THE WELLBEING OF NATIONS AT A GLANCE 

 

What is the Wellbeing Assessment?

The Wellbeing Assessment is a method of assessing sustainability that gives people and the ecosystem equal weight. It provides a systematic and transparent way of

·       deciding the main features of human and ecosystem wellbeing to be measured;

·       choosing the most representative indicators of those features; and

·       combining the indicators into four indices: a Human Wellbeing Index (HWI), Ecosystem Wellbeing Index (EWI), Wellbeing Index (WI), and Wellbeing/Stress Index (WSI) -- the ratio of human wellbeing to ecosystem stress. Together, these four indices provide a measurement of sustainable development.

 

Four indexes are used in The Wellbeing of Nations to measure the sustainability of 180 countries:

·       The Human Wellbeing Index (HWI) distills 36 indicators of socioeconomic conditions. The HWI is a more realistic measure of socioeconomic conditions than narrow monetary indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product. It also covers more aspects of human wellbeing than the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index.

·       The Ecosystem Wellbeing Index (EWI) synthesizes 51 indicators of the state of the environment. The EWI is an equally broad measure of the state of the environment, which treats national environmental conditions more fully and more systematically than other global indices, such as the Environmental Sustainability Index.

·         The Wellbeing/Stress Index (WSI) measures how much harm each country does to the environment for the level of development it achieves. The WSI, and the WI below, break new ground in measuring people and the ecosystem together to compare their status, show the impact of one on the other, and highlight improvements in both.

·       The Wellbeing Index (WI) combines the HWI and EWI on the Barometer of Sustainability, a graphic scale that shows how far each country is from the goal of high levels of human and ecosystem wellbeing.

 

Wellbeing Assessment differs from other methods of assessing sustainability in two ways: it has a dual focus on human and ecosystem wellbeing, and it uses a Barometer of Sustainability -- a graphic performance scale -- to sum up a comprehensive set of indicators into the HWI, EWI, WI, and WSI.

The Wellbeing Assessment method was developed and tested with the support of IUCN--The World Conservation Union and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). It began as a synthesis of Robert Prescott-Allen’s Barometer of Sustainability method, and of assessment approaches formulated by researchers Alejandro Imbach (Costa Rica), Diana Lee-Smith (Kenya), and Tony Hodge, (Director, North America Program, Mining Minerals and Sustainable Development). These approaches were tested and improved by teams in Colombia, Zimbabwe, and India, and by IUCN offices in Central America, Southern Africa, and Pakistan during the first phase (1994-96) of a project to assess progress toward sustainability, which was undertaken by IUCN with IDRC support. Prescott-Allen further developed the method for the second phase of the IUCN/IDRC project (1997-99) and The Wellbeing of Nations. Additional tests of the Barometer of Sustainability and the complete method have been conducted in Canada, India, Nicaragua, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

 

 

SOME FACTS AND FIGURES

· Two-thirds of the world’s people live in countries with a poor or bad Human Wellbeing Index (HWI). Less than one-sixth live in countries with a fair or good HWI. The disparity between the best- and worst-off is huge: the median HWI of the top 10% of countries is almost eight times that of the bottom 10%;

· Environmental degradation is widespread. Countries with a poor or bad Ecosystem Wellbeing Index (EWI) cover almost half (48%) of Earth’s land surface. Countries with a fair EWI occupy less than 9%. None has a good EWI;

· Even the top performers of the Wellbeing Index —Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Austria—are “ecosystem deficit” countries, achieving their advanced standard of living at the expense of the environment. The 32 others in this group of top performers include Canada and Switzerland (both ranked 7th overall), Germany (13th), Australia (18th), Japan (24th), the United States (27th), Italy (28th), France (29th), and the United Kingdom (33rd);

· Some 27 “human deficit” countries (most of them in Africa) make fairly low demands on the ecosystem, but are desperately poor;

· The remaining 116 countries are “double deficit,” combining weak environmental performance and inadequate development. The worst performers are Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq;

· In 141 countries, ecosystem stress is higher than human wellbeing—a clear sign that most people’s efforts to improve their lot are inefficient and overexploit the environment;

· Countries with similar standards of living experience large differences in ecosystem stress: for example, Austria and Belgium, Latvia and Estonia, Brazil and Mexico, and Indonesia and China (see Figure 3).

· Increases in human wellbeing do not necessarily result in greater damage to the environment, which is less the product of the level of human wellbeing than of the way human wellbeing is pursued.

 

KEY CONDITIONS FOR ACHIEVING  SUSTAINABILITY

According to the author, seven initiatives are needed for countries to achieve ways of living that are desirable, equitable, and sustainable:

>      Make human and ecosystem wellbeing a national goal.

>      Regularly assess wellbeing to build support for the goal, analyze how to achieve it, and track progress.

>      Develop national information systems on human and ecosystem wellbeing, and cover all aspects of wellbeing by the news media.

>      Replace most, if not all, existing taxes with taxes on energy and materials.

>      Establish “Wellbeing areas” (Slow Zones) to maintain cultural heritage, wild and domesticated biodiversity, and a high quality of life in mixed built-cultivated-wild landscapes.

>      Form regional wellbeing alliances so that groups of nations (such as the European Union, NAFTA, and ASEAN) can harmonize their efforts to achieve sustainability.

>      Forge partnerships between rich “ecosystem deficit” and poor “human deficit” countries to exchange development support for ecosystem capacity.

The Author

Robert Prescott-Allen, the author of The Wellbeing of Nations, is a principal of PADATA, a consultancy on nature and culture based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He has been a consultant on sustainable development for 20 years and is coauthor of Blueprint for Survival (1972), World Conservation Strategy (1980), The First Resource: Wild Species in the North American Economy (1986), and Caring for the Earth: a Strategy for Sustainable Living (1991). He is the inventor of the Barometer of Sustainability and principal developer of the Wellbeing Assessment method. Since 1993 he has designed and advised on sustainability assessments and provided assessment training in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, working with the United Nations, governments, environment and development organizations, communities, and industry.

The Wellbeing of Nations is co-published by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Island Press, with the support of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
 
 




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