The Banking Executive Magazine - March 2022 Issue

Economic Metrics and Sustainable Policymaking highly distortive measure like GDP. We should move toward a global data-collection apparatus and analyt- ical framework that abandon such simplistic indices. Second, alternative metrics must fit together as part of a holistic ap- proach that allows for information to be transparently debated and repli- cated across diverse local contexts. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. The 17 United Nations Sus- tainable Development Goals provide a robust foundation for building bet- ter metrics and indicators. With a mission-oriented approach, we can start to redesign industrial and inno- vation policies to meet grand societal challenges, pursuing concrete targets and encouraging sectors to work to- gether to deliver policy solutions such as carbon-neutral cities. Another promising model is WHO Council member Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics framework, which is fast gaining traction in city governments around the world, from Amsterdam to Sydney. It encourages policymakers to aim for the sustain- able ground between insufficiency (represented by the doughnut hole) and excess (represented by every- thing beyond the rim of the dough- nut). Any such framework will need to in- clude detailed new metrics for valu- ing the goods and services that are indispensable to Health for All. Most of these are currently unaccounted for, from growing food, cooking, and cleaning to childcare and other un- paid household and neighbourhood duties predominantly performed by women. As WHO Council member Marilyn Waring has long argued, time-use data can help reveal these underappreciated, unremunerated activities and begin to capture their true value. Rethinking value is the critical first step. But for new metrics to produce saner perspectives, we also need to support strategic public finance and strengthen legal and economic pol- icy levers across the public, private, and third sectors. As a previous WHO Council brief argued, this means broadening the tax base, in- troducing more progressive taxation, increasing financial literacy, broad- ening financial inclusion, expanding the public sector’s capacity to build equitable financial frameworks, and eliminating the financial obstacles to health services. This “whole-of-society” approach to valuing Health for All would mean little if it did not start by empowering all stakeholders, especially the local communities most affected by health policies. Joint governance through public-private-common partnerships must be supported by a democratic process; only then will our new measures of progress be socially re- sponsive and locally relevant. Economics has hitherto measured the price of everything and the value of nothing. That must change. We need to measure the value of every- thingso that we can account for the things that truly matter. Health and well-being, and the care that sustains them, should become our principal measures of success. the BANKING EXECUTIVE 30 ISSUE 159 MARCH 2022