Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership: annual engagement report

4. Other Activity

4.1 Wellbeing Economy Forum

In June 2024, WEGo members attended the Wellbeing Economy Forum in Iceland, of which WEGo was a partner. Labelled as “a platform for dialogue, interdisciplinary collaboration and change among politicians, policymakers, business leaders, academics and practitioners worldwide”, the conference offered a full programme of sessions on aspects of wellbeing economy, whilst at times applying a health lens.

Officials from WEGo countries took part in a panel discussion on wellbeing budgeting, discussing the key challenges of implementation. The session began with a keynote providing an overview of the well-being budgeting context. The panel then covered the achievements and everyday challenges of countries working on integrating the well-being economy lens into state budgets. Moving from well-being metrics to policy formulation and budget allocation often requires a different process, and this panel explored their recent experiences in the context of their respective governments. The approaches of countries working on well-being budgeting vary according to the progression and the country's context and include different elements, from using well-being indicators for policy priority settings to integrating well-being impact assessment tools of implemented policies to ultimately influencing final budget decisions in allocating resources.

The conference programme also contained a premiere showing of the documentary “Purpose” by Martin Oetting, which details the origin of the wellbeing economy movement.

For more information, please see:

• Wellbeing Economy Forum
• The Economy has a Purpose…and that purpose is Wellbeing : Wellbeing Economy Alliance (weall.org)
• Purpose Film - https://purpose.film/