Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.

Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder
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On Happiness

April 25, 2014

This just in: Pharrell Williams is Danish?

The April 16th edition of the excellent Trade Fact of the Week blog hosted by Progressive Economy cites the UN’s World Happiness Report and reveals that the Danes are the world’s happiest folks; residents of the Central African Republic, Togo, and Benin are the least happy. The blog’s snarky analysis then notes that Jeff Sachs (a co-editor of the survey) tries to make the case that Americans are foolish to believe that money buys happiness. Sadly, the survey data suggest the opposite: a pretty clear positive correlation between happiness and per capita income. Sad trombone. It’s awkward when your data don’t back up your analysis.

Who reads this stuff?

The Alliance for Peacebuilding has put together an excellent series of weekly webinars through its Network for Peacebuilding Evaluation. The April 17th edition offered thoughts from Bob Berg on “Are Evaluations Ever Read, Ever Used?” He’s a smart guy. Read it. Use it.  

Repeating for clarity: Next APEP Breakfast on May 21st 

When last we hosted one of our legendary APEP breakfasts, we promised that the next would take place May 1st. We lied. But we don’t want an angry crowd seeking free coffee and almond croissants on Mayday. So please correct those calendars: on May 21st we will welcome Marialice Ariens from USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) and Oriana Wuerth from Chemonics for a morning conversation about their new “Advocacy Index”. The Index covers five key competency areas needed for an effective advocacy initiative. As usual, we’ll be starting at 8:15AM. Submit your RSVP here.