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Seminar Beyond GDP: statistical challenges of measuring development

Statistics
24 August 2022|Event

This is a side-event of Twenty-first meeting of the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC. The seminar will address the various statistical challenges related to the improvement of GDP measurement and the production of complementary indicators to account for economic, social and environmental development.

Seminar video

GDP is a measure of a country’s domestic production of goods and services. This indicator and the System of National Accounts (SNA) on which it is based are available in virtually all countries of the world and are similarly based on international standards. As a result, GDP is widely used to summarize countries’ development, beyond the purpose for which it was designed.

However, GDP is an insufficient measure of development and does not adequately reflect essential factors such as environmental sustainability and biodiversity loss, inequalities in access to the benefits of economic growth, the quality of institutions and the prevalence of the rule of law.

In September 2021, the United Nations Secretary-General presented the report “Our Common Agenda”, with his vision for the future of global cooperation and multilateralism. He calls for “new measures to complement GDP, so that people can gain a full understanding of the impacts of business activities and how we can and must do better to support people and our planet”. The United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination has set out to discuss the development of metrics to measure progress beyond GDP, in support of the follow-up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Our Common Agenda report. Its ongoing work considers two types of response to the challenges and limitations outlined above: on the one hand, support the improvements to the measurement of GDP and the update of the SNA and, on the other hand, identify a set of complementary indicators.

The seminar is presented as a space for dialogue with the authorities of national statistical offices and other statistical institutions on the various statistical challenges related to the improvement of GDP measurement and the production of complementary indicators to account for economic, social and environmental development.

14 February 2023  Report of the seminar Beyond GDP: statistical challenges of measuring development

 

24 Aug 2022

  • Beyond GDP: statistical challenges of measuring development

    14:30 to 17:30

    Moderator: Graciela Márquez, National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) of Mexico

    • 1.- Anu Peltola, Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Comercio y Desarrollo / United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD)
      ▪ Valuing What Counts: A UN Systemwide Contribution on progress beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
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      2.- Stefan Schweinfest, División de Estadística de las Naciones Unidas / United Nations Statistics Division
      ▪ Towards the 2025 SNA (System of National Accounts)
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      - Comentarios y preguntas / Comments and questions
      3.- Greg Peterson, Statistics Canada and Co-Chair of the United Nations Network of Economic Statisticians
      ▪ Findings of the “Beyond GDP” consultations of the Network of Economic Statisticians and the evolving Canadian Data Ecosystem
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      4.- Facundo Alvaredo, World Inequality Lab, de Paris School of Economics (PSE), e Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP), UBA & CONICET Argentina
      ▪ Una agenda para la conciliación de datos distributivos y cuentas nacionales / An agenda for the reconciliation of distributional and national accounts data
      - Comentarios y preguntas
      5.- Lucía Scuro, División de Asuntos de Género de la CEPAL/Division for Gender Affairs of ECLAC & Iliana Vaca Trigo, UNSD
      ▪ Ir más allá del PIB desde la perspectiva de género: bienestar, cuidados y tiempo
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      6.- Arturo Flores, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México
      ▪ Más allá del PIB: la contribución de los indicadores medioambientales
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      ▪ Beyond GDP: the contribution of environmental indicators
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      7.- Rolando Ocampo, División de Estadísticas de la CEPAL / Statistics Division of ECLAC
      ▪ Avances de la División de Estadísticas en materia de indicadores complementarios al PIB
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      ▪ Progress of the Statistics Division of ECLAC in terms of indicators complementary to GDP
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      - Comentarios y preguntas / Comments and questions

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