UNGA@77 THE TRANSFORMATION AGENDA
Annual Commemorative Bookazine Edition
MASTHEAD CEO & PUBLISHER ANA C. ROLD
SPECIAL SERIES EDITOR ADAM RATZLAFF
MULTIMEDIA MANAGER WHITNEY DEVRIES
MANAGING EDITOR SHANE SZARKOWSKI
SENIOR EDITOR DOMINIC REGESTER
SPECIAL SERIES EDITOR WINONA ROYLANCE
SPECIAL SERIES EDITOR KELLY R. BAILEY
ART DIRECTOR MARC GARFIELD
BOOK REVIEWER JOSHUA HUMINSKI
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD ASMAA AL-FADALA ANDREW M. BEATO FUMBI CHIMA DANTE A. DISPARTE
KERSTIN EWELT GHIDA FAKHRY SIR IAN FORBES LISA GABLE
GREG LEBEDEV ANITA MCBRIDE CLARE SHINE
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS M. NIAZ ASADULLAH HINA BALOCH ANDREA BONIME-BLANC JON CLIFTON DANTE A. DISPARTE JARED A. FAVOLE
LISA GABLE MATS GRANRYD DONNICA HAWES-SAUNDERS WENDY KOPP CATHERINE M. MILLETT MICHAEL T. NETTLES
CAROL O’DONNELL DOMINIC REGESTER YASMINE SHERIF MICHAEL SPENCE ANDRÉS VELASCO GREGOIRE VERDEAUX
Copyright © by Diplomatic Courier/Medauras Global Publishing 2022. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Medauras Global and Diplomatic Courier. Mailing Address: 1660 L Street, NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC, 20036 | www.diplomaticourier.com. LEGAL NOTICE. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form—except brief excerpts for the purpose of review—without written consent from the publisher and authors. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information in this publication; however, the authors, Diplomatic Courier, and Medauras Global make no warranties, express or implied, in regards to the information and disclaim all liability for any loss, damages, errors, or omissions. EDITORIAL. The content represents the views of their authors and do not reflect those of the editors and the publishers. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information in this publication, however, Medauras Global and the Diplomatic Courier make no warranties, express or implied in regards to the information, and disclaim all liability for any loss, damages, errors, or omissions. PERMISSIONS. This report cannot be reproduced without the permission of the authors and the publisher. For permissions please email: info@medauras.com with your written request. COVER ART & DESIGN. The cover design (as well a number of images in this special commemorative edition) is a collaboration between our team and artificial intelligence. Our editors typed word prompts such as “together, collaboration, nations of the world, peace, united, global goals” and Midjourney’s AI bot produced several variations that our team further defined. Our team is working with Midjourney to imagine a future where collaboration, transformation, sustainability, and peace are the next normal.
Where nations connect Effective diplomacy requires influence and in DC’s international circles no place says influence like the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. Whether an economic summit, trade negotiation or a private diplomatic affair, our international trade experts and expansive network of leaders enable embassies and governments to amplify their message and strengthen their impact, locally and globally. Expand your reach. Grow your influence with us.
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Welcome
A
Ana C. Rold Publisher & CEO
fter two years of hybrid meetings, UNGA 77 is a return to pre-pandemic summitry. There will be, of course, the world leaders’ speeches—some 200 of them. But today, more than ever, UNGA week is less about the UN and more about what happens outside of the building. Indeed, for two weeks, a diverse cohort of stakeholders from all disciplines, will meet on the sidelines to advance solutions for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We, too, will be hosting our own annual “Global Goals in Action” multistakeholder forum on September 20th. As I’ve said before, this is simply a sign of the times that multilateralism is changing and it’s not up to politicians to solve society’s biggest problems; solving the SDGs is everyone’s business. Every year we set to put together a special edition asking our contributors to answer questions such as: Are we on the right track to solve the SDGs by 2030? How do our (individual and organizational) goals align with the SDGs? How can we create uncommon collaborations? More recently we also ask: How has the pandemic accelerated or derailed solutions? This last question is important. As more studies and data become available, we are learning that since the pandemic we have lost decades of progress. Achieving the SDGs was
hard enough before, now we are dealing with next level simultaneous disruptions. As I write this note, my children have just left for their first day of in-person school. According to new reporting from AP, math and reading scores saw their largest decrease in 30 years. That’s just a top of mind quick illustration. We’ve chronicled learning setbacks for two years now. The picture is very dramatic. At Diplomatic Courier we are no longer talking about resilience and crisis management. We are talking about transformational change. In that regard, this year’s UNGA, with the “Summit of the Future” is very promising. UN Secretary General António Guterres is hoping it will produce a “Pact for the Future.” But will this transformational change come from the highest levels of leadership? Business? Civil society? Or, the promise of Big Tech? We’ve invited a group of multidisciplinary thought leaders practicing transformation in their industries to debate what this moment means for advancing the Global Goals. We’ve also engaged with Midjourney, the AI design bot, to help us imagine what the future might look like. What will it take to finally move from practice to action? As always, we invite your comments and open debate at editors@diplomaticourier.org. UNGA | 7
FROM GALLUP, PUBLISHER OF 10 INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLERS, INCLUDING STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0
The Global Rise of Unhappiness and How Leaders Missed It How is your life going?
Gallup has been asking the world’s citizens this question since 2006. Learn more about one of the most concerning trends we have found and how leaders can address it.
How people feel matters
If you feel like the world is getting more negative, you’re right. People are reporting more stress, sadness, physical pain, worry and anger than at any point in the history of Gallup’s tracking.
3.3 billion
2 billion
people want a great job, but only 300 million have one.
people are struggling on their current income.
people worldwide experienced food insecurity in 2020.
people don’t have a single friend.
3 in 10
Over 300 million
Over 1 billion
people are so dissatisfied with their community that they want to leave it forever.
And it’s not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Negative emotions have been rising for a decade. Find out why it’s crucial for leaders — and all of us — to pay attention.
Addressing the blind spot
Discover where the world is suffering in each of Gallup’s five elements of wellbeing and what private and public sector leaders can do to improve how people’s lives are going. With powerful personal stories and compelling data from Gallup’s World Poll, Blind Spot outlines the indicators leaders need to watch so they are never again surprised by rising negative emotions. L E A R N M O R E AT G A L L U P.C O M
About the Author
Jon Clifton is the CEO of Gallup. His mission is to help 7 billion citizens be heard on their most pressing work and life issues through the Gallup World Poll, a 100-year initiative spanning over 150 countries. Clifton is a nonresident senior fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. He serves on the boards of directors for Gallup and Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. Clifton received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctor from the University of Nebraska. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Midland University.
The Gallup brand
Universal and trusted, Gallup’s unmatched authority and credibility transform businesses, nonprofit organizations, schools and faith communities that want to develop their human potential. Copyright © 2022 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. Blindspot_SalesSheet-Jon_080522_es
Contents
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07 I Welcome: The Transformation Agenda By: Ana C. Rold
10 I How the Pandemic Shaped Happiness By: Jon Clifton
16 I A Grand Vision Still Within Reach By: Catherine M. Millett & Michael T. Nettles
20 I A Premise for Education Models of the Future By: Lisa Gable
24 I To Transform Education, We Will Need to Do a Lot of Unlearning By: Wendy Kopp
28 I Helping the 222 Million By: Yasmine Sherif
32 I ESD for ESG: Education for Sustainable Development By: Carol O’Donnell & Hina Baloch
36 I Don’t Discount Web3 Technologies When Trying to Tackle Perennial Challenges By: Jared A. Favole
40 I Future-Tech Success Depends on Governance and Impact By: Andrea Bonime-Blanc
44 I For Billions of People Digital Connectivity Is Still a Dream By: Mats Granryd
48 I The Technological Contest of Our Times By: Dante Disparte
52 I Ensuring Innovation Works for All By: Gregoire Verdeaux
54 I The Global Economy in Transition By: Michael Spence
58 I Fact-Checking the Deglobalization Narrative By: Andrés Velasco
62 I Economic Equality After the Overturn of Roe v. Wade By: Donnica Hawes-Saunders
54 I Gender-Equal Education Is About More Than Access By: M. Niaz Asadullah
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Illustration via Midjourney.
