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Short Overview Challenge 5 - How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?
Video Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbwgK6jVfsc&feature=PlayList&p=2C7D2B78000F1C2D&index=6
Success - the State of the Future Index or similar systems are used regularly in decision making, when national corporate law is modified to recognize transinstitutional organizations, and when at least 50 countries require elected officials to be trained in decision making.
In March 2009 an asteroid missed Earth by 77,000 kilometers, 80% closer to the planet than the moon is. If it had hit Earth, it would have wiped out all life on 800 square kilometers. No one knew it was coming. Few people knew the global financial crisis was coming; fewer still forecast its breadth and depth. We need global, national, and local systems for resilience—the capacities to anticipate, respond, and recover from disasters, while identifying future technological and social innovations and opportunities.
Government leaders should make these systems (see Appendix 4.2 for an example of a collective intelligence system) as transparent as possible to include and increase the public’s collective intelligence. These systems should be supported by global scanning systems (interoperable with all government departments) with the ability to identify and assess expert judgments in near real-time (see Chapter 3). Staff should synthesize futures research from other government departments, calculate a national SOFI (State of the Future Index see Chapter 2), and produce national state of the future reports. Government future strategy units (see Appendix 4.1) could be connected to share best practices, compare research, and verify assumptions, just as the UN Network of Strategic Planning Units connects 12 UN agencies. These two networks could also be connected with the Office of the UN Secretary-General to help coordinate national and international strategies and goals. Decisionmakers and their advisors should be trained in futures research for optimal use of these systems (see http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/FRM-V3.html).
The G-20 was initiated to improve global long-range policymaking, and one day the G-2 (U.S.-China) may lead global climate change and other long-range policies. National legislatures could establish standing “Committees for the Future,” as Finland has done. National foresight studies should be continually updated, improved, and conducted interactively with other national long-range efforts. Alternative scenarios that show cause-and-effect relations and expose decision points leading to different consequences from different strategies should be shared with parliamentarians and the public for feedback. Government budgets should consider 5–10 year allocations attached to rolling 5–10 year scenarios and strategies. Governments with short-term election cycles should consider longer, more stable terms and funds for staff of parliamentarians. If national SOFIs were constructed and used in evaluating policymakers’ performance, decisionmakers would be more inclined to pursue policies that address the longer term. A checklist of ways to better connect futures research to decision making is available in Chapter 11 of the attached CD.
Communications and advertising companies can create memes to help the public become sensitive to global long-term perspectives so that more future-oriented educated publics would elect more future-oriented global-minded politicians. Prizes could be given to recognize the best examples of global long-term decision making. Participatory policy-making processes augmented by e-government services can be created that are informed by futures research. Universities should fund the convergence of disciplines, teach futures research and synthesis as well as analysis, and produce generalists in addition to specialists. Efforts to increase the number and quality of courses on futures concepts and methods should be supported, as well as augmenting standard curricula with futures methodologies converted to teaching techniques that help future-orient instruction.
Although there is increasing recognition that accelerating change requires longer-term perspectives, decision makers feel little pressure to consider global long-term perspectives. Nevertheless, attaining long-range goals like landing on the moon or eradicating smallpox that were considered impossible inspired many people to go beyond selfish, short-term interests to great achievements. (An international assessment of such future goals is found in Chapter 4.2 on the CD.) Growing threats to human survival discussed throughout the challenges in this chapter, though temporarily masked by the global financial crisis, are accelerating value shifts and drawing attention to the need for longer-term policymaking. Local governments are often responding faster than national ones; commercial organizations are also responding to changing stakeholder values and modifying their behavior accordingly.
Each of the 15 Global Challenges in this chapter and the eight UN Millennium Development Goals—which have become benchmarks for the future—could be the basis for transinstitutional coalitions composed of self-selected governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and international organizations that are willing to commit the resources and talent to address a specific goal.
Challenge 5 will be addressed seriously when foresight functions are a routine part of most organizations and governments, when national SOFIs are used in at least 50 countries, when the consequences of high-risk projects are routinely considered before they are initiated, and when standing Committees for the Future exist in at least 50 national legislatures.