Fareed speaks with Michael Porter, a professor at the Harvard Business School, about a groundbreaking new Social Progress Index – and how the United States is lagging on many indicators.
Social Progress Index launched to enable better understanding of worldwide progress and growth.
Economic growth does not always result in social progress, according to a major new global index published today by US-based nonprofit the Social Progress Imperative, and released at the 2014 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. The Social Progress Index 2014 ranks 132 countries based on their social and environmental performance. The United States finishes 16th behind Canada (7th) and the UK (13th).
The Social Progress Index, created by a team led by Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business
School, is designed as a complement to GDP and other economic indicators to provide a more holistic
understanding of countries’ overall performance. The Index identifies a wide range of areas in which the United States is “consistently under-performing” compared to countries with a comparable GDP per capita, according to Michael Green, Executive Director of the Social Progress Imperative.
Professor Michael E. Porter said: “The Social Progress Index finds that all economic growth is not equal. While higher GDP per capita is correlated with social progress, the connection is far from automatic. For similar levels of GDP, we find that some countries achieve much higher levels of social progress than others.”
Steve Almond, Global Chairman of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte Global), said: “In order
to achieve sustainable growth and strengthen society we need a better way to assess social progress.”
Michael Green, Executive Director of the Social Progress Imperative, said: “Economic growth does
not automatically lead to social progress. The Social Progress Index shows that if we are
to tackle problems, such as poverty and inequality, economic growth alone is not enough.”
Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, said: “Making social progress a true
imperative means putting the progress of humanity and our wellbeing on an equalfooting with GDP.”The Social Progress Indexprioritizes and measures what matters, capturing data that ranges from basic needs suchas health to the building blocks and guarantees of opportunity such as education andrights. The Index is a game-changing new tool, designed to empower governments,
businesses, social entrepreneurs, and others; to advance their collective accountability;
and to illuminate opportunities for investing in and scaling solutions.
. Global trends:
· The Index demonstrates that economic performance alone does not fully
explain social progress.
· The relationship between economic development and social progress changes with
rising income.
· For lower income countries economic growth will not necessarily result in
significantly improved social progress.
· High-income levels of GDP lead to ‘Basic Human Needs’ being met, but don’t
guarantee increased ‘Opportunity’ for citizens.
Key global highlights include:
· New Zealand is this year’s top performing country.
· The Netherlands is the best performing country in European Union.
· Canada is the best performing G8 country.
· Slovenia and Estonia are Europe’s big success story, scoring better than France, Spain and Italy.
Of the big EU countries Italy is a big under-performer, also coming in behind former Soviet bloc
countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.
· Costa Rica and Uruguay are the star performers in Latin America.
· Brazil is the top of the BRICS, followed by: South Africa, Russia, China, and India.
· Apart from Brazil, the BRICs are all significant under-performers on social progress, suggesting
that, for China and India in particular, rapid economic growth is not yet being converted into
better lives for their citizens.
Surprising rankings:
· The United States finishes 16th behind Canada (7th) and the UK (13th).