How the Pandemic Shaped Happiness By Jon Clifton
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“No one has enough food to eat, and the food prices are soaring. Most are quarantined in their homes. Until now, no one has asked about the disease that is ravaging my country and killing my friends and family.”
These findings confirm conventional wisdom. But here is the surprise. Although people experienced their lives worse in 2020, they rated their lives better. The number of people who rated their lives high enough to be considered thriving increased.
Liberian responses to Gallup interviews during the 2014 Ebola outbreak
C
OVID-19 has infected over 431 million people and has killed 6 million people as of this writing. But the real death toll might be even higher. According to advanced modeling by The Economist using “excess deaths,” the actual figure could be as high as 23 million deaths. The pandemic also wrecked the global economy, which shrank by 3.5% in 2020 — the largest global contraction in 60 years, according to the IMF. That same year, nearly a third (32%) of workers globally told Gallup they lost their job, and 50% said they earned less money. So how were people’s lives going during the pandemic? Most of what we learned will not surprise you, but one thing will. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted almost everyone: 80% of people worldwide told Gallup in 2020 that the pandemic affected their lives, including 45% who said it affected their lives a lot (the most extreme response). The poor, women with children, and the middle-aged were affected most. And the impact on women with children was particularly acute. Nearly half of women with children younger than 15 (49%) said their lives were affected a lot by the pandemic. They also experienced more stress, sadness, worry, physical pain, and anger compared with all other adults.
Did people’s views of their lives really improve during the pandemic? If so, it would be a massive finding. But it’s hard to believe that people rated their lives better during one of the worst years in recent history. There must be another explanation. Here are two possible reasons for such a shift: a change in Gallup’s methodology and the timing of our surveys.
A World Poll During a Pandemic Gallup conducts the majority of our global surveys face to face. But in-person interviewing during a pandemic is just not possible. However, we still need to ask people how their lives are going, especially at such a critical time. Gallup has faced something like this before. In December 2013, an 18-month-old boy came down with a mysterious illness in a Guinean village. Scientists believe bats infected him. Soon after, five more people died from similar symptoms. The government issued a health warning on January 24, 2014.
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Please just stay on the phone with me; I need someone to keep me company. My family and I are just waiting to die. I would rather experience war. Seven weeks later, the illness reached Guinea’s capital, Conakry. By mid-March, there were 49 infections and 29 deaths. That same month, the Pasteur Institute in France confirmed what the illness was — the Ebola virus. Over the next three years, the virus spread to nine more countries — infecting 28,652 people and killing 11,325. One of the most affected countries was Liberia. To better inform its decision-making as the crisis was unfolding, the Liberian government wanted near realtime economic data. But how do you conduct surveys when a virus is raging?
Conducting a global survey in 2020 was a lot like our experience in Liberia in 2014. We had to change the way we did everything. 2020 was harder because instead of pivoting our methodology in one country, we had to do it for the entire world. At a moment’s notice, we changed our global methodology from 30% phone and 70% in-person to nearly 100% phone. This shift in methodology may have contributed to the changes in how people see their lives. For example, in Egypt and Ethiopia, we moved interviewing from face to face to phone in 2020. Thriving unexpectedly increased in both countries in 2020. What changed in Egypt from 2019 to 2020 that would have caused people to see their lives better? Ethiopia is even more perplexing. Thriving reached its highest point in our nine years of tracking despite the country descending into a civil war with the Tigray region.
The preferred methodology — face-to-face interviewing — was off the table. To reach Liberians, we had to do something different. So, the World Bank, Gallup, and the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) came up with a solution. LISGIS had access to Liberians’ phone numbers, and the national language in Liberia is English. So English-speaking Gallup interviewers could call Liberians from the U.S. The project worked. We conducted five studies that helped gauge the economic environment throughout the outbreak. While the economic insights informed policy, people’s stories from the field, such as the one at the beginning of this chapter, had a profound impact on those conducting the research. Sadly, comments like these were common: Please just stay on the phone with me; I need someone to keep me company. My family and I are just waiting to die. I would rather experience war. 12 | D I PLOM AT I C CO URIE R
Egypt and Ethiopia were not the only developing countries that saw an increase. Thriving rates rose an average of five points in developing countries between 2019 and 2020. In wealthier countries, it was different. There, Gallup saw little change in life ratings, and the European Commission (EC) found similar results. Using the Eurobarometer, the EC looked at life ratings in 30 European countries and found that Europeans rated their
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lives the same from 2019 to 2020 — exactly what Gallup found in Europe. So, from 2019 to 2020, life ratings remained the same in many rich countries but improved in many developing countries. Why? The only places where we switched from face-to-face to phone interviewing were developing countries; in wealthy countries, we continued to conduct interviews over the phone. Further, when we switched back to face-toface interviewing in some countries in 2021, we saw thriving decline. In Egypt, for example, thriving went back down to 8% (from 18% in 2020). Unfortunately, changing how you ask people questions can change their answers. And the science behind this is not new. One of the largest migrations of survey research from in-person to phone interviewing took place in the 1950s. In wealthy countries, survey researchers stopped showing up at people’s homes and began calling them instead. Some of the most groundbreaking research focused on these differences known as “mode effects.” Georgetown professor and former head of the U.S. Census Bureau, Robert Groves, even co-wrote one of the initial texts about the differences between the two methodologies in the 1979 book Surveys by Telephone: A National Comparison with Personal Interviews. Switching from in-person to phone interviews can change the outcome of your surveys. According to academics Allyson Holbrook, Melanie Green, and Jon Krosnick, “[Phone] respondents were more likely to satisfice, to be less cooperative and engaged in the interview, and were more likely to express dissatisfaction with the length of the interview. … Telephone respondents were also more suspicious about the interview process and more likely to present themselves in socially desirable ways than were face-to-face respondents.” The Pew Research Center found similar mode effects for phone surveys compared
with web surveys. They found that people rate their lives higher on the phone (compared with web) but report experiencing life (for example, positive emotions) the same. Mode adjustments might disproportionately affect the way people report how they see life compared with how they live life. Other studies suggest that mode switches do not dramatically affect life ratings. The U.K. government tested this idea by simultaneously conducting in-person and phone surveys using the same questions. If mode effects were present, the impact on how people rate their lives was negligible. People rated their lives 0.04 points higher on the phone compared with inperson surveys.
from 2019 to 2020, life ratings remained the same in many rich countries but improved in many developing countries. Why? Just because mode changes did not affect results in the UK does not mean they will not influence results somewhere else in the world. For example, following COVID-19 protocols, Gallup conducted some interviews in India using face-to-face methodology. Although we saw an increase in life ratings from 2019 to 2020 in the phone and face-to-face interviews, Indians tended to rate their lives higher on the phone. But if the methodology change is what caused people to rate their lives differently, then why was everything else in the results of our survey so accurate? Not only did the rest of our data highly corroborate what other surveys were finding, our resulting data also perfectly aligned with conventional wisdom: Almost everyone was affected by the pandemic, especially the poor, the middle-aged, and women with children. While the change in methodology might have affected our results in developing UNGA | 13
countries, there may have been another reason people rated their lives better — the timing of our surveys.
The Timing of a Survey In 2006, only 12% of people in China were thriving. In 2019, before COVID-19 started to spread, that figure was 19%. In our 2020 survey, we found a massive increase. Almost one-third (31%) of people in China were thriving — the most in the history of our tracking there.
points — a highly unusual increase for any country. Positive emotions were also affected, dropping nine points. In fact, the decline in laughing and smiling in China was one of the steepest worldwide. Negative and positive emotions moved predictably in China, but why didn’t life ratings? To further explore how perplexing these shifts are, let’s look at another country that was in the news frequently in 2020 — Sweden. Sweden gained international attention for being one of the few countries in the world that did not immediately go into a lockdown. The country’s strategy at the onset of the pandemic was to adopt herd immunity. The government eventually implemented a lockdown of its own, but there was no statistical change in how people rated their lives in 2020 compared with 2019. Again, the timing of the survey matters. The 2020 survey took place during April, which was one of the months when COVID reached a peak for deaths in Sweden.
