FLORENCE?The ninth conference of the International Society of Quality of Life Studies, on the theme ?Measures and Goals of the Progress of Societies,? was held here this week at Istituto degli Innocenti (Institute of the Innocents), founded here 600 years ago to care for homeless children, and which now also does research on children?s issues, in coordination with policymakers in government, civil society and international bodies.

A record number of 373 participants, from 44 countries, are here for the 84 sessions of this conference, and surely also for the opportunity to see Michelangelo?s ?David,? Boticelli?s ?Birth of Venus,? and many other magnificent works of art.

This is my seventh ISQOLS (pronounced ?iskwols?) conference. I joined in 1997, and have been a board member since 2001. It is a pleasure to again be among people who never refer to subjective indicators as ?mere perceptions? but regard them equally as valid as objective indicators for measuring the social state of a nation.

The Social Weather Station Reporting system, which happens to be Asia?s oldest barometer, has been presented at plenary sessions of past conferences; it is published in ISQOLS books. This year, the SWS papers at ISQOLS are on social acceptability among Muslims and Christians (by Vladymir Licudine), satisfaction with the working of democracy (by Leo Laroza), and the relation of religiosity to quality of life (by Linda Guerrero and Mae Labucay). There are no other Filipinos in this conference.

In the keynote lecture, OECD chief statistician Enrico Giovannini called attention to the Istanbul Declaration of June 2007. It is an agreement of the European Commission, OECD, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations, the UNDP and the World Bank to work towards a new paradigm for statistics and policy making, no longer focusing on Gross Domestic Product, but relying also on subjective indicators of well-being.

(Actually, Gross National Product or GNP, which totals value-added by Filipinos, wherever in the world they may be, is the more relevant concept. GDP, on the other hand, refers to value-added in the Philippine geographical territory, regardless of the nationalities of those who derive income from it.)

The Istanbul Declaration, to my mind, is a rediscovery of long-known truths: that GNP is not a reliable indicator of true progress; that the meaning or content of true progress should be what the citizens, rather than the government, say it is; that best practices of measurement should be shared; that statistical findings regarding progress should be communicated to the general public in ways easily understood. In fact, SWS has known and has been applying these principles for over two decades already. It willingly shares its knowledge and experience with those who are interested.

It seems to me that there is often too much concern for international comparability of statistics. But standardization can hinder innovation. The SWS quality-of-life indicators are valid for the Philippines, regardless of whether statistical institutions in any other country are willing to adopt them.

ISQOLS is a fascinating group. It has the world?s most distinguished researchers on happiness and satisfaction in life. The Florence conference has papers on conditions among children and women, the elderly, families in general, workers, and migrants. There are discussions of health, physical security, spiritual well-being, and the environment. And, commendably, there is no interest in the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

There are papers on the Easterlin paradox?the finding that economic growth hasn?t made peoples in the First World happier over time. If life was really better ?in the good old days,? then what was the use of economic growth? Well, what the data show is that economic growth can improve happiness substantially in the poorest countries, might improve it a bit in middle-income countries, but probably can?t raise happiness in the rich countries any more.

Within a given country?including the Philippines?those with higher income or economic status tend to be a little happier than those with lower income/status; there is usually no polarization between ?happy rich? and ?unhappy poor.? The majority of poor people tell surveyors they are ?happy,? no doubt because they find happiness in non-material aspects of their lives.

Canada is quite well organized to measure quality of life. A Canadian Index of Well-being (CIW) has been put together by a consortium of public and private institutions. The National Statistics Office of Italy also seems quite progressive; it pledges to produce statistics about people as subjects rather than as instruments?on the youth, rather than on students; on the elderly, rather than on pensioners; about victims, rather than about crimes.

Bhutan is the one country in the world that has adopted maximization of Gross National Happiness (GNH), and not GNP, as an official objective. The conference session that I organized included a German researcher?s presentation of the Bhutanese concept of GNH, and its efforts to measure it. The Bhutanese concept has the same domains of happiness as those in the CIW, and it also includes spiritual well-being. The Bhutanese data-gathering includes a national survey of over 1,000 respondents (note that the population of Bhutan is only 700,000), requiring an interview four hours long. Respondents are amenable because of total obedience to the king.

The venue of the next ISQOLS conference, 18 to 24 months hence, is not yet set, but perhaps it will be in Asia. Surely its agenda will include discussion of the progress of the Istanbul Declaration by then.

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.