Wellbeing and Quality of Life Assessment

Human development may encompass social, cultural and spiritual facets as well as economic improvement, and development organizations are beginning to recognize this fact. But building into programming a wider understanding of development throws up a number of questions: how do our organizations define wellbeing and quality of life? What do target communities in the global north or south mean by a quality of life? How can we measure change in wellbeing, and attribute it to our programming? Wellbeing and Quality of Life Assessment is a practical resource for people working in social or development policy and practice who are thinking about integrating wellbeing or quality of life in their work in both the global North and South.The main body of the book presents different tools that have been developed and used in social and development policy and practice and outlines the inspiration behind their approach, how it works, what has been learnt through it, and issues and dilemmas that remain.

Sarah C. White is a senior lecturer at the University of Bath. She has more than ten years’ experience researching wellbeing in developing countries.

Robert Chambers is Research Associate and Emeritus Professor, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex and the author of Participatory Workshops (2002) and Ideas for Development (2005).

Asha Abeyasekera is a lecturer at the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has worked for more than ten years as a practitioner in the development sector.