Month: May 2026

admin May 21, 2026

GDP Up, Satisfaction Down: Why the World Needs a New Way to Measure Progress

For decades, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been treated as the primary benchmark for national progress. When GDP rises, it is widely interpreted as a sign that societies are improving economically. Yet in many contexts, this growth narrative increasingly contrasts with lived experience: while economic output expands, public trust declines, inequality persists, and overall life satisfaction stagnates or even falls. This growing disconnect raises a fundamental question: if GDP is going up but people do not feel better off, what exactly are we measuring—and what are we missing? The Limits of GDP as a Measure of Progress GDP is, in...

admin May 6, 2026

Rethinking value for money: what do the Magenta Book updates mean in practice?

The 2026 update to the UK Government’s Magenta Book signals a meaningful shift in how value for money (VfM) is understood, assessed, and used in practice. Rather than treating VfM as a narrow technical exercise focused primarily on cost efficiency, the guidance increasingly positions it as an ongoing, evidence-informed judgement about how public resources create value in complex, real-world systems. This shift reflects a growing recognition that traditional evaluation approaches—while still important—are often insufficient on their own when dealing with long-term, uncertain, and socially complex interventions. As policy environments become more interconnected and outcomes more difficult to quantify, VfM is...