For decades, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its growth have been treated as the closest thing the world has to a measure of progress. Yet GDP growth has coexisted with persistent inequality, environmental degradation, and declining trust in public institutions.

GDP, as a single indicator, has innumerable limitations in both capturing and guiding the strategy and direction of the world economy. Even his own creator, Simon Kuznets warned in 1934: “the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from measurement of national income.”

Over the years, I have followed with interest trends and news about potential alternatives and initiatives aimed at improving our collective Key Performance Indicators —KPIs.

Some years ago, I wrote a hard science fiction story, published in 2020³, in which a new index I called OPI serves as the pretext for the inciting incident.

2039 will be remembered as the first year in which the Objective Progress Index (OPI), calculated for the global economy, turns negative for the first time since its definition and methodology were approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 2028.

Now, a new report¹ written by a multidisciplinary committee of researchers and policymakers, assembled last year by UN Secretary General António Guterres, and co- chaired by economists Kaushik Basu and Nora Lustig, has just been published.

For several decades, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been the primary metric used to guide policy decisions. Originally designed to measure the changing scale of aggregate economic activity, it has slowly become a proxy for overall societal well-being. Policymakers rely on it to allocate resources, identify recessions and expansions, and benchmark national performance. International organizations use it to compare and group countries; financial markets use it to gauge economic prospects; and the media and the public use it as the ultimate shorthand for progress. GDP has become, in short, the number by which the world judges itself.

They developed a conceptual framework and proposed a dashboard of 31 indicators that measure key dimensions of progress. The report also sets out what each constituency must do to bring this agenda to life.

I wonder whether Basu and Lastig will eventually play — or are already playing — the role of my mysterious Noah König² 😉

Let us welcome this new initiative!

But I must also confess that, looking at the current moment of continuous delusion about sustainable development goals and geopolitical conflict, I fear that, saying —very much used in my country goes— the cure may be worse than the disease.

Let’s hope not, and finally agree better KPIs for progress.

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(1) United Nations. “Beyond GDP.” Accessed May 10, 2026. https://www.un.org/en/beyondGDP.
(2) So far, it’s all unfolding according to my forecast 😉
(3) Francisco J. Jariego, “Memorias de un dragón”, 2020