with support from
Megatrend Meta-Analysis ABOUT THE PROJECT Biodiversity
W Demographics
Security
e inhabit an increasingly interconnected world, yet today’s policymakers and advisors view each issue in a vacuum, focusing primarily on the near-term impacts of their decisions. Efforts to improve this system and broaden the field of vision of our policymakers are critical today, and will be into the 21st century. The Bertelsmann Foundation, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, is currently conducting the Megatrends Meta-Analysis (MeMA), an innovative project exploring the intersections of large-scale trends in society from 2020 to 2100. The central goal of this project is to help policymakers, communities, and citizens understand how some of today’s most significant issues are likely to interact over the next century, and to encourage them to act on this information. MeMA will include a rich, detailed on-line platform for research and discussion, integrating content from the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Megatrends Meta-Analysis with trend-scouting “Searchlights” conducted by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Relaunch of FutureChallenges.org Website The Megatrend Meta-Analysis project is pleased to announce the relaunch of our www.futurechallenges.org website!
Governance
Globalization
Energy
The new FutureChallenges.org highlights the goals of the project: to raise awareness about global challenges, and to understand and discuss the linkages among the megatrends. We hope that this new website will foster dialogue between international users and provide information and opinions on the direction of future challenges. FutureChallenges.org features lead articles, which provide a broad overview on a topic, as well as local views, which are blog posts written by our international blogger team. These posts explore challenges from personal and local standpoints. Local views provide regional perspectives on international challenges.
Lead articles connect to add-ons such as videos, studies and links to further research. The new platform also contains links to our policy wiki and recent publications. It also highlights events produced in collaboration with other organizations, and recent publications. On the next page you will find a guide to the FutureChallenges.org homepage with links to our featured content. We are proud of the new FutureChallenges.org, and we hope that our visitors will learn from the posts and each other, become active in the Future Challenges community, and enjoy the platform. We invite you to visit our homepage and follow FutureChallenges on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We look forward to your contributions to FutureChallenges.
Update 3\ July - September 2011
Bertelsmann Foundation Megatrend Meta-Analysis
Global Economic Symposium
Publishing the Megatrends Papers
The Global Economic Symposium (GES) took place October 4-6 in Kiel, Germany with a focus on “New Forces of Global Governance”. Each year the GES aims to provide a collaborative setting to analyze the world’s most important economic problems, create shared visions of the future, and fomulate innovative strategies to achieve these visions. The GES thereby seeks to be a catalyst for change.
The six megatrends papers are near completion, and we are in the preliminary stages of publishing print versions. The papers will be available online as eBooks on futurechallenges.org shortly and will become a part of our Policy Wiki.
Future Challenges was a partner of the GES and shared key topics and discussions on the futurechallenges.org website that features posts and video interviews with attendees, as well as updates on debates. Future Challenges bloggers Alexey Sidorenko, Craig Willy, Corina Murafa, Artur Kacprzak, Ulla Keienburg, and Aniko Meszaros attended the GES.
The paper topics and authors are listed below.
The Megatrends Authors GLOBAL GOVERNANCE Bruce Jones Director and Senior Fellow, New York University Center on International Cooperation GLOBAL SECURITY
Please visit futurechallenges.org/ges2011/ for more information about the GES, including articles, blog posts and video interviews.
Benjamin Wittes Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution
Next year’s GES takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
ENERGY and NATURAL RESOURCES Joel Darmstadter
Thrive Magazine
Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future Stephen P. A. Brown Nonresident Fellow, Resources for the Future DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
Available as a .pdf online at FutureChallenges.org!
Jack Goldstone
Thrive, the magazine of the GES discusses major global problems that call for major global responses. Articles focus on topics including: the global polity, society, economy and environment.
BIODIVERSITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Thrive includes interviews with people from around the world who discuss future challenges from local and global perspectives.
ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION Scott Barrett
Director, Center for Global Policy, George Mason University
Wolfgang Cramer Co-Chair, Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Katrin Vohland Guest Scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Professor of Natural Resource Economics, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Update 3 \ July - September 2011
VIDEO INTERVIEWS Future Challenges is currently filming a series of interviews on how people around the world envision the future. The idea behind these videos is to gather personal perspectives on the effects of global trends. Here are some excerpts from recent interviews:
What could be the role of the internet regarding global future challenges such as climate change or migration? Can the internet play a major role?
Birgitta Jonsdottir
“…people share knowledge and empowerment. You alone might not feel that you can change the world, but many individuals can pull their effort together and change a lot of things as we already have. We have turned around debates and decisions based on people power. During the Gandhi movement, a guy said that the 21st century will be the century of the common people. I think that the internet is going to allow us to make this our century.”
Member of Parliament, Iceland
What kind of global trade system would help African farmers? “African farmers need access to finance. I don’t think there is a great political effort to enable farmers to have access to finance. I think the private sector has a great role to play in developing a specific micro-credit that is directed to farmers.”
Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu Co-Founder, Smallholders Foundation, Nigeria
Bertelsmann Foundation Megatrend Meta-Analysis
What are the biggest challenges facing young Chinese people? “They have a hard life right now. People have very high expectations of them. They want them to work very hard. That is the goal... They have to be the generation that is hard working, to have a stable family and to take care of their kids. At the same time they are the free-spirit generation that wants to explore. Basically they are being asked to be both. This is very tough.”
David Li Chinese entrepreneur and consultant
For further information on the Megatrends project, contact: Jonathan Stevens | Director, Global Futures Project | +1 202 384 1994 jonathan.stevens@bertelsmann-foundation.org Anneliese Guess | Project Manager, International Relations | +1 202 385 1995 anneliese.guess@bertelsmann-foundation.org