Friday 29 June 2012

Week in Review

Hello, Welcome to the Week in Review. We have taken on board your suggestions and ideas for how to improve the style and format- we hope you like it. This week we are focusing on measuring progress in Europe (last week Rio+20).

This week the OECD hosted The European Conference on Measuring Well-Being and Fostering the Progress of Societies, attended by around 250 policy makers, statisticians, academics, and key stakeholders from the European region. Speakers included Walter Radermacher, Jeni Klugman, Enrico Giovannini, Martine Durand, Robert Manchin and more. As discussions focused on material conditions, quality of life, and sustainability, an interesting news article on inequality in the UK caught our eye.

Inequality ‘worst since second world war’ (Guardian 27.06.2012)

Professor Dorling, an expert in inequality, has said that the top 1 per cent of the rich in the UK continue to become increasingly richer, and the rest of the better-off 10 per cent increasingly have more in common with the remaining 9/10ths of society and less in common with those at the top.
(more on inequality)

Number crunch: 6 of the top 10 countries on the 2011 Human Development Index are in Europe. The largest economy in Europe is Germany, and the ‘happiest’ country is Norway- ranking 29th of 151 countries on the Happy Planet Index.

* Sources: 2011 Human Development Index, GDP (nominal) IMF 2011, 2012 Happy Planet Index

Image of the week: This photo shows the balance between the natural environment and built environment. In fitting with this week’s European theme, the photo of Prague is one of the many new photos Wikiprogress will be showcasing in response to the question: What does progress mean to you?



If you have a photograph that you think represents progress, please send it to us via email (Philippa.Lysaght@wikiprogress.org) or post it on the Wikiprogress Facebook Wall.

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