For decades, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been the primary language of development. It remains an essential indicator for capturing economic output, national income, and macroeconomic stability, while enabling comparison across countries. GDP is not the problem. Yet it was designed for a different era, when the central concern was how fast an economy could grow. Today’s challenges, geopolitical uncertainty, climate pressures, shifting labor markets, and rising demands for inclusion, have changed the question. Growth alone is no longer sufficient; what matters increasingly is its quality, resilience, and sustainability, and whether it translates into tangible improvements in people’s lives.
Indonesia now stands at a pivotal moment. The country is at the peak of its demographic dividend, deeply connected to global economic dynamics, and guided by a national development vision that already recognizes prosperity as multidimensional. This initiative seeks to complement GDP with a more holistic welfare framework: one that is practical, context-specific, and informed by global best practices. The goal is not to replace GDP, but to enrich how progress is understood, communicated, and translated into policy. If the way we measure progress shapes the future we build, the question is this: are our current indicators enough to reflect the kind of prosperity Indonesia aspires to, and what new possibilities might emerge if we chose to measure what truly matters?
This thought-provoking presentation was delivered by Nadia Habibie, a member of The Habibie Center’s Board of Directors, at the Indonesia Economic Summit 2026 as a call to action for the audience to rethink how national progress is defined beyond growth alone, engage in cross-sector dialogue to identify metrics that reflect resilience, inclusion, and well-being, and ultimately translate these ideas into concrete policy conversations and collective experimentation for Indonesia’s next phase of development.
To learn more, please visit the link below:
Beyond GDP: Redefining Growth And Prosperity by Nadia Habibie