Like in most countries, we changed our methodology in 2020 from face to face to phone. The survey began in mid-September and lasted for about six weeks — a few months after Wuhan emerged from its lockdown in early April. That fall, it looked like most of China was back to life as usual. Citizens of other countries, who were still in lockdown, saw images of Chinese citizens participating in large events such as concerts. In August of 2020, the BBC ran an article titled “Wuhan coronavirus: From silent streets to packed pools.” While livelihoods appeared to be improving, so was China’s economy, which grew 2.3% in 2020 despite the pandemic. So, people may truly have been rating their lives higher at that time. In terms of how people lived life in China, there were also stark differences from 2019 to 2020. Negative emotions increased 10
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When COVID-19 spread to the U.S., thriving collapsed, just like it did during the 2008 financial crisis, hitting the identical low point of 46%. As the economy rebounded, so did thriving, climbing to 54%. As COVID persisted, thriving dropped again to 48%. The results in Sweden are among the most difficult to explain. The survey modes were the same from 2019 to 2020, and many Europeans rated their lives the same year over year (as was true in the EC’s data). One of the reasons the numbers did not decline might be because we did not conduct surveys frequently enough.
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Looking at how people rate their lives once per year is like capturing GDP during only one quarter of the year. Imagine measuring GDP during the second quarter of 2020 and considering that the measurement for the entire year. The drop in the official statistics would have been spectacular. But that drop would not have accurately described the economic reality for the whole year. Yet, in most countries, that is what we did to measure how people’s lives were going. Ideally, we would track wellbeing in every country at least quarterly, especially during a time of monumental change like that brought on by a pandemic. We have tested a greater frequency of tracking in the U.S. since 2008 and have seen meaningful shifts at key moments. Here is the complete trend:
thriving, climbing to 54%. As COVID persisted, thriving dropped again to 48%. But when people started getting vaccinated and some lockdowns were lifted, U.S. thriving reached a high never before seen in our tracking (59%). Would more data points globally have better explained why people rated their lives better? Did an abrupt methodological switch because of the pandemic cause a change in how people see their lives? Or did the pandemic cause people, especially in developing countries, to reflect better on their lives than they had previously? We do not know for sure. But when we do know more definitively, this knowledge will help advance wellbeing research tremendously. During the 2014 Ebola crisis, a Gallup interviewer said to us: We have received multiple affirmations from Liberians that they are so grateful we have called. Until now, no one has asked them how they feel about the disease that is ravaging their country. So, the importance and significance of this work has been confirmed by the very people we are calling … Even though it is hard … we will continue this work to give a voice to the Liberian people. My hope is that voice will be heard loud and clear around the world.
Notice the volatility when you increase the frequency of measurement. More than half (52%) of people in the U.S. were thriving in early 2008, immediately before the global economic crisis. When America’s economy collapsed, so did thriving — dropping almost six points. When the U.S. emerged from the financial crisis, thriving not only rebounded, it exceeded the 52% recorded before the 2008 economic crisis, reaching 57% in late 2017.
We approached 2020 with this same aspiration. ***** About the author: Jon Clifton is the CEO of Gallup.
When COVID-19 spread to the U.S., thriving collapsed, just like it did during the 2008 financial crisis, hitting the identical low point of 46%. As the economy rebounded, so did
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Photo via Adobe Stock.
A Grand Vision, Still Within Reach By Catherine M. Millett & Michael T. Nettles
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or perhaps the first time in history, a generation of young adults throughout the world is within reach of the possibility of taking full control of their own education — what, where and when to learn, how to learn, even why to learn. Their success would signal the epochal leap in education that so many of us have set our sights on, and that are embodied in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this new model, learning and the ability to demonstrate learning intertwine like a helix to transform individual lives; reshape work and the workplace; propel national economies; and help fulfill education’s “promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies.” Building and deploying this helix would also recharge the global effort to achieve the mutually reinforcing aims of SDGs #4 and #8 regarding education, lifelong learning, sustainable economic growth, and employment. It’s a grand vision, but it’s evidence-based and eminently possible. That’s because of a convergence of developments in recent years, including deeper understandings of how people learn and demonstrate learning; advances in digital technologies that can tease out skills, knowledge and personal traits on the level of the individual; and the evolving views of the young adults who are inheriting a planet in existential tumult. No doubt the obstacles are imposing and tenacious: the political will of national leaders on whether to invest in lifelong learning for their populations, the availability of the financial resources to support investment; the regressive impact of disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the vicissitudes of the global economy, and time.
In Achieving the SDGs, Perspective Matters There’s also the structure of the international community. Achieving the aims of the SDGs is a collective project among nations. But every nation is starting from a different
baseline and is focused on a different goalpost. While affluent nations focus more on raising the tertiary attainment levels so critical to global economic competitiveness, among developing and emerging economies, the goals are much more fundamental: equipping their populations with basic literacy and numeracy skills. Problematic even before the pandemic struck, basic literacy and numeracy skills among young learners in low- and middle-income countries have sunk to crisis levels. Analysis by the International Commission on the Futures of Education asserts that “learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text.” In all, more than 771 million people lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of whom are women.
Achieving the aims of the SDGs is a collective project among nations. But every nation is starting from a different baseline and is focused on a different goalpost. And as always, there’s money. Or the lack of it. In his recent keynote address at the UN’s Transforming Education Summit: A Turning Point for Education, Leonardo Garnier, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations, noted that rich countries invest an average $8,500 per year per school-age person, versus $1,000 in upper-middle income countries; $275 in lower middle-income countries; and $50 in the poorest countries. “The distance is staggering,” Garnier said. Even the technologies that would help poorer countries narrow learning gaps with richer nations are just as likely to widen those gaps. As the pandemic showed, wealthier countries expanded their use of UNGA | 17
expensive digital technologies to replace in-class learning lost to pandemic lockdowns. Poorer countries, and poorer regions within countries, including the United States, couldn’t or didn’t. As a result, some 463 million school-age children around the world lacked access to distance learning. And they continue to fall further behind. That doesn’t stop technology, knowledge and know-how from marching on. And young people everywhere will need to continue learning in order to adapt to constantly shifting labor markets; rapid technological change; and the seismic impacts of globalization, climate change, migration and biomedical shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic.
rich countries invest an average $8,500 per year per school-age person, versus $1,000 in uppermiddle income countries; $275 in lower middle-income countries; and $50 in the poorest countries. “Lifelong learning starts in childhood and youth, continuing throughout adulthood and old age,” Francesca Borgonovi and Fabio Manca of the OECD Centre for Skills write in OECD Skills Outlook 2021: Learning for Life. “It encompasses formal learning in settings such as schools and training centres, informal and non-formal learning derived from colleagues and workplace trainers, and unintentional learning stemming from spontaneous social interactions.” The observations are in tune with Generation Z, the first cohort born into the internet age. In wealthier nations especially, the young adults of Gen Z are dissatisfied with the return on investment of a traditional four-year higher education. Many are looking instead to the hybrid model discussed in Learning for Life to continually equip themselves with modern survival skills.
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According to recent opinion research by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation, for instance, 32% of American students enrolled in a bachelor’s program reported having considered withdrawing for a semester or more over the previous six months. Among students pursuing an associate degree, it was 41%. In addition to emotional stress, the COVID-19 pandemic, and cost, they cited the questionable quality of, and the time required to complete, a program of study, and doubts about the relevance of a degree or credential in helping them achieve their career or personal goals.
No Time to Quit The progress lost to the pandemic has been heartbreaking. But if ever there was a time not to withdraw because of setbacks, this is it. “Simply lamenting that the world is unlikely to reach the goals in 2030 fails to acknowledge just how far these goals have taken us,” researchers for the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) wrote for the Institute’s website after the 75th General Assembly. “Too many changes have been achieved, and too much popular support exists to completely reverse progress. So, let us act jointly. Let us not let the opportunity for real change slip away,” the SEI researchers said. That’s good advice. And it’s why we need to recommit, reenergize, and reengage, and to do so without delay. ***** About the authors: Dr. Catherine Millett is a senior research scientist and strategic advisor in the Policy, Evaluation and Research Center (PERC) at ETS. Dr. Michael Nettles is the Senior Vice President and Edmund W. Gordon Chair of Policy Evaluation and Research, ETS.
