By Livia Bizikova, IISD, Lynn Wagner, IISD, and Bhim Adhikari, IDRC 

Growing concern about using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the primary measure of national development reflects recognition of its inability to capture essential dimensions of a country’s progress and potential, including environmental degradation, inequalities, and long‑term sustainability. Although these limitations have been highlighted for decades, the need to complement GDP with other measures has only recently gained momentum within the UN. This article summarizes global processes and findings on addressing challenges of GDP, including highlights from the March 2026 session of the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) and the April 2026 UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Forum on Financing for Development Follow-Up (FfD Forum).

Overview of recent efforts to move beyond GDP

Recent international processes – notably the UN Summit of the Future – have elevated the urgency of addressing GDP’s limitations. In Our Common Agenda, which proposed organizing the Summit, the UN Secretary-General described global overreliance on GDP as a “glaring blind spot” in assessing prosperity. World leaders responded by committing, through the Pact for the Future, to the development of a limited set of country‑owned and universally applicable indicators that complement and go beyond GDP.

To implement this directive, the UN Secretary‑General was requested to establish an expert group on beyond GDP. The High‑Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Beyond GDP was subsequently established in May 2025 to develop recommendations that the Pact for the Future indicates should be presented during the 80th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

Following the publication of its interim report in November 2025, the HLEG has focused on preparing its final recommendations. This report includes a list of priorities the HLEG identified along with clarifying metrics related to well‑being and sustainability. The HLEG has indicated it intends to design a dashboard of indicators that are also aligned with the SDGs.

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International momentum for this issue was reinforced by outcome of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) and the Sevilla Platform for Action, which includes more than 130 initiatives to turn commitments into practice. Efforts like the Beyond GDP Global Alliance and Youth Moving Beyond GDP were launched to help sustain attention and promote the development of beyond GDP metrics. The Compromiso de Sevilla also underscored the need to capture the full complexity of countries’ development realities, structural vulnerabilities, and needs, and invited international financial institutions (IFIs), multilateral development banks (MDBs), and international organizations to consider using the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) to inform their development cooperation policies and practices. The MVI was adopted by the UNGA in 2024 to create a fairer metric for development finance distribution with a particular focus on small islands developing States (SIDS).

Measures and approaches to address shortcomings of GDP

Efforts to improve measurement of national progress are not new. Early initiatives such as Nordhaus and Tobin’s Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW) aimed to capture welfare more accurately, while Daly and Cobb’s Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) included income distribution and natural capital depletion. Over time, a range of alternative measures has emerged in different forms including monetary, non‑monetary, aggregated, or presented as a dashboard.

The most well-known examples include Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ‘How’s Life?’ framework, and expanded wealth measures such as the World Bank’s Comprehensive Wealth and the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Inclusive Wealth (learn more with IISD’s online learning tool). Although their methodologies differ, these alternatives mostly aim to capture aspects of well‑being, sustainability, and equity that GDP fails to reflect. Current global discussions emphasize that the goal is not to replace GDP but to complement it with a richer set of indicators.

An additional development in measuring national progress is the ongoing revision of the UN’s System of National Accounts (SNA) 2025. A recent publication updates guidance on globalization and digitalization, addressing aspects of cross‑border production, and digital services, as well as aspects of informal economy and environmental impacts. While the new SNA incorporates aspects of sustainability, it does not integrate beyond GDP measures into the core accounting framework.

A few national efforts have been undertaken to develop these alternative metrics, including in Bhutan, New Zealand, the UK, and Canada. However, most beyond GDP metrics still rely on international databases and the capacity of global agencies for regular reporting. Applications in developing countries remain limited; IISD’s comprehensive wealth work has provided one of a small number of studies demonstrating the feasibility of establishing such metrics and exploring their policy relevance.

What we know about recommendations for the beyond GDP agenda

The HLEG’s interim report outlines a proposed approach anchored in the three pillars of sustainability along with resilience, institutional strength, and international cooperation. The report also proposes illustrative indicators covering material well‑being, health, education, environmental quality, subjective well‑being, social capital, and governance, and also aims to capture spillover effects across countries and regions.

During the March 2026 UNSC session, HLEG members reiterated several core messages. First, they stressed the importance of a limited, coherent, and policy‑relevant set of indicators. They said they would propose approximately 30 indicators, with roughly half drawn from existing SDG indicators. This concise approach reflects a deliberate intention not to overburden countries, particularly their national statistical offices (NSOs), with new resource requirements. The HLEG also suggested the UN produce an annual global beyond‑GDP report and a publicly accessible dashboard.

Finally, the HLEG emphasized that indicators’ adoption will be gradual. Countries will need sustained capacity-building and technical assistance. They stressed that national ownership will be crucial for ensuring that indicators are used effectively and adapted to national contexts.

Putting country ownership at the center as a priority

Through its work on beyond GDP, IISD, in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), has found the core challenge is to encourage governments to use beyond GDP indicators in policymaking and budgeting, rather than relying solely on short‑term GDP metrics. Data for many indicators can be assembled within national statistical offices, but the institutional and governance shifts needed to integrate a “new tool” into investment decisions remains the greatest challenge.

The Pact for the Future, the Compromiso de Sevilla, and a Member State briefing by the HLEG all show broad agreement on the need to move beyond GDP. During the March 2026 briefing, countries emphasized the need for indicators that reflect environmental conditions, social well‑being, equality, economic resilience, and national context. They also called for metrics that are practical, operationally feasible, adequately resourced, and aligned with existing frameworks such as the SDGs and the MVI.

Countries expressed support for an annual global report, a UN‑led dashboard, and complementary civil society reporting. However, this approach mirrors existing efforts such as the HDI and various wealth measures. Real integration into decision making requires deeper support – extending engagement beyond statistical offices to ministries of finance, planning, and sector ministries such as agriculture, water, health, education, and social services.

Commitment to country engagement and support on beyond GDP was stressed at the 2026 ECOSOC FfD Forum in New York, which took place in New York, US, from 20-24 April. During the Forum, the Beyond GDP Global Alliance was launched under the Sevilla Platform for Action, advancing commitments made at FfD4. Co‑led by Spain, Uruguay, and Senegal, with OECD, UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), the Beyond GDP Global Alliance brings together over 30 countries and international partners to integrate multidimensional measures of progress into development finance and public policymaking. It focuses on embedding beyond GDP approaches in planning, budgeting, resource allocation, and monitoring, while improving coherence across existing indicator frameworks. The Alliance emphasizes country‑led implementation with a focus on the Global South. This announcement was also the beginning of the Alliance’s operational phase for 2026-2027.

Where to go from here?

The final recommendations from the HLEG, including its proposed approach and accompanying indicator dashboard, are expected to be released in April 2026. The UNGA is expected to act on the recommendations in September 2026. Once adopted, the speed with which countries uptake the metrics will be critical.

Countries face overlapping economic, social, and climate pressures, making policymaking increasingly complex. Beyond GDP metrics can help navigate this complexity – but only if they are grounded in national ownership and supported by strong institutions. Countries need to integrate beyond GDP indicators into their national plans and use them to coordinate across ministries and embed them in sector strategies. Initiatives such as the Beyond GDP Global Alliance can assist with strengthening national capacities and support coordination efforts across countries and agencies to produce, analyze, and use these indicators alongside peer‑to‑peer learning and regional exchanges.

Maintaining momentum for beyond GDP measures will be crucial. With committed leadership, adequate capacity, and sustained global support, countries can shift from measuring economic output to measuring what truly matters for people, nature, and long‑term prosperity.

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This Policy Brief is part of a series that seeks to raise awareness of efforts to advance metrics that go beyond GDP, focusing primarily on publications produced by international agencies, peer-reviewed journals, and news stories. By highlighting topics of theoretical and conceptual significance, including suggestions and applications of specific indicators and indices to complement GDP, the series aims to inform and support sustainable development decision makers in their efforts to go beyond GDP. This project was made possible through financial support provided by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

The Policy Brief was updated to reflect the outcomes of the FfD Forum.