Six governments are building an economy that measures happiness
The WEGo (Wellbeing Economy Governments) partnership, launched in 2018, brings together Scotland, Iceland, New Zealand, Wales, Finland and Canada around a shared goal: developing public policies that measure wellbeing rather than growth alone.
GDP measures what is produced and exchanged. It does not measure children’s health, trust between citizens, the quality of the air we breathe or the time spent with those who matter. This gap has been diagnosed for decades. Since 2018, several national governments have been drawing the consequences.
The WEGo (Wellbeing Economy Governments) partnership, run by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, brings together six governments — Scotland, Iceland, New Zealand, Wales, Finland and Canada — around a shared project: sharing transferable policy practices to build “wellbeing economies”.
These governments have begun integrating alternative indicators into their public budgets: quality-of-life dashboards, measurable social priorities, basic income experiments. Finland conducted Europe’s most rigorous experiment: 2,000 recipients between 2017 and 2018, with clear results on mental wellbeing and a rise in employment of 6 days on average compared to the control group.
The idea is not to replace economic growth — it is to complement it with measures of what makes life genuinely worthwhile. Six governments, representing tens of millions of people, are building these tools in real time.
Further reading: Governing Differently: When GDP Makes Way for Well-being