Grieve Chelwa, Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Associate Professor of Political Economy at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University (GSU), participated online in a United Nations expert roundtable on “Beyond GDP: From Metrics to a Transformative Paradigm” on October 8, 2025. The discussion focused on redefining measures of economic and social progress to better reflect human rights, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
The hybrid roundtable, co-organized by OHCHR, UNRISD, UNCTAD, UNOG Beyond Lab, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, supports the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP.
Speaking from Sharjah, Prof Chelwa highlighted the historical and structural limitations of GDP in Africa. “In the African case, the beyond GDP discussion is long overdue. The shortcomings of GDP have long been highlighted by African economists, historians, statisticians, and leaders of social and political movements,” he said.
He emphasized that national statistics often fail to capture large informal sectors: “If you land in Lusaka, Zambia, you will see informality everywhere, but it is absent from official statistics. Many policy disasters arise from a hyper-fixation on GDP that is terribly undermeasured.”
Prof Chelwa also linked these limitations to the colonial roots of national accounting: “The logic of focusing national accounts on commodity exports, to the neglect of almost everything else, continued post-independence. This discussion has the potential to decolonize the system of national accounting present in many parts of the African continent.”
The roundtable included prominent global scholars such as Naila Kabeer (LSE), Sabina Alkire (Oxford), Sandrine Dixson-Declève (Earth4All), and Rania Antonopoulos (Levy Economics Institute). The session explored how economic indicators can be designed to reflect both universal and local priorities while embedding human rights, gender equality, and environmental sustainability at the core of development measurement.
Grieve Chelwa, Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Associate Professor of Political Economy at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University (GSU), participated online in a United Nations expert roundtable on “Beyond GDP: From Metrics to a Transformative Paradigm” on October 8, 2025. The discussion focused on redefining measures of economic and social progress to better reflect human rights, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
Grieve Chelwa, Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Associate Professor of Political Economy at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University (GSU), participated online in a United Nations expert roundtable on “Beyond GDP: From Metrics to a Transformative Paradigm” on October 8, 2025. The discussion focused on redefining measures of economic and social progress to better reflect human rights, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
The hybrid roundtable, co-organized by OHCHR, UNRISD, UNCTAD, UNOG Beyond Lab, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, supports the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP.
Speaking from Sharjah, Prof Chelwa highlighted the historical and structural limitations of GDP in Africa. “In the African case, the beyond GDP discussion is long overdue. The shortcomings of GDP have long been highlighted by African economists, historians, statisticians, and leaders of social and political movements,” he said.
He emphasized that national statistics often fail to capture large informal sectors: “If you land in Lusaka, Zambia, you will see informality everywhere, but it is absent from official statistics. Many policy disasters arise from a hyper-fixation on GDP that is terribly undermeasured.”
Prof Chelwa also linked these limitations to the colonial roots of national accounting: “The logic of focusing national accounts on commodity exports, to the neglect of almost everything else, continued post-independence. This discussion has the potential to decolonize the system of national accounting present in many parts of the African continent.”
The roundtable included prominent global scholars such as Naila Kabeer (LSE), Sabina Alkire (Oxford), Sandrine Dixson-Declève (Earth4All), and Rania Antonopoulos (Levy Economics Institute). The session explored how economic indicators can be designed to reflect both universal and local priorities while embedding human rights, gender equality, and environmental sustainability at the core of development measurement.
Subscribe to our mailing list and get the latest news from The Africa Institute
