Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership: annual engagement report

3. Webinars

The network also holds webinars, learning from external academics and experts in the Wellbeing Economy space.

3.1 OECD WISE Centre: Knowledge Exchange Platform on Well-being Metrics and Policy Practice

WEGo members were joined by colleagues from the OECD Centre on Well-being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity (WISE) in October 2023 to hear about their Knowledge Exchange Platform on Well-being Metrics and Policy Practice (KEP). The OECD WISE Centre’s purpose is to generate new data and approaches to improve people's multidimensional well-being and reduce inequalities, and better understand the impact of policies and business actions on people's lives today and in the future. Beyond long-standing workstreams on measuring and monitoring well-being across OECD countries, the Centre also offers support to countries on how to apply wellbeing concepts in policy – offering technical guidance, in-depth country studies and implementation assistance.

The KEP, which was formally launched in November 2023, aims to scale up these conversations, providing a space for sharing experiences and solutions across countries on the development and policy application of well-being frameworks and associated metrics and tools.

The KEP takes a modular approach, with multiple streams to enable different types of participation. A publicly available online repository of country well-being initiatives provides examples of well-being measurement, tools and implementation, and the

application of a well-being perspective to specific policy issues such as child well-being or mental health. The KEP is also fostering peer learning through dedicated Knowledge Exchange Workshops open to government officials working on well-being, the creation of an informal peer network comprised of international experts to discuss achievements and common challenges, as well as future substantive research on well-being policy application.

For more information, please see:

• WISE | OECD
• Knowledge Exchange Platform on Well-being Metrics and Policy Practice (KEP) (oecd.org)
• Economic Policy Making to Pursue Economic Welfare | OECD
• How to Make Societies Thrive? Coordinating Approaches to Promote Well-being and Mental Health | OECD

3.2 World Health Organization: Health in a Wellbeing Economy

In February 2024, colleagues from the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe delivered a WEGo webinar on health in the well-being economy.

Health is a driver and beneficiary of trusting, cohesive and prosperous economies. With major inequities in health across the WHO European Region, unequal well-being is driven by differences in access to health services, income security and social protection, living conditions, social and human capital, and employment. The health sector can drive well-being economies through, for example, mental health promotion in everyday settings, using its procurement and employment to drive social values, and services which address health, social and economic needs.

At the same time, health systems, public health goods and healthy life expectancy are not systematically included in mainstream investment frameworks which leads to undervaluing of health services and healthy populations. Nations are increasingly integrating well-being and health into their fiscal and economic policy. This includes new taxes or fiscal instruments, and well-being budgets. It also includes decision-making connected to participatory processes and well-being metrics.

An overview of the WHO Deep Dive reports on the Well-being Economy was provided, which detail policy experiences across countries (initially Finland, Scotland, Iceland and Wales) that are transitioning to a well-being economy. The aim of the series is to provide a rapid stocktake on the available evidence, documenting innovative approaches that countries are developing to support the shift to a well-being economy. The deep dives highlight the importance of high-level commitment, leveraging international collaboration and binding commitments.

As part of this webinar, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the Scottish Government, Graham Ellis, also delivered a presentation on healthy ageing. He explained that ageing is an inequalities issue. This has been exemplified by the increase in premature mortality rates during the period of Covid-19, which was most prevalent in the poorest areas in Scotland.

The final presentation covered youth mental health and inclusion. Evidence shows that adverse childhood experiences are a large driver of mental health conditions. Young people suffer lifelong impacts of unemployment and social exclusion – their lifetime earnings and employment prospects can be affected. This in turn has implications on the tax base. There is a two-way relationship between unemployment/exclusion and poor mental health, and a growing evidence base showing the return on investment for society of investing in young people.

The WHO European Well-being Economy initiative is supporting countries to leverage and shape how national governments and authorities generate new revenue and redirect existing spend into heath, equity and well-being policies and interventions, while also showing the benefits for cohesion, resilience and economic prosperity.

WHO Europe is supporting country policies and investment plans, convening central banks with health and finance to shape new modelling tools and investment decisions, developing proposals for a health and well-being impact investment alliance to support the use of new investment instruments, and gathering stakeholders from across sectors to take action on mental health through the WHO Pan-European Mental Health Coalition.

For more information, please see:

• WHO European Well-being Economy Initiative
• Deep dives on the well-being economy showcasing the experiences of Finland, Iceland, Scotland and Wales: summary of key findings (who.int)
• Health in the well-being economy: background paper: working together to achieve healthy, fairer, prosperous societies across the WHO European Region
• Shifting towards fiscally resilient, healthy societies: finding common ground between public health and finance sectors and central banks (who.int)

3.3 Professor Paul Dolan: Measuring Wellbeing

Professor Paul Dolan, behavioural scientist at London School of Economics, delivered a webinar in March 2024. Paul’s work is focused on how we measure the concepts that markets don’t typically value, which are hard to capture in policy appraisal. He believes that getting better measures of wellbeing into policy is important.

WEGo colleagues heard from Paul on the difficulties of successfully measuring wellbeing. Asking people about their life satisfaction is complicated (essentially, placing valuations on life reflections), yet people answer quickly, and therefore are probably not answering the question that is being asked. Feelings are different to reflection and how much time we spend in misery is meaningful - this is not captured by life satisfaction. In addition, how we spend our time, and how well we sleep, are both fundamental to how we feel. Yet, neither are captured in life satisfaction measures.

Life satisfaction measures straddle two worlds: standard economic preference-based measures (how many life years are you willing to give up for one state of health over another) and experience-based measures (a direct assessment of how people live/feel). Experience-based measures are more useful to policymakers and there maybe value in considering focusing on measures of pain and misery, and reducing these, rather than on happiness.