Events
World Bank Youth Summit 2014

World Bank Youth Summit ... October 2014 ... Application details

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

An 'Open and Responsive Government' is a good idea, and though ideas are powerful they do not get traction unless there are relevant impact accounting metrics like those in TrueValueMetrics.

I have more than 50 years of very varied career experience that has relevance to young people and they need not make the same mistakes that my generation has made. I see huge potential in young people, but in many cases they have education and training that inhibits breakthrough change. Without meaningful metrics there will be more mistakes than there need to be.

TrueValueMetrics is developing and deploying Multi Dimension Impact Accounting (MDIA) that expands conventional money profit accounting into every dimension of society and the economy. MDIA accounts for impact on people and planet as rigorously as conventional accounting accounts for money transactions. This is accounting for the 21st century and a prerequisite for open and responsive government.

As an older person (53 years since I left Cambridge) I have experience, but it is youth that are going to develop and deploy the tools that are needed for high performance organizations in the 21st century. I want to share my thinking about data architecture for efficient decision making and performance oversight. Though education is better than it was in the past, how education and knowledge is applied in real world situations depends on information that never gets into the classroom. We need to be careful that new solutions do not become breeding grounds for new problems. We need metrics that are meaningful about everything that matters … something that is now possible, but will only be achieved if we avoid the mistakes we have made repeatedly in the past. Accounting is a very powerful management tool perfectly suited to the environment of an open and responsive government but only if the design is right.