New Zealand Ranked World’s 5th Most Socially Advanced Country Ahead of Australia in 10th

NZ secures top 5 ranking in ‘personal rights’, ‘tolerance and inclusion’ & ‘access to basic knowledge’

(13:00 NZST, April 9th 2015) New Zealand is the world’s 5th most socially advanced nation according to the Social Progress Index 2015 published today by US-based nonprofit,the Social Progress Imperative, and released at the 2015 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

Measuring a country’s social progress outcomes, the Index identifies those areas in which New Zealand is over performing compared to nations with a comparable GDP per capita. It is on citizens’ personal rights that New Zealand registers its most impressive result: assessing a range of measures including the extent of peoples’ freedom of speech, political rights and freedom of assembly, New Zealand scores top on every one - explaining its first place finish. New Zealand also scores well on ‘access to information and communications’ (8th), finishing ahead of Germany (9th), the UK (15th), Australia (17th), and the US (23rd). This impressive result is partly due to the high rate of mobile telephone subscriptions as well as a high ranking (6th) for ‘press freedoms’ and represents an over performance benchmarked against countries with a comparable GDP per capita.

The annual study placed New Zealand behind top ranked Norway and Sweden (2nd), Switzerland (3rd) and Iceland (4th) but ahead of the UK (11th), Germany (14th), US (16th), France (21st) and Italy (31st). The Social Progress Index 2015 ranked 133 countries based on their social and environmental performance, using 52 indicators to calculate the final rankings. Across these 52 indicators, New Zealand finished top or joint top in no less than 20. New Zealand’s result is particularly impressive in the context of it relative economic weakness compared to countries that finished much lower on the Index. New Zealand enjoys the world’s 22th highest GDP per capita of $32,808*, yet it finished above the US in 16th ranking with a per capita GDP of over $51,000*; Germany in 14th with a per capita GDP of over $43,000*; and Australia in 10th with a per capita GDP of over $42,000*.

Michael Green Executive Director of the Social Progress Imperative, said: “New Zealand’s ranking as the 5th most socially progressive nation on earth is a fantastic result. It’s some accolade that across so many measures New Zealand outperforms countries like the United States, UK and Australia. It’s particularly on the measure of ‘opportunity’ that New Zealand performs strongly thanks to its top global ranking on ‘personal rights’.”

The Social Progress Index, was created by a team whose chief advisor is Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School and is designed as a complement to GDP and other economic indicators to provide a more holistic understanding of countries’ overall performance.

Key New Zealand findings:

Strengths:

• New Zealand does not underperform on any of the 12 aggregated components when measured against countries of a comparable level of GDP - which includes comparison with France, Japan, UK, Finland and Italy.

• New Zealand finishes 1st globally on ‘personal rights’, owing to impressive results - finishing in top spot for every one of the indicators that makes up this component, which includes freedom of speech and political rights. The UK and Australia finish joint 2nd with the US in 24th.

• On ‘personal freedom and choice’ New Zealand finishes 7th globally (ahead of the UK in 12th and the US in 15th) - a relative over-performance - thanks in part to top ranking on the measure of freedom of religion and 2nd place globally on the measure of corruption.

• On ‘tolerance and inclusion’ New Zealand scores 5th globally, thanks partly to its high tolerance for immigrants and religious tolerance. This is behind Canada (3rd), but ahead of Australia (11th), the US (15th) and the UK (21st).

• On ‘access to information and communications’ New Zealand ranks 8th globally, a relatively strong result compared to countries of a similar GDP, although the Netherlands (2nd) and Switzerland (7th) come higher than New Zealand on this measure.

Notable (neither strength nor weakness):

• On the 12 components which make up the Index, New Zealand beats Australia (10th overall in the global ranking) in seven, with a joint ranking on one (both sharing top spot for ‘water and sanitation’). Although New Zealand and Australia rank first for ‘water and sanitation’, they share this rank with a number of other nations, including Germany, Norway and France.

• On ‘nutrition and basic medical care’ New Zealand ranks 28th globally owing to a relatively high child mortality rate (6.3 deaths per 1000 live births - 34th ranking). This is behind Australia (4/1000 live births), Japan (2.9/1000) and the UK (4.6/1000), but ahead of the US (6.9/1000) and Russia (10.1/1000).

• On ‘ecosystem sustainability’ New Zealand ranks 34th, with a low rank of 61st for ‘water withdrawals as a percentage of resources’, behind Switzerland (1st) and Germany (24th). However, on ‘ecosystem sustainability’ it is ahead of the UK (60th), Australia (64th) and the US (74th).

• New Zealand scores well on the ‘access to basic knowledge’ component finishing 3rd globally, behind Spain (2nd) and Japan (1st), but ahead of France (4th), UK (18th) Australia (29th) and the US (45th). Included in this is literacy rate and secondary school enrolment in which New Zealand scores top. This result however, neither represents an under or over performance in this component.

Key global highlights:

• Norway is this year’s top performing country, followed by Sweden (2nd), Switzerland (3rd), Iceland (4th) and New Zealand (5th). Though these countries’ social progress scores are very similar their GDP per capita vary widely (Norway $62,448; New Zealand $32,808), showing that higher GDP can help generate higher social progress but it is not the whole story.

• Canada (6th) is the best performing G7 country and is the only G7 country to show ‘Very High Social Progress’.

• Brazil is the top of the BRICS, followed by South Africa, Russia, China and India. Russia has a much higher GDP per capita than Brazil (42nd) and South Africa (63rd) yet ranks lower on the Social Progress Index in 71st.

• Sweden (2nd) is the best performing country in European Union.

• The world’s biggest over-performer (assessing SPI result against a group of countries with a comparable GDP per capita) is Costa Rica. The only country in Europe to over-perform is Sweden.

• It is possible to calculate a global social progress score, as an average of country scores weighted by population. On this measure the world as a whole scores 61/100 on the Social Progress Index, equivalent to Cuba and Kazakhstan.

• The world shows a markedly strong performance on two components of the Social Progress Index in particular: ‘nutrition and basic medical care’ and ‘access to basic knowledge’. It is notable that these components encompass many of the priorities of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals that have been a major focus of aid and development efforts for the past 15 years.

• The components of the Social Progress Index where the world fares worst are ‘tolerance and inclusion’, ‘personal rights’, ‘access to advanced education’, and ‘ecosystem sustainability’. These are issues where even the more advanced countries can struggle to score highly. ‘Tolerance and inclusion’ and ‘personal rights’ are also less correlated with GDP per capita while ‘ecosystem sustainability’ scores tend not to rise with GDP per capita.

Steve Almond, Chairman, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte Global), said: “Economic growth that is inclusive and sustainable is important for business and vital for building a prosperous society. The Social Progress Index is a practical guide to directing resources toward the issues that can unlock this growth. For business, the Index is a necessary tool in the 21st century—guiding investment, informing social responsibility strategies and better understanding the impact and purpose of business in society beyond profit—all key in attracting and retaining today’s talent who increasingly want to work for purpose-driven businesses.”

Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, said: “This year’s Social Progress Index reported the world’s progress, rolling up the collective results from 133 countries. Sadly, as a whole, the world earned a failing grade, ranking in the bottom 40 percent of countries. Of particular concern is the world’s performance on ‘opportunity’, which very closely correlates to personal well-being. This is a wake-up call rich and poor countries alike should heed!”

Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School, who chairs the Index’s Advisory Board, said: “Inclusive growth requires achieving both economic and social progress. A striking finding is that GDP is far from being the sole determinant of social progress. The pitfalls of focusing on GDP alone are evident in the findings of the 2015 Social Progress Index. Countries must invest in social progress, not just economic institutions, to create the proper foundation for economic growth.”

The Social Progress Imperative created the Social Progress Index working in collaboration with scholars from the Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as international organizations in social entrepreneurship, business and philanthropy led by the Skoll Foundation and Fundación Avina as well as Cisco, Compartamos Banco, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte Global) and its member firms (Deloitte).

END

Notes to editors:

2015 Results

The full, interactive dataset from the Index will be available from 13.00 NZST, 9th April at: http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi Please note that due to a variety of changes made to this year’s index including the number of countries covered, the 2014 Social Progress Index is not comparable to the 2015 Social Progress Index.

About the Social Progress Imperative

The Social Progress Imperative’s mission is to improve the lives of people around the world, particularly the least well off, by advancing global social progress by: providing a robust, holistic and innovative measurement tool—the Social Progress Index (SPI); fostering research and knowledge-sharing on social progress; and equipping leaders and change-makers in business, government and civil society with new tools to guide policies and programs.

Financial Support

The Social Progress Imperative is registered as a nonprofit organization in the US, and is grateful to the following organizations for their financial support: Cisco, Compartamos Banco, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. (Deloitte Global), Fundación Avina, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Skoll Foundation.

What is social progress?

Social progress is defined as the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens to improve their lives, and create the conditions for individuals and communities to meet their full potential.

*GDP per capita definition

The Social Progress Index uses the World Bank definition: “GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP as the U.S. dollar has in the US. GDP at purchaser's prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in constant 2011 international dollars.”

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