ADVERTI S EM ENT
Photo via Adobe Stock.
A Premise for Education Models of the Future By Lisa Gable
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E
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very tragedy is a wake-up call. COVID-19 was the world’s. The pandemic revealed the shortfalls in our systems but also unleashed innovation to meet needs. When we step back and see the dramatic shifting almost overnight of medical manufacturing and cross-sector distribution prowess, and the expansion of data and digital platforms—(telehealth, global health information hubs, COVID-19 funding trackers), it is nothing less than amazing to observe the private sector and government’s response. Technical and scientific competency combined with a relentless commitment to the free flow of ideas between companies and nations enabled success in vaccine development and distribution. In contrast, governments’ responses to education were catastrophic. The Economist notes that “Covid learning loss has been a global disaster” highlighting “the World Bank thinks the disruption could cost children $21trn in earnings over their lifetimes—a sum equivalent to 17% of global GDP today.” COVID-19 was the tipping point for a system that was already struggling to align expense with results. For example, the United States spends over one third of our state budgets on education. Education reformers grow increasingly concerned as spending flows to administrative staff and benefits, yet teachers quit at unprecedented levels, new ones are difficult to recruit, and U.S. global rankings plunge. Our education systems need a turnaround. A new resilient future must be based on emerging technologies as well as flexible systems which maximize innovative technology and anticipate the potential interruption of services. A recent report from the OECD highlighted “shocks and surprises” that need to be incorporated into long term educational planning: cyber war, internet and communications disruptions, economic shocks, and artificial intelligence. The path forward is not a simple course correction, but there are programs and ideas upon which we can build and learn as
society, business, and government link arms to design systems to support skills competency, independent thinking, and an innovative mindset.
Access Geography should not be the determining factor of the quality of education. In the world of Zoom and digital platforms, children in underserved communities can be given access to qualified STEM experts and learning tools even within technology limitations. For those with limited access during the pandemic shutdowns creative teachers used cell phones in ways that were agile and purposeful to maintain communication, adapt learning environments, and support the community.
A new resilient future must be based on emerging technologies as well as flexible systems which maximize innovative technology and anticipate the potential interruption of services. Discovery Education has a robust global daily learning platform delivering educational content and curriculum through multiple technology platforms including computers, television and even whiteboards and cell phones. The Conrad Foundation supports collaborative global teams of teenagers networking with industry, scientific and academic experts to create solutions to complex scientific problems. The common ingredient is optimizing and deploying existing resources.
Crisis Management During crises, communities have successfully leveraged civil society and collaboUNGA | 21
ration across borders. By evaluating what works and what doesn’t, we can create standard crisis management practices before an emergency occurs.
community-based educational models that combine independent selfpaced learning, mentoring, learning styles, and socialization.
During the pandemic, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, one of America’s top 10 ranked public charities serving those who need help the most, not only provided meals and snacks, but also opened their doors to become learning hubs for those without internet access as well as childcare support for front line workers.
• Invest in access, broadband and support hubs for underserved and remote communities. Utilize technology and creative solutions that enable all families and children to access the best that education can provide at times that fit their needs and technology limitations.
Ukrainians turned to volunteer hubs and temporary shelters for displaced people to
• Create community education disaster plans in partnership with parents, educators, non-profits, and business. Identify ways to manage the day-today complexity of disruptive environments to keep learning on track by anticipating the need for alternative content delivery systems and maximizing the capabilities of civil society and religious institutions.
Visualize a future built around performance and flexibility. Design community-based educational models that combine independent self-paced learning, mentoring, learning styles, and socialization. continue educating their children throughout the Russian invasion. EU countries opened their schools to families who fled in the same way Texas welcomed Louisiana students after Katrina. But remember, when computers don’t work, books do. So, preserve the contents of libraries.
Moving Forward As we build our path to the future, let’s modify our approach today enabling a future-forward design as new technologies and scientific innovations continue to emerge to support education models, which are equitable and productive despite what life throws our way. • Visualize a future built around performance and flexibility. Design
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• Expand access to alternative viewpoints, cross cultural opportunities, and diverse opinions and, in the process, create new connections that can be leveraged to reach a higher level of performance. We do not know the nature of the next challenge, but we do know that creativity and collaboration combined with a quest for independent thought and ingenuity will enable us to succeed. ***** About the author: Lisa Gable is CEO, former U.S. Ambassador, UN Delegate, and author of Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Turnaround: How to Change Course When Things Are Going South.”
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To Transform Education, We Will Need to Do a Lot of Unlearning By Wendy Kopp
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he Transforming Education Summit will be the first time there has been such a high-level meeting to mobilize political ambition, action and commitment for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4: ensuring quality education for all. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity. As a result of the worst shock to education and learning in history, “learning poverty” — the percentage of 10-year-olds able to read and understand a simple written text — has increased to 70%, according to the World Bank. Moreover, there is a growing consensus that we need to not only reform education systems so that all students gain academic skills, but also transform them towards a broader purpose of preparing young people to navigate uncertainty and lead — so they can shape careers in a changing economy and contribute to the wellbeing and sustainable development of people and the planet. But how will we put ourselves on a path to ensuring that all children have the education and support they need to shape a better future for themselves and all of us? In addition to calling for enlisting youth, parents, and communities as partners, increasing funding for education, and leveraging technology as a force for equity and excellence, the Summit’s conveners rightly identify the importance of strengthening the education workforce. This is of crucial importance. Transforming our education system will require new technologies, strong curricula, better facilities, and all sorts of other technical interventions—but if we don’t attend to the development of the people in that system, we won’t see all these investments add up to the progress we want to see. We must not underestimate this challenge. It is steep because everyone working in education today is a product of this same system; in order to achieve the kind of transformation we seek, we won’t just need to adopt new practices and approaches, we will need to focus just as much on unlearn-
ing mindsets and perspectives shaped by an outdated system.
we need to not only reform education systems so that all students gain academic skills, but also transform them towards a broader purpose of preparing young people to navigate uncertainty and lead. A few years ago, the Teach For All network set out to understand what was going on in classrooms where students are developing not only the academic mastery, but the agency, awareness of themselves and the world, problem solving and critical thinking skills, sense of empathy and connectedness, and personal well-being that they will need to shape a better future. We asked hundreds of teachers from around the world who were fostering these broader outcomes to journal their development as teachers. We saw striking patterns, and then worked with these teachers and other students, parents, and teacher educators to make sense of them. We found that truly transformational teachers see their students, themselves, their communities and the nature of their work in common ways that are different from conventional perspectives. These teachers had gone through experiences that had changed how they saw their students. Instead of seeing them simply as recipients of the learning provided in the curriculum, they started to see them as whole people who are capable of shaping their own lives and the world around them. These teachers started to see that they had just as much to learn from their students as the other way around, and to see themselves as lifelong learners who respond to challenges with curiosity, humility, and creativity. They saw the marginalized communities in which they work as sources of power and wisdom, and recog-
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to achieve the kind of transformation we seek, we won’t just need to adopt new practices and approaches, we will need to focus just as much on unlearning mindsets and perspectives shaped by an outdated system. nized that lasting change requires authentic partnership with students, families, and other educators. And, they came to see the challenges they face as being caused at a systemic level, rather than by problems inherent in the students and communities themselves, and therefore saw their work as challenging the root causes of injustices that inhibit students’ potential. Our studies are demonstrating that teachers with these perspectives employ a different approach to teaching and learning — one centered on relationships and studentowned discovery learning. In turn, these actions change the outcomes in classrooms. To transform education, we will need to develop this kind of leadership not only in teachers, but in everyone — from young
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people and their parents, to school leaders and policy makers, to social innovators, philanthropists, and civic leaders. This will require a lot of unlearning how we were taught, and learning a new way of thinking and being. As we saw in our teacher study, global networks that enable us to learn from each other across communities and countries can help. They enable faster progress because they bring people with diverse perspectives together and enable the sharing of approaches and the rapid identification of patterns for success. As encouraging as it is to see heads of state and ministers of education put their focus on creating the transformation needed to end learning poverty and meet our promise to the world’s children, this meeting alone will not be enough. Systems don’t change through top-down approaches and commitments, but through the collaboration of all of us — teachers, students, community leaders, governments, and civil society. Let’s commit to unlearning and coming together to create the transformation we need to shape a better future for us all. ***** About the author: Wendy Kopp is the CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All.
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Helping the 222 Million By Yasmine Sherif
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he United Nations recently estimated that the number of crisis-affected children in need of urgent educational support has skyrocketed from 75 million in 2016 to 222 million today. That’s 222 million dreams dashed — and 222 million attacks on our collective humanity. This growing crisis will have far-reaching effects on our economies and societies. But only 2-4% of global humanitarian funding is dedicated to education. As world leaders decide how to allocate resources in response to COVID-19, climate change, and conflict, they must make spending on education a much higher priority. This means rethinking international development policy with a view to achieving a world in which respect for equality and human rights starts with education for all. Education requires money, but it is an investment that empowers people, creates more resilient economies, and ends poverty traps that perpetuate negative cycles of hunger, displacement, conflict, and chaos. A space flight with Jeff Bezos was recently auctioned for $28 million—a sum that could provide close to 200,000 crisisaffected children with the safety, power, and opportunity for an education. Every $1 spent on girls’ education generates approximately $2.80 in return. And ensuring that all girls complete their secondary education could boost developing countries’ GDP by an average of 10% over the next decade.
the power to transform societies, they also need a broad spectrum of additional educational supports. For example, according to the UN, only 56% of schools in least-developed countries have access to safe drinking water, and 350 million children worldwide are hungry. How can a child who rarely eats a nourishing meal be expected to learn algebra? Through the School Meals Coalition and other broad partnerships, we can ensure that children in places like Haiti and Somalia are able to eat at least one nutritious school meal a day. That can make all the difference.
Of the 222 million children currently affected by crises and emergencies, 78.2 million are out of school. And nearly 120 million are in school but not achieving minimum proficiency in math or reading. So can protecting children from violence. The recent deadly shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was a tragic reminder of the need to keep schools safe. The challenge is particularly daunting for children who face the prospect of living their entire life in a war zone.
Of the 222 million children currently affected by crises and emergencies, 78.2 million are out of school. And nearly 120 million are in school but not achieving minimum proficiency in math or reading.
According to the recent Education Under Attack 2022 report, attacks on education and the use of schools by military forces increased by one-third from 2019 to 2020. The war in Ukraine, in which over 1,800 educational institutions have so far been damaged and 170 completely destroyed, has made the situation even worse. Upholding international humanitarian law and the Safe Schools Declaration is another investment countries must make.
Yes, these children need classrooms, teachers, books, pencils, and more. But, to benefit from the kind of learning that has
Additional supporting measures will help to achieve quality learning outcomes. These include counseling and other psychosocial
But we can’t just throw money at the problem. We need to think about the quality of our investments in education.
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Without education, no other Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved. we need to focus on achieving universal and equitable education (SDG4). services, which are vital to ensuring continuity of education for young people. Donors should also follow the lead of organizations like The LEGO Foundation by investing in early childhood education. Teaching girls science, technology, engineering, and math should be a high priority. And we must provide the specialized education services that children with disabilities and other severely marginalized groups need. Without education, no other Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved. To avoid inefficiencies and further disruptions to efforts to deliver on the SDGs, we need to focus on achieving universal and equitable education (SDG4). That is a distant dream for the 84% of the crisis-affected out-of-school children who are living in areas with protracted crises. The vast majority are in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen. The war in Ukraine is exacerbating the
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problem, with recent estimates indicating that the conflict is threatening the lives and wellbeing of 5.7 million school-aged children. There is hope. For example, the Ecuadorian government has recently responded to the crisis in Venezuela by allowing refugees to access public education. In Uganda, which hosts the largest refugee population in Africa, the government is implementing an Education Response Plan to provide safe learning environments for refugee children. In Ethiopia, accelerated school programs are helping refugee girls to make up for years of lost learning. Responding to the urgent educational needs of children affected by crises is not the job only of national governments or the UN. By making a global commitment to help every child and adolescent—including those enduring wars, forced displacement, and climate-induced disasters—to reach their potential, we can contribute to human rights, peace and security, and economic prosperity for all. First, we have 222 million dreams to save. ***** About the author: Yasmine Sherif is Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
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ESD for ESG: Education for Sustainable Development By Carol O’Donnell & Hina Baloch
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early 710 million children are currently living in countries at the highest risk of suffering the impact of the climate crisis. More than 12,000 species are threatened with extinction. In 2022, more than 2.3 billion people faced water stress. By 2050, the risk of hunger and malnutrition could rise by 20 percent if the global community fails to act now to slow down the effects of climate change. Today, educators are using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to help students address deep scientific questions and tackle broad societal needs, such as biodiversity, food security, vaccine hesitancy, mosquito-borne diseases, and environmental justice. Complex socio-scientific problems and phenomena like those embedded in the SDGs cannot be explained or solved by looking at them through one perspective (environmental, social, economic, or ethical); nor can they be solved by one sector alone (public, private, or social). Public and social sector organizations who promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in collaboration with industry partners focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals can work together across different disciplines and sectors to blend their knowledge, theories, and expertise to develop comprehensive solutions to today’s most pressing challenges. By promoting “ESD for ESG,” we can conceptualize workplaces and societies previously unimagined. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is UNESCO’s education sector response to the urgent and dramatic challenges the planet faces. ESD is defined as education that encourages changes in knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to enable a more sustainable and just society for all. Research syntheses across 18 countries show that ESD pedagogies promote the learning of skills, perspectives, and values necessary to foster sustainable societies. The SDGs provide a common framework for ESD, with 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 in-
dicators. Yet only 7% of teacher education programs integrate ESD into their pedagogy and many educators have yet to fully integrate the SDGs into their curriculum. Since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, progress in sustainable development corporate investment has been observed across several SDG sectors, including infrastructure, climate change mitigation, food and agriculture, health, telecommunications, and ecosystems and biodiversity; however, overall growth is falling short of requirements, including in education.
The SDGs serve as a framework to achieve a sustainable future, yet many educators are not fully integrating SDGs into their curriculum and few companies surveyed align to these goals. Investors want to put their money toward climate-focused, SDG-focused sustainable solutions that will impact communities directly. Industry refers to these impact investing solutions as “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)” goals. While definitions of ESG are “broad and varied,” the British Business Bank describes ESG as being a “collective term for a business’s impact on the environment and society as well as how robust and transparent its governance is in terms of company leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.” A lot of attention is paid to the “environmental” and “social” aspects of ESG, but “governance” is also critical. The Global Asset Management Group argues that while there is confusion and frustration around ESG goals, and investors face challenges when evaluating sovereign ESG opportunities and risks (including accusations of greenwashing), crises often highlight the importance of ESG. Never have ESG goals UNGA | 33
Research syntheses across 18 countries show that ESD pedagogies promote the learning of skills, perspectives, and values necessary to foster sustainable societies.
to their teachers on the topic of “Sustainable Communities!”; and disseminated free instructional resources to support student learning focused on what they can do in their local regions to address sustainability issues, including reducing their transportation carbon footprint. Student action projects will be showcased at COP27, then the cycle will repeat in 2023 using the topic “Clean Energy!”.
been so influential in ensuring investments are going towards meaningful solutions, including ESD.
The Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project is just one example of how ESD — supported by public-private-social sector partnerships — can be used to achieve ESG goals.
“ESD for ESG” can provide youth and the future workforce with the new skill sets required to reach a sustainable future. For example, in 2021, General Motors (GM), a US Detroit-based company, announced it will take a science-based approach to becoming carbon neutral, balancing carbon dioxide emissions and removal effort; ensuring 40% of its vehicles will be battery powered by 2025; and eliminating gas-powered, light duty vehicle production by 2035. In 2022, GM heralded a new ESG pledge, inviting its global suppliers to join the company in a “commitment to carbon neutrality, the development of social responsibility programs, and implementation of sustainable procurement practice in their supply chain operations.” As part of this pledge, GM invested in the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC), an organization of the Smithsonian Institution, which, through the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, educates youth across the globe on the SDGs using ESD. Under the project, SSEC identified three public and social sector community partners who serve youth ages 8-17 in Egypt; provided professional development
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Today, we face unprecedented global challenges that invoke deep scientific questions and broad societal needs. The SDGs serve as a framework to achieve a sustainable future, yet many educators are not fully integrating SDGs into their curriculum and few companies surveyed align to these goals. Leveraging combined strengths of cross-sector partners can achieve a level of impact that could not be accomplished independently. Industry partners in collaboration with the public and social sector can help educate the next generation on the SDGs and pave the way for a more sustainable future — promoting “ESD for ESG.” ***** About the authors: Dr. Carol O’Donnell is Executive Director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center. Hina Baloch is the Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Sustainability, Data Analytics and STEM Education Communications at General Motors.
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Don’t Discount Web3 Technologies When Trying to Tackle Perennial Challenges By Jared A. Favole
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ou would be forgiven for looking at the recent history of the digital asset economy and concluding that the underlying technology is too risky to help ameliorate a perennial challenge. Empowering billions of people historically left on the sidelines of the global financial system. But this view would also be short-sighted. Many Web3 companies are generating front-page headlines for the wrong reasons. A once high-flying synthetic crypto derivative, TerraUSD-LUNA, melted in dramatic fashion. Embattled crypto companies are filing for bankruptcy. The value of the overall digital asset economy has halved in just a few months. At the same time, sky-high inflation in certain parts of the world is making it even harder for the marginalized to participate in the financial system. Those who try often see their hard-earned money eaten up by fees. For example, 1 in 5 people in developing economies paid higher fees than expected just to get the money they earned, according to the World Bank. For those trying to send their money internationally to support their families, the costs are persistently high — about 6%. Leaders in the traditional financial system are trying to solve these problems and have been for years. But, despite their best efforts, these problems persist. Why? There’s no simple answer, but one reason is because the traditional financial system relies on mostly closed, proprietary payment networks, and established institutions are less likely to embrace change and new technologies. These networks come with high barriers to entry, thereby allowing entrenched entities to control the costs of participation. This is why sending money from Washington, DC to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, is so difficult and costly but sending an email, or hundreds of emails, between the two locations is so easy and cheap. The internet solved the global communications challenge, but not the global financial challenge. It still costs too much to send
money internationally, and there are local barriers in developed economies that make moving even small amounts of value difficult. Say two friends want to split a bill for a $20 pizza: One has Cash App and the other Venmo. Unless one of them decides to download the same app as their friend, they cannot do it. But even friends with different email clients (say, Gmail and Outlook) can talk to each other because harmonized email protocols have made universal messaging possible. Upgrading protocols to enable the frictionless exchange of financial value will do for the movement of money what the internet did for the exchange of information. Hence the importance of blockchains. If the same two friends had digital wallets connected to an open, public blockchain, and a trusted fiatbacked payment stablecoin, they could split a bill instantly because the payment network (in this case the blockchain), has low barriers to entry. That is why anyone dedicated to
the traditional financial system relies on mostly closed, proprietary payment networks, and established institutions are less likely to embrace change and new technologies. tackling United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 9 (building resilient infrastructure) and 10 (reducing inequality) should consider turning to novel Web3 technologies. Fortunately, some groups and end users are already taking advantage of these technologies, as the following examples demonstrate. The United Nations World Food Programme has been supporting more than 1 million people — monthly — in Pakistan and Jordan using a humanitarian blockchain network. By using Web3 technology, end users can access the aid they need without providing sensitive information and, what is more, they can use the assistance they get as they see fit. The initiaUNGA | 37
tive has to date supported $325 million worth of cash transfers to refugees and saved more than $2.5 million in bank fees, according to the World Food Program. Refugees in particular can benefit from the “brain wallets” made possible with Web3 technology. If a refugee flees Syria with all of their financial value in a local bank, they leave knowing their life savings will also be left behind. But, if they can transfer that value into a digital wallet — and remember their password — they can emerge in another country, download a digital wallet and access all the value they previously had. Why? Because the open-source, public ledger has inherent disaster proofing and global recovery as a native feature.
Refugees in particular can benefit from the “brain wallets” made possible with Web3 technology. If a refugee flees Syria with all of their financial value in a local bank, they leave knowing their life savings will also be left behind. Another example is GiveDirectly, which said last year 17% of its operating budget came from the crypto community. They accept donations in traditional cash but also Bitcoin and Ethereum, which then gets converted into dollars. Web3 technology also played a role in helping medical professionals fight COVID-19 in Venezuela. When Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, clamped down on the country’s financial system, opponents of his regime turned to blockchain technology. They joined forces with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and several companies to send USD Coin (USDC) payments to medical professionals so they could purchase muchneeded protective equipment. All told, more than $18 million was sent and helped more than 60,000 medical professionals with corruption-resistant instant payments. 38 | D I PLOM AT I C CO URIE R
That is not to say blockchain technology is a panacea. It is not. Some 40% of the world has not adopted mobile phone technology, meaning digital wallets remain inaccessible for many. Industry leaders and governments globally are partnering to increase mobile phone adoption, with the GSM Association projecting that 70% of the population will have mobile internet subscriptions by 2025. There is still the last-mile problem: If you have a digital asset or fiat-backed digital currency, where can you spend it? Blockchain foundations, issuers of fiat-backed digital currencies, and traditional financial institutions are trying to solve this. MoneyGram, for example, has partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit that supports the Stellar blockchain, to launch an on and offramp for digital wallets holding USDC. This partnership is powering remittances in multiple countries by allowing people to cash-out their USDC at MoneyGram locations. These examples offer a glimpse at what is possible with Web3 technology. These technologies are here to stay and should be part of any discussion for how to solve perennial economic challenges. ***** About the author: Jared A. Favole is a senior director at Circle Internet Financial.
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Future-Tech Success Depends on Governance and Impact By Andrea Bonime-Blanc
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o liberally paraphrase Churchill’s famous saying about Russia:
Future tech is a multi-dimensional riddle, wrapped in the mystery of innovation, inside an enigma of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Future-tech is complex. It’s interconnected. It’s multi-dimensional. It’s faster than the speed of light. It’s disruptive. It’s chaotic. It’s good, bad, and ugly. All at the same time. Future tech is about diversity, equality, and inclusion. Future tech is about discrimination, inequality, exclusion. Future tech is for the rich, the famous, the privileged. Future tech is for everyone, the underserved, the underprivileged. It’s about democratization. It’s about authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. Future tech will save humankind. It may also doom us. The Future Tech Governance Paradox The paradox of future tech is that it is full of promise, opportunity and potential and yet its often exponential nature can present potentially existential risk if not properly guard railed. It also presents the paradox of rich versus poor, those with access to it and those without. The technological contest of our times — with groundbreaking tech invented, developed and implemented at breakneck speed on many fronts and dimensions including Web3, Crypto, Metaverse, Quantum, Nano, and Biotech — to name just a few — is but the latest iteration of an eternal human conundrum: how do we put guardrails around the Wild West of invention without harming progress? How do we make sure that future tech incorporates themes of governance, risk, ethics, and impact to impede deeply negative downsides while truly empowering the development and implementation of broadly beneficial upsides for the entire world not just the privileged few? Four “Old” Principles for “New” Tech With the right balance of age-old but actualized and customized principles of govern-
ance, ethics, risk, and impact, future tech can move in a mostly positive direction. This balancing act is one that must happen at every level — at the enterprise level (from start-ups to tech giants); at the community and NGO level; and at all governmental levels (local, national, and international). The UN Sustainable Development Goals Report of 2022 offers examples of how tech innovation must be part of this interconnected ecosystem at every level, especially under SDG9 — Build Resilient Infrastructure, Promote Inclusive and Sustainable Industrialization and Foster Innovation.
