Lorenzo Fioramonti, GovInn director, interviewed by Sky TV in Italy on his film Gross Domestic Fraud (Presi per il PIL), which won the 2015 edition of the French film Festival de Recherche et Development Durable in Toulouse
Posts
An interesting event for those who, like us at GovInn, are researching new economic governance.
The 2015 Africa Prosperity Summit: Promoting Wealth and Wellbeing, promoted by the Legatum Institute with the support of the Ford Foundation, is taking place in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on 20-21 May 2015.
The conference will focus on four key themes:
- How data can promote shared prosperity
- Stoking African innovation: ways and means
- Business values for prosperity
- Personal safety and national prosperity
Keynote Speakers
- Zeinab Badawi, Chair of the Royal Africa Society
- Marieme Jamme, CEO of SpotOne Global Solutions
- David McGinty, Team Manager of Human Development Innovation Fund
Registration closes on 20 February 2015.
For more information on how to take part in the summit check the Legatum Institute website
About the Legatum Institute
The Legatum Institute is an international think-tank and educational charity. Its aim is to promote prosperity by revitalising capitalism and democracy. The Legatum Prosperity Index, our signature publication, ranks 142 countries in terms of wealth and wellbeing.
This week on Business Day, South Africa’s leading business newspaper, GovInn director Lorenzo Fioramonti -drawing conclusions on Piketty’s research – discusses why redistribution is the only way to tackle inequalities in South Africa and worldwide: will the WEF listen?
“One does not need a doctorate in economics to recognise that SA is one of the most unequal societies in the world. We see it every day, when we drive through our cities and across the country, when we go shopping or take our kids to school.
While inequality is a fact of life (we are different people, with different capacities, interests and aspirations), it becomes a social malaise if it exceeds certain levels. And each society should democratically decide which degrees of inequality are acceptable.”
“Such a level of inequality also reinforces violence, frustration and crime.
In SA and elsewhere, economic growth has been employed as a magic wand to avoid a serious debate on inequality. The belief that the economy can grow infinitely and at a sustained pace has been comforting to the ruling elites, as this means the pie will continue expanding without the need to redistribute its shares.
Indeed, allowing the rich to become richer has been often presented as a precondition for the economy to excel for the benefit of all.
Nowhere has this been as evident as in the justification of the stellar salaries of top managers of private and public corporations.
The reality, however, is that this “trickle-down” vision of economic development is largely a dogma, as Piketty has now confirmed with his data.
Moreover, he finds no correlation between the pay cheques of “super managers” and the performance of the companies they lead.
In his view, the only thing that explains these skyrocketing salaries is the fact that managers can easily influence the scale of their remuneration, often with the support of complacent boards of directors, while common workers cannot.
Read full article on Business Day
“Creating a More Egalitarian Society”, by John Boik: an introduction to the LEDDA framework and the LEDDA Partnership.
Houston, 7.12.14
On 28-29 October 2014, GovInn, in partnership with the Sustainability Institute, hosted a workshop that brought together academics and practitioners from statistical offices from Sub-Saharan Africa to identify practical solutions to measure well being and prosperity and move beyond numerical indicators such as GDP.
The title of the workshop was ‘Beyond-GDP in Africa: Innovative Ideas for a Regional Dashboard.’ Its goal was to take stock of the various criticisms raised against the gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of economic progress and to propose a way forward for African countries.
Read and download the presentations given at the workshop:
Why it’s time to leave GDP behind, by Robert Costanza
The GCRO BAROMETER 2014, by Darlington Mushongera
MEASURING DECENT WORK INDICATORS AND WORK STATISTICS, by Coffi Agossou
Environmental Economic Accounting Water Resource Accounting for South Africa, by Robert Parry
Gross National Happiness (GNH) in Bhutan, by Lise Pretorius
Update on the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, by Mandy Driver
Beyond GDP in Africa: Day 1 summary
Click here to download the workshop official statement
On October 28-29 2014, GovInn, in partnership with the Sustainability Institute, hosted a workshop that brought together academics and practitioners from statistical offices from Sub-Saharan Africa to identify practical solutions to measure well being and prosperity and move beyond numerical indicators such as GDP.
The title of the workshop was ‘Beyond-GDP in Africa: Innovative Ideas for a Regional Dashboard.’ Its goal was to take stock of the various criticisms raised against the gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of economic progress and to propose a way forward for African countries.
After two days of presentations and deliberations, the participants compiled a list of recommendations with a view to identifying a practical roadmap for the translation of the ‘beyond GDP’ debate into policy reforms throughout Africa.
Click here to download the presentations at the workshop
Click here to download the workshop official statement
Learn about Beyond GDP in Africa research project and about GovInn research on New Economy
Authored by Lydia Powell
(June 2014)
The domestic policies and international positions of the Indian government can be discerned on the right side of the sustainability discourse. India’s 12th, five year plan (2012‐2017), described in over a 1000 pages is based on the theme ‘faster, more inclusive and sustainable growth’. The word ‘sustainable’ appears over 200 times in the three volumes of the document which describe plans for sustaining everything from economic growth and finance to the environment and forests. The document affirms the government’s commitment to global sustainability by pointing out that India is a signatory to over 94 multilateral environmental agreements including the Kyoto Protocol. Unfortunately all these policy pronouncements are unlikely to put India on the path of true sustainability. There are two related but seemingly contradictory reasons for this.
For more information, read here: http://governanceinnovation.org/wordpress/?attachment_id=1679
