unanimously passed a Bhutanese-backed resolution for recognising the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human goal.


Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders gathered at United Nations Headquarters today for the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate that they face critical choices on global issues to ensure the well-being of future generations.


Canada trails only Iceland at No. 1 and second-place Sweden, and is also the only non-European country in the top seven. The United States is eighth.


NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that "the days of the Qadhafi regime in Libya are clearly numbered," and "the recent positive developments in the country are irreversible."


Fair hiring in China. Literacy in Mali. NEWSWEEK’s rankings reveal where women are winning—and where the gains are slow to come.


Irish people are a happy lot and eight out of 10 adults report feeling happy all or most of the time, according to a recent report from the Central Statistics Office


This report presents new estimates of the Index of Economic Well-being.


Do Britons spend too much money and not enough time on our children? Sarfraz Manzoor and Mariella Frostrup debate the findings of a new report


There was a time when it was de rigueur for those concerned with the well-being of the global poor to rail against big business.


The French call it la chasse au bonheur. Americans have it inscribed into their constitution. The hunt for happiness seems to be a global, fundamentally human pursuit -- but what exactly is its actual prey and does that prey have a natural habitat?


Niu Wenyuan's 'quality index' measures the economy not just by size, but by sustainability, social equality and ecological impact


Key participants at the ongoing Summer Davos Forum said the world needs to invent a new set of indicators to allow countries to better gauge the quality of their economic expansion in order to bring more benefits to their people and strike a balance between humans and nature.


The U.S. Census Bureau released two pieces of widely followed data Tuesday — one on poverty and the other on median income for 2010. The most interesting findings in this release were the state-by-state figures, especially when compared to national averages. A closer look at the statistics shows that a relatively small number of states suffer such widespread levels of low income and poverty that they skew the national numbers downward.


The damage that high income inequality and consumerism do to family wellbeing is exposed by a new Unicef report


With the world’s population projected to top 7 billion next month, the United Nations today launched a global initiative – 7 Billion Actions – bringing together governments, businesses, the media and individuals to confront the challenges and seize the opportunities offered by the milestone.


Each morning over their coffee some of the most powerful people in the world turn to the financial pages of their newspapers to check on the health of their investments by looking at how the Dow Jones and the FTSE 100 are performing.


The Scottish Government is being urged to drop its core "purpose" of increasing sustainable growth as a way of defining success.


How can we achieve a happy workforce when figures show that GDP has grown dramatically over the past 30 years but a sharp decline in wages growth has occurred during the same period?


In Bhutan, progress is measured by how happy people are, not how much wealth people have.


A coalition of groups representing a cross-section of civic Scotland is calling today for the Government to change the way it measures our success as a nation.


The analysis, "Measuring Ireland's Progress 2010", reveals that last year Ireland was the fifth most expensive country in the EU - behind Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg and Sweden.


Economic indicators like GDP miss other valuable indices of national performance. A look at quality-of-life indexes is very revealing in light of current circumstances.


With much of Africa still unconnected to the Internet, broadband commissioners and representatives of governments, the private sector and civil society met in Rwanda’s capital to examine how to get the continent wired to high-speed networks, including the role of young people in getting Africa online.


Americans' life ratings worsened for the third month in a row in August.


The world will be led with economic force - a force that is primarily driven by job creation and quality GDP growth, says Gallup's chairman


Women constitute 51% of the population. 60 per cent of the population is under 25 years


It’s 2011, and inequality is still a lifelong experience for girls and women.


I’ve been running a crap game since I was a juvenile delinquent,” boasts thischap in “Guys and Dolls,” the 1950 Tony Award-winning Broadway play.


Although drawn from different disciplines, the authors share the conviction that democracy and development must go hand in hand


Mr. Kwami Edem Senanu, National Project Coordinator of the United Nations Development Programme has said the eradication of poverty hinges around the education of the girl-child.


Truly meaningful economic indicators pertain, not to production, but to people.


Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer, an independent researcher, are the authors of “The Progress Principle.”


When I first went to Vietnam in 1992, its population was 68.4 million, or about 4 million more than that of the Philippines


Green economies don't create wealth, but dissipate it, which should send a shudder down the spine of every person in Vancouver]


The World Bank approves US$40 million to strengthen Ghana Statistical Service and the national statistical system.


A New Measure of Societal Progress Can Help Save the Planet – and Us


Community notice board

The community notice board is a place for the community to interact. Feel free to post questions and comments here.

A new OpenSource project is trying a strategy to prevent researcher bias arising from the weighting of indicators for composite indices (alias 'mashup indices'). It is called Yourtopia and would be very grateful for your critiques, suggestions and participation.

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