The paradox of future tech is that it is full of promise and opportunity, yet its often exponential nature can present potentially existential risk if not properly guard railed. Here are some examples of how new tech is deploying these four time-tested principles positively. 1. Responsible Governance: Being a Conscientious Crypto Company Responsible governance is about management and a board of directors that understand the technology, bring in the right people to risk manage its development, consider the interests and expectations of key stakeholders, and build guardrails from inception. While there seem to be only a few of what might be called “conscientious” crypto companies, Circle seems to be one of them. While we must wait for the long game to unfold, Circle seems to be an early-stage tech company with much Web3 future tech development ahead of it that has established an early-stage governance, risk, ethics, and impact ethos. And they have explicitly made the accessibility by the billions of financially underserved people on the planet a central corporate objective. UNGA | 41
2. Integrated Ethics: Integrating Ethics into AI Integrated ethics entails a system of ethical review at every stage of the conception and development of tech where interdisciplinary teams, including tech ethicists, work shoulder to shoulder with engineers and scientists. One area in which certain companies and associations of companies have made a mark is to talk about AI ethics in everything they do. Society as a whole, and many think tanks, communal entities, and governmental bodies have also pressured companies to do this. For example, these are the 10 principles developed by the Business Roundtable, an industry association.
Ten Core Principles of the Business Roundtable (2022) 1. Innovated with and for diversity. 2. Mitigate the potential for unfair bias. 3. Design for and implement transparency, explainability, and interpretability. 4. Invest in a future-ready AI workforce. 5. Evaluate and monitor model fitness and impact. 6. Manage data collection and data use properly. 7. Design and deploy secure AI systems. 8. Encourage a company-wide culture of responsible AI. 9. Adapt existing governance structures to account for AI. 10. Operationalize AI governance throughout the whole organization.
At the company level, Microsoft has been a pioneer in acknowledging the importance of integrating ethics into AI through six principles (see graphic below) which they have updated as recently as June 2022 through their “Microsoft Responsible AI Standard v2”.
Source: World Economic Forum
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3. Intelligent Risk: Disinformation Risk Management The misinformation, disinformation and “malinformation” Pandora’s box of our times is only just beginning to open. While some require intent and others don’t, all three forms are part of the pervasive “information disorder” that marks our times, according to Crisp. The bottom line is that information — the good, the bad and the ugly — continues to explode exponentially without enough barriers, filters, and governors to help control its exponential growth and with damaging impacts all over the world. The business, public and social sectors need to combine early risk management techniques deploying tech and human intelligence to fortify and improve their overall enterprise risk management. 4. Sustainable Impact: The Stakeholder Take Thanks to the valuable analytical work of Just Capital, we can compare how U.S.-listed publicly traded companies are doing with five key stakeholder groups — workers, communities, shareholders, customers, and the environment. In Just Capital’s 2022 list of most trusted companies Alphabet was listed #1 and Meta was
listed #712. The starkest differences between the two companies appear in the treatment of customers and shareholders. Of which would you rather be a customer or own shares of? In the age of stakeholder capitalism, stakeholders everywhere are pressuring business and government to mind the store of their many environmental, social, governance and technological issues. Future Tech Based on Governance and Impact Is More Resilient Just because it’s the most disruptive time ever for humanity doesn’t mean that we cannot develop responsible governance, intelligent risk management, ethical standards, and sustainable impact. Indeed, it means we should double down on doing so. And there are additional benefits to doing so. This important finding from the 2022 UN SDG Report with respect to SDG #9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) underscores this fact: it appears that higher tech companies have proven far more durable in building resilience and sustainability in the face of a crisis than their lower tech counterparts. It would seem from this evidence that it pays to embrace future tech responsibly.
Source: United Nations.
***** About the author: Andrea Bonime-Blanc is the CEO and Founder of GEC Risk Advisory.
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For Billions of People Digital Connectivity Is Still a Dream By Mats Granryd
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.3 billion. That’s the number of people worldwide who use a mobile phone. It equates to 66% of the global population; a number almost unimaginable ten years ago. Already today 55% of people globally use the mobile internet, including more than 3.3 billion subscribers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where mobile is the primary and, in many cases only, form of internet access. As nations around the world recover from the effects of COVID-19, policymakers and mobile operators are rightly focused on fully extending connectivity; investing in network infrastructure that is bringing millions of people within range of critical digital services and helping them play an active role in our digital society. Huge progress is being made. Operators’ network investments have driven the coverage gap for mobile broadband networks down from 1.4 billion people in 2015 to 400 million people in 2021. And since 2015, 560 million of the world’s poorest people have gained mobile internet access, boosting social and economic mobility, helping to narrow the gender gap and acting as a powerful enabler in the delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This year’s Mobile Industry Impact Report: Sustainable Development Goals report (which tracks the mobile industry’s contribution to the achievement of the SDGs) shows that mobile is contributing strongly to eleven of the 17 SDGs. In particular, it is playing a massive role in enabling Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure development (SDG9), as well as contributing to SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger) and 4 (Quality Education) by helping people search and apply for jobs, access government services, and educate themselves and their families online. However, there is clearly more to do. Billions of people have yet to benefit from the transformational economic and social impacts of digital technologies.
Part of the solution is clearly continued infrastructure investment, driving for even deeper, sustainable coverage, especially in rural areas. However, creating truly connected citizens is about far more than just living somewhere with network coverage. It’s about being able to access it, affordably; about knowing how to use it, and benefit from it; and about being protected from the risks of our online world. 3.2 billion people currently live in areas covered by mobile broadband networks but are unable to use them due to a lack of knowledge or skills, affordability issues, inadequate local and relevant content, or concerns around safety and security.
creating truly connected citizens is about far more than just living somewhere with network coverage. It’s about being able to access it, affordably; about knowing how to use it, and benefit from it; and about being protected from the risks of our online world. This ‘usage gap’, is swiftly becoming one of the biggest challenges in global connectivity, and disproportionately affects the poorest in society. So how do we address the issue? Frankly, there is no ‘silver bullet’, but across the globe, operators are tackling important challenges like device affordability and digital skills development. For example, in India, Reliance Jio has unveiled a massmarket smartphone, jointly developed with Google, with financing options to make it accessible for a wider range of consumers.
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Acquiring digital skills is critical for people to participate in a rapidly digitalising society. In 2019 Africa’s largest mobile operator MTN launched its flagship digital literacy programme, MTN Data-Smart, based on the GSMA’s Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit, which uses remote delivery methods alongside traditional face-to-face training. In 2021, the operator trained 24 million people across 12 countries through this initiative. However, mobile operators can’t overcome the barriers to adoption alone. Governments have an important role to play in driving digital inclusion through investing in digital skills training for citizens, expanding the availability of relevant content and supporting online public services. To improve affordability governments can reduce spectrum fees, cut back on unnecessary regulation, and avoid discriminatory taxation on the mobile sector. Mobile connectivity is a hugely powerful tool for governments as they seek to bounce back from Covid-19 and deliver on their SDG goals; a ‘force multiplier’ in inclusion, education, skills development and economic growth. By working collaboratively with the mobile industry, governments, regulators and NGOs can truly unlock the full power of connectivity so that people, industry, and society thrive. ***** About the author: Mats Granryd is Director General of the GSMA.
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The Technological Contest of our Times By Dante Disparte
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oiled by a return of war in Europe, forgotten crises such as Afghanistan, and two years of the COVID-19 pandemic along with unchecked climate change, the world’s institutions, countries and companies, even those that enjoy fortress balance sheets, look decidedly enfeebled. And yet, amid the clouds, there is a silver lining with the emergence of the third generation of the internet, or Web3. Web3 is not only a new foundational layer of the internet, more importantly it is a fundamentally new approach to corporate governance, value creation and stakeholder participation, where my interests advance pari passu with yours. Bending the arc of Moore’s law in humanity’s favor presents generationally unique opportunities where people are not merely products or beneficiaries of technologypowered business models, with the attendant distortions this creates, but builders and owners of digitally unique assets. During the globally paralyzing onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to wreak havoc on the global economy and the people who make it turn, a series of pre-pandemic vulnerabilities were revealed. These vulnerabilities, wherein technology and universal access to the internet as veritable digital commons offered the only semblance of continuity, amounted to nothing short of a Great Correction. Like past global crises, whether anthropogenic or naturally occurring, post-pandemic recovery will require reformulating institutional and global norms. Technology and how it is harnessed, especially with the emergence of an open internet of value, is the technological contest of our times. This is especially true and urgent, since the provision of even basic services riding on brick and mortar or fixed lines have reached a point of diminishing returns. When coupled with record low rates of institutional trust, replenishing the wellspring that irrigates societal beliefs in democracy, peace, equity and equal access to prosperity, requires more than false promises and analog infrastructure. It requires delivery and results meeting billions of people who
are on the margins but otherwise enjoy access to low-cost, device-centric internet connectivity. The perimeter of peace and prosperity cannot be stretched any further with institutions designed hundreds of years ago, riding on 50-year old technologies and led by risk-averse leaders incentivized with preserving status quo ante. The economic creative destructive cycle that has created an embarrassment of riches in the world’s advanced economies, is borne from the minds of entrepreneurial challengers and a concerted transition from the agricultural age, to the industrial revolution, to the shift from services to an alwayson internet economy. Whereas the entanglements of Web1 and Web2 made people products by monetizing their data, while socializing losses, Web3 strives for equilibrium, enabling people to read, write and own even their digital bread crumbs. After the sun and human aspiration, the world’s most abundant resource is data and Web3 gives us a new way to compartmentalize and monetize it.
Technology and how it is harnessed, especially with the emergence of an open internet of value, is the technological contest of our times. The instinct to shut down the Web3 revolution for short-lived failures conforming with institutional norms across banking, traditional corporate governance, regulations and political inclinations, should be ignored. Not only would this be on the wrong side of history, it ignores the deeply democratic tendencies of Web3, as well as the fact that amid otherwise anemic or sclerotic growth in traditional sectors, Web3 is powering trillions in economic activity and we are only nearing the starting line. Of course, technology alone is not a panacea, but as with all emerging models of competition, it UNGA | 49
often shows where incumbents, their policies and regulatory frameworks have fallen short. How for example will the world attain the first of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals of eradicating extreme poverty with so many billions of people out of the reach of the brick-and-mortar banking system that is the gateway to the formal economy? How will these gates to the bottom rung of the ladder of economic mobility be opened for the billion people who are functionally born in the shadows with no portable identity that is minimally acceptable to entering the formal economy?
ed and privacy-preserving manner) in the frictionless exchange of economic value? More than 200 million people and counting all over the world are taking the long bet on device-centric banking, payments and digital assets, while institutional adoption of Web3 has triggered nothing short of a pecuniary space race. Who wins, how winning is construed, if this is a zero-sum race at all, and which value systems are enshrined in conduct, code, bits and bytes, will be as deterministic to our future as arresting war, climate change, pandemics and institutional mistrust.
After the sun and human aspiration, the world’s most abundant resource is data and Web3 gives us a new way to compartmentalize and monetize it.
Rising to the technological contest of our times is about spurring more equitable economic growth, making people owners rather than technological serfs and harnessing otherwise stranded assets and aspirations. Like all economic corrections and cycles, progress comes with externalities. The carbon-hungry economic model of the Robber Barons of the industrial age accelerated man-made climate change, just like the data hungry Tech Titans have amplified cyber risk and societal misinformation. Web3 is a correction to these challenges, but it too must be rules-based and accountable for its full potential to be unlocked. The countries, companies and institutions who embrace this technological opportunity will advance their competitiveness and help shape an always-on, economically equitable future.
Left unchecked, this state of economic inequity is a greater source of global risk than millions of people establishing peer-to-peer economic relationships with each other powered by public blockchains and Web3. In Thomas Friedman’s hot, flat, and crowded world, we no longer send cross-border mail as the internet tore down national boundaries, creating trust-based, frictionless information exchange. In the future, will we still send cross-border payments? Or will we be able to freely engage (in a compliant, trust-
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***** About the Author: Dante Alighieri Disparte is the Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Circle.
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Ensuring Innovation Works for All By Gregoire Verdeaux
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s the UN General Assembly convenes its 77th session — in an environment dominated by the impact of inflation on the livelihoods of billions and the effects of climate change, which are already being felt in many regions of the world — cautious incremental responses built on the smallest common denominator look dangerously out of sync with reality. But then there is hope in innovation. Innovation, especially the disruptive variety, can inspire and facilitate solutions. But innovation alone does not guarantee meaningful progress. It must be coupled with a conscious effort by business and government alike to harness its potential in a way that is purposeful and provides substantial benefit to broader society. We have seen how the “move fast and break things” approach favored by some tech disruptors over the past decade can create more problems overall than it solves, especially when disruption becomes an end in itself, with little regard for how it may affect the whole of society. Moreover, even in the absence of unintended consequences, the benefits of innovation may not be equitably distributed. The pandemic has given us vivid examples. While vaccine access remains a problem for developing nations, it has been reported that antiviral drugs have been going unused in wealthier countries. We also saw during multiple lockdowns how innovations in connectivity enabled many of us to work from home while “essential” workers had no option but to continue to work in person. Several factors impact access to innovation, including awareness, affordability, and acceptability. To reap the benefits of any innovation, you must know it exists, be able to afford it, and understand how it might affect your life. We can break down the barriers impeding access. For the private sector, this means prioritizing equitability and accessibility in innovation pipelines and commercial implementation — with a clear vision of what needs to be changed or disrupted and for what purpose. For public policymakers, it’s about putting in place informed legislation that acknowledges
and anticipates innovation, safeguarding the interests of the wider public while also enabling the adoption of an innovative product or service, particularly by those it would benefit most. Importantly, a phased-in regulatory approach, one that incorporates regular reviews of the innovation and shifting market realities, is better suited to today’s fast-paced advances in technology and science, ensuring that policies adapt and improve over time. Regulating innovation is rarely something lawmakers get right the first time around, particularly when governments lack the relevant expertise and appropriate research. An approach of this nature is sorely needed when it comes to regulating progressive change in the tobacco and nicotine space. In my work at Philip Morris International, an innovator disrupting its business model and actively working to replace cigarettes with better alternatives for those adults who would otherwise continue to smoke, I see firsthand the importance of government oversight. Regulation is needed to ensure the commercialization of these products does not create unintended consequences by reaching minors or nonsmokers and that the intended audience—adults who would otherwise continue to smoke—has access to and accurate information about these better products. Disruptive innovation for good in the tobacco sector is relatively new, but so it is in many other sectors. Businesses, government, and consumer groups must work together consistently to promote innovation and co-create a modern and pragmatic regulatory framework. Today’s polarized environment — in which parties sometimes cannot even agree on the most basic facts — is an impediment, but it’s not insurmountable. By insisting on an open dialogue centered on science and facts, we can harness the twin engines of business and policy and ensure innovation achieves its full potential, creating a significant and lasting impact for all. ***** About the author: Gregoire Verdeaux is Senior Vice President, External Affairs at Philip Morris International. UNGA | 53
Photo by Markus Spiske via Unsplash.
The Global Economy in Transition By Michael Spence
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ecent conversations about the global economy and markets have been defined by a set of recurring questions. While there are many moving parts that are difficult to capture in a single clear picture, it is worth attempting to bring some of the biggest issues into better focus. The first question is straightforward: Is a recession looming? With authoritative growth forecasts like those from the International Monetary Fund having been revised significantly downward, and likely to be downgraded further, there is good reason to worry. But a global recession — defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth — remains unlikely, though a major shock, such as a dramatic expansion of conflict or a sudden and significant disruption in a key market like energy, could change this outlook. Some economies, however, certainly will contract. Russia’s GDP will surely shrink, even with higher oil and gas prices, as a result of severe and most likely prolonged Western sanctions. Europe, too, is likely to experience a recession, owing to high energy prices, heavy dependence on fossil-fuel imports, and the (costly) imperative of rapidly weaning itself from Russian supplies. And many lower-income countries—for which soaring food and energy prices are compounding the effects of the pandemic — are facing harder times. While the