The government needs to promote more than economic growth

Press release Rli - 9 july 2024

The public measure their wellbeing by more than their material well-being. For them, wellbeing is also about factors such as health, safety, the quality of their living environment and the quality of education. We refer to this set of factors as wellbeing. The promotion of wellbeing by the government will lead to better policies for the public. However, this can only succeed if the pros and cons are systematically taken into account when making these policies. This is not happening enough at the moment. These are the conclusions reached by the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure (Rli) in its advisory report 'Meaningful Government: Promoting Wellbeing' presented today to Minister Hermans for Climate Policy and Green Growth, Minister Heinen for Finance and Minister Beljaarts for Economic Affairs.

The Rli notes that a number of factors that determine wellbeing are not in good shape. For instance, our natural environment is not in good shape, the housing shortage is worsening and the prevalence of obesity is rising. Government policy is currently failing to place a systematic focus on all these factors. On top of this, not enough attention is being paid to the distribution of wellbeing between groups of citizens, between current and future generations and between the Netherlands and other countries. Adopting a different approach will enable politicians to make better informed assessments, resulting in better decisions for the public.

In order to promote wellbeing, the Council believes the government needs to:

Gather more and better information to better identify the impact of different potential policy measures and investments. This will provide politicians and administrators with a clearer picture of dilemmas.
Base policy choices on this information so that all factors of wellbeing are systematically taken into account in assessments. Since not everyone has the same vision of wellbeing, final policy choices remain value-driven and therefore political.
Make the consequences of choices visible in the national budget. This is a fundamental change, because it means making decisions based on more than just money.
Reach better agreements at regional level between central government, provinces, municipalities and water authorities so that wellbeing is also promoted more effectively on a regional scale.

Note to editors

To request interviews, please contact the Council’s Communication Officer Anneke Verschoor at anneke.verschoor@rli.nl or on +31 (0)6 1535 9540. For more information about the advisory report, please contact Project Leader Douwe Wielenga at douwe.wielenga@rli.nl, or on +31 (0)6 2124 0809

You can download the press release and the advisory report from www.rli.nl from 9 July 2024 at 10.00 a.m.