Businesses benefit from a social contract
Companies have their part to play in making New Zealand a better place, writes Linda Meade, corporate finance partner at Deloitte NZ
Compared to the tumult and uncertainty in other parts of the world brought on by Brexit and the US presidential race, not to mention the seemingly constant revolving door to Australia’s top job, New Zealanders would do well to take stock of our relative stability and wellbeing.
According to the recently released 2016 Social Progress Index (SPI) New Zealand is the world’s 10th most socially advanced country. We are one of the most tolerant countries and we enjoy the strongest personal rights anywhere in the world.
The Index, now in its third year, measures what really matters to people – things like health care, infrastructure and civil liberties – the very characteristics that are the foundation of sustainable societies. It looks beyond economic indicators like GDP to get a global, and country, view of people’s quality of life, independent of wealth. It compares countries based on 53 indicators across three dimensions of basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing and opportunity.
Among the top dozen countries in the Index, New Zealand was the only one classed as an ‘‘over performer’’ because of our relative performance despite our lower level of per capita GDP.
While the Index ranks countries, the ranking is just one part of the story. It highlights success wherever it exists and shows that societal improvements can be made everywhere and at every level of development. So what do the results show our strengths and weaknesses are as a country?
New Zealand’s strongest area was personal rights, scoring top or joint top on every one of the range of indicators used in the category. Those indicators included freedom of speech, political rights and freedom of assembly.
Areas where we did less well included health and wellness, with a ranking of 29th. A particular problem was the 29 per cent of us considered to be overweight, putting New Zealand near the bottom of the list in 126th place on this indicator. We have a well-documented problem with affordable housing where we ranked 59th, and our suicide rate was also high.
The SPI offers a unique view that everyone, including businesses, can use when making societal improvements. We think businesses have the power and the imperative to help address society’s challenges, and the Index can be a powerful tool to navigate these contributions.
At Deloitte we are particularly keen on social investment as a way to target some of New Zealand’s most wicked and persistent problems. Our recently released State of the State New Zealand 2016 report recommends that social investment becomes a more mainstream way of working across our social sector.
And government agrees, recently allocating an additional $650 million over the next four years for applying social investment to help at-risk New Zealanders, including more support for vulnerable children as well as initiatives in corrections, education and health.
At its core, social investment is data driven. And the data from the SPI can help focus our policy makers on additional areas where the investment approach might be explored.
The latest round of SPI results shows us we have some work to do to ensure more of us can benefit from our high level of social progress.
Visit the websites www.socialprogressimperative.org and www.deloitte.com/nz/stateofthestate, for more information about New Zealand society.