The 'Beyond GDP' Debate and Measuring Societal Progress in the Context of Sustainable Development, ESDN Quarterly Report, December 2010

This ESDN Quarterly Report (QR) is a direct follow-up of the 6th ESDN Workshop in Berlin in early December 2010. It provides an overview of the various measurement approaches in the current "beyond GDP" debate that aim at measuring societal progress with more comprehensive indicators than the economic progress-oriented approaches. The aim of the QR report is to provide an overview of the debate at the conceptual and political level in the measurement initiatives in going "beyond GDP" as well as to outline the challenges ahead in the reforms towards measuring social progress. The QR is mainly based on the ESDN Case Studies No.3 and No.4, the background paper and discussions at the 6th ESDN Workshop in Berlin in December 2010 as well as the report summarising the debates at the workshop.