WAAS – Challenges 21st Century1
Some Emerging Challenges on the Social Consequences and Policy Implications
of Knowledge Advances for Global Civilization in the 21st Century
Objectives / Potential Challenges & Actions- Human Dignity & Actualization
- Knowledge & Skills: Encouraging individuals to acquire, use & generate knowledge& skills for meeting their needs, enterprise & employment flexibility
- 'Environment': Nurture an enabling ‘environment’ for individual & group enterprise, competition, innovation & risk-taking
- Styles & Approaches: Harness the rich & diverse talents of global multi-cultural societies to search for styles & approaches (a) to solve problems, & (b) to exploit & manage opportunities
- Recognition: Recognize ‘heroes’ who have generated wealth through enterprise in various forms (e.g. arts, science, commerce, engineering)
- Social & Cultural Capital: Encourage individuals to learn knowledge & skills from others, to be aware & motivated, to create social, cultural & economic capital, to gain personal satisfaction & contentment (i.e. the feeling of ‘making a difference’), & to gain meaning & enlightenment when linked with, responding to, having a vested interest in & committing to their ‘neighbours’ or associates in a place, local organization or social business
- Enterprise & Organization
- Creative Leadership: Encourage the emergence of leaders in enterprises who constantly challenge the status quo & display creative dissatisfaction for better political effectiveness & social & ‘environmental’ sustainability
- Emergency Preparedness: Prepare citizens for abrupt & irreversible environmental changes & extremes (e.g. climate change impacts) that threaten livelihoods, food security & health
- ‘Community’ Organization: Encourage ‘local’ communities & neighbourhoods to organize themselves in terms of a stable composition, cohesiveness, mutual support, transformation & change, harnessing energy & creativity, outward-looking, being engaged, ensuring safety & security, communication, & responding to threats & adversity
- ‘Neighbourhood Trusts’: Encourage formation of neighbourhood ‘trusts’ at different levels with a clear focus, cause, purpose, beliefs; & with an ability to form alliances & partnerships to communicate, care for the group, access resources, realize freedoms, & to promote security similar in function to site-bound parishes & communities
- Capacity Development: Enable individuals to acquire basic knowledge, concepts, understanding & skills (‘soft’ skills) with technical support tailored to their needs & aptitudes so that they may be able to choose & develop their potential, talents & career at a time of rapidly changing technology & knowledge redundancy
- Creative Livelihoods: Promote an understanding of converging skills & capabilities needed for work & life (i.e. life-long learning & coherence), autonomous livelihoods & self-actualization, individual creativity & initiatives, wealth creation in various forms, & for leadership in a world influenced by consumerism, sophisticated technology, IT & global labour markets
- Global Governance & Resilience
- Economic stability: Promote economic stability through various measures such as low inflation & interest rates, low bureaucracy & regulation, tax incentives & regimes, good infrastructure, balancing equity with efficiency, increasing employment opportunities, enhancing individual & corporate reputations in international ‘markets’
- Security Potential & Limits: Encourage knowledge & understanding about the potentials & limits of internal & external security (e.g. environmental, nuclear, technological, social)
- Public Information: Provide robust public information to enlighten individuals on alternative consumption lifestyles, food & water security, healthy & creative livelihoods, & pathways to reprocessing & recycling of domestic & industrial wastes
- Consumption Patterns: Promote reduced energy & materials use & wastage to redress the impact of individual 'footprints' on nature’s absorption capacity (‘metabolism’) through ‘green’ policies, a variety of reprocessing practices & opportunities that create ‘resource loops’, & through corporate / social reporting on environmental impacts & waste generation
- Ethical Values: Encourage all individuals to understand & share the five (5) ethical values for responsible citizenship important in every culture: Honesty, Responsibility, Respect, Fairness, & Compassion, so that they may invest in the formation of human, intellectual, social, cultural, ethical & financial capital
- Democracy & Accountability: Promote democracy, universal suffrage, equal voting, public accountability of all associations, partnership arrangements, strong leadership (within & outside organizations), internal visionaries, external pressures, & citizens’ rights
- Investments: Ensure the rights & responsibilities of 'investors' to promote efficient enterprises, secure a local 'market' or competitive advantage over the medium term in return for their social investments, ensure a decent wage, & to pay reasonable & democratically-agreed taxes
- Popular power: Harness the creativity, innovation & cultural power of people to promote social & economic transactions & changes, & to exploit & manage social & economic opportunities
Historical revolutions that have enhanced Knowledge & challenged human creativity in risk assessment & exploration of opportunistic enterprises:
From small family / extended family bands to large clans based on kinship
From primitive stone-age to advanced iron-age hunter-gatherers based on tools
From hunter-gatherers to settled farmers & pastoralists based on water management
From simple social organization to complex societies with division of labour, hierarchy & trade based on surplus production
From feudal societies to nation states, and now to a world / global order based on the recognition of human rights & responsibilities, and universal suffrage
From a culture of patronage & serfdom to universal suffrage & democratic participation in nation state (social emancipation)
From metropolitan / imperial nations dependent on colonies & ‘slavery’ to independent nations with some historical & trade linkages but with partnerships in development based on realization of the limits to isolationism
From independent nation states to regional federation of states based on sharing investments, benefits & risks
From labour-intensive to mechanical, electrical, nuclear electronic technologies based on the fundamental building blocks of the universe
From organic to genetic technologies based on the building blocks of life
From composite to nano-technologies based on outer space experiences & demands
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Jose I dos R Furtado
18thJune 2009