Case Study

Data-Driven Tool to Measure Wellbeing Across Countries

Company

Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for a Sovereign Nation.

Challenge

The client hosts an annual international knowledge exchange platform that brings together a diverse community of thought leaders, government officials, and policymakers to further the discussion about the future of government.

A particular focus of the gathering is to enable governments and support policy makers in developing and implementing data driven, evidence-based policies.

The client was interested in the development of a data-driven governance index that would provide a holistic view of wellbeing across the world to present to stakeholders at its annual meeting.

Intervention

Bâton Global (B|G) was charged with conceptualizing and developing an index that would measure and forecast country level performance across multiple dimensions and numerous indicators to provide policymakers and governments with insight into areas in which they are making progress towards enhancing the wellbeing of their citizens.

Results

The development of this tool allows countries across the globe to assess their current efforts in delivering wellbeing to citizens and to understand how future policymaking could drive improved national outcomes.

Learn More

The scope of this project includes four main areas of activity:

Insight

Exhaustive research across academic, industry, and public policy sources was conducted to identify theoretically justified and empirically validated drivers of a nation state performance. B|G supported the organization in the following ways:

  • Established a validated definition of governance to support the review and selection of relevant data inputs/sources that underpinned the index initiative.
  • Identified and defined four overarching dimensions for the index: Governance and Resilience; Economy and Society; Environment and Health; Future and Progress.
  • Cultivated and developed four elements to comprise each dimension of the index for a total of 16 elements.
  • Qualified and assembled a holistic set of qualitative and quantitative data sources/indices measuring each aspect of global momentum in its accepted definition.
  • Analyzed data inputs in terms of availability and quality as well as presented alternative data collection instruments in response to any gaps.
  • Generated a super-set of more than five hundred data points as being congruent with the aims of the index.

Innovation

B|G narrowed down data points into a manageable index and developed the inaugural model to enable the index to inform and support policy makers in their policy making decisions.

  • Isolated 48 key indicators that best fit the established index measures that aligned with a set of screening criteria.
  • Validated the model using mathematical modeling in addition to consulting with external experts to legitimize the indices.
  • Performed simulations of the model using hypothetical data and then executed a beta test with a small set of true data to validate the index results.
  • The above outlined measures yielded an Environmental Analysis report that drove discussion and encouraged engagement during the vision setting workshop.
  • Refined the index model based on client feedback and confirmed the final index product.

Integration

B|G ran all secondary country data on the model and developed a research brief and technical guide.

  • Collected secondary data for all the countries that were to be included in the index and computed “state” (where the country stands today) and “momentum” (rate of change across the years) scores for each country.
  • Developed a research brief containing findings and analysis from the index, including country state and momentum scores segmented by dimension and geography, and an in-depth look at the state and momentum of select country case studies.  
  • Produced a technical guide detailing the index development and execution process, the index methodology, and a description of all secondary data sources.

Impact

The client unveiled the index to the internal organization in 2018.

  • Policymakers and governments gained insight into both their country’s current state as well as their country’s momentum towards the future across various dimensions and time horizons.
  • Policymakers and governments became empowered to make more impactful, data-driven policy decisions to improve the wellbeing of their citizens and monitor the impact of these policy changes over time.
  • Policymakers and governments were given the opportunity to have data-driven discussions with their constituents from the available index data.
  • Constituents were able to better understand how their governments and policymakers were impacting their wellbeing.
  • Businesses were able to understand which countries are investing in the health, happiness, and prosperity of their citizens, and develop business strategies to compliment, partner, and accelerate both economic outcomes and societal wellbeing.

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