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| Doing Good Index | |
|---|---|
| Name | Doing Good Index |
| Established | 2010s |
| Headquarters | London |
| Type | Index |
Doing Good Index
The Doing Good Index is a quantitative ranking that evaluates nations' performance on measures of social impact, welfare delivery, philanthropic activity, and institutional effectiveness. It synthesizes data from international organizations, academic studies, and nonprofit reporting to produce comparative scores used by policymakers, philanthropists, and researchers. The Index is often cited alongside other global measures and features in debates involving development strategies, humanitarian response, and corporate social responsibility.
The Index combines indicators from sources such as the United Nations, World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Labour Organization, World Health Organization, United Nations Children's Fund, and Global Burden of Disease Study to assess outcomes across multiple domains. It operationalizes concepts like social protection, public service delivery, charitable giving, and civil society capacity into an aggregate score that facilitates cross-national comparison. Users include foundations, bilateral donors like Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, multilateral agencies like the European Commission, and research centers at universities such as Harvard University and University of Oxford.
The methodological framework draws on statistical techniques employed by indices such as the Human Development Index, Index of Economic Freedom, and Global Innovation Index. Weighting schemes are informed by consultations with stakeholders from organizations including World Economic Forum, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Oxfam, and academic panels from institutions like London School of Economics and Stanford University. Data normalization uses procedures akin to those in the World Bank's World Development Indicators and handling of missing data reflects practices from the Penn World Table. Indicators are organized into pillars that reference datasets maintained by agencies like UNICEF, UNDP, International Monetary Fund, and Transparency International.
Rankings are published for regions defined by bodies such as the African Union, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, European Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Country-level reports often highlight performance in nations including Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Sweden, and Netherlands at the top of the scale, while countries affected by conflict—examples include Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, and Afghanistan—typically appear lower due to humanitarian crises documented by UNHCR and International Committee of the Red Cross. Regional analyses reference economic cycles tracked by the International Monetary Fund and demographic shifts reported by the United Nations Population Fund.
Scholars comparing the Index with measures such as the Gini coefficient, Human Development Index, and Corruption Perceptions Index note trends like convergence among high-income OECD members and divergence in fragile states highlighted by World Bank Fragility Forum. Critics from think tanks like Brookings Institution and NGOs such as Amnesty International argue that the Index can overemphasize measurable outputs at the expense of contextual factors emphasized in work by Sen and Friedman (Milton)-era debates. Methodological criticisms have been raised regarding indicator selection paralleling disputes seen with the Ease of Doing Business report and transparency concerns similar to controversies around the World Happiness Report.
The Index has been used to inform grant-making strategies by foundations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Wellcome Trust, to prioritize bilateral aid allocations by agencies like USAID and DFID, and to shape corporate social responsibility benchmarks for companies listed on exchanges like the London Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. It appears in policy briefs circulated among officials at the European Commission, African Development Bank, and Asian Development Bank, and is cited in parliamentary committee hearings in legislatures such as the House of Commons and United States Congress.
Key comparative frameworks include the Human Development Index, Global Peace Index, Social Progress Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, Global Competitiveness Report, and the Sustainable Development Goals monitoring framework coordinated by the United Nations General Assembly. Academic comparisons often reference work published by research centers at Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and papers presented at conferences like the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.
Category:Indices Category:Social policy