25 March 2015 – Presented at Informal meetings of the plenary in the process of intergovernmental negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda, focusing on sustainable development goals and targets: Interactive dialogue between civil society and the co-chair H.E. Macharia Kamau and member states
I’m Dr. Judy Kuriansky, Chair of the Psychology Coalition of NGOs accredited at The UN and main representative of the International Association of Applied Psychology to the UN.
I’m delighted to respond to our charming 14 year-old Rodrigo from the Forum on The Rights of The Child in Chile, who has just addressed this body, and made a plea for measuring love in the Post-2015 Agenda, besides statistics. My response is framed now in my role as having given advice for many years on the radio and TV, and in newspapers – worldwide – from the New York Daily News to the Singapore Straits Times and China’s Trends Health magazine. (This led to my being called the “Love Doctor’). Rodrigo’s request makes an appeal to measuring love. I know from my own decades of work around the world, as well as what is shown by many surveys: Rodrigo is right, love is “what people want.” Note that “the people” and “what people want” are of course the basis of the Post-2015 Agenda.
We should take Rodrigo’s point seriously -- I can tell by the reaction in this room when he spoke that others here agree.
The measurement he requested can be done, in a way that applies to the agenda being proposed here. His request can be under the umbrella of measuring the broader concept of well-being. Well-being has already been transformative in the agenda, being included in the wording of Goal 3 on health and in Target 3.4, with thanks to the leadership of Ambassador Caleb Otto of the mission of Palau, and the support of many member states.
Along these lines, I’d like to urge that well-being be included as an indicator, and that in your role as co-facilitators, you make that recommendation to the Statistical Commission. Well-being interlinks many targets, it was mentioned this week by several member states including Hungary, the UAE, who noted the Happiness Index, and El Salvador, who called for measuring progress beyond GDP.
We note that well-being can be measured. This was documented by the World Happiness Report, and in the Happy Planet Index – which Denmark and Costa Rica have won – as well as in the OECD Life Satisfaction Survey, and the WHO Quality of Life Index.
Thank you very much, Mr. Co-facilitator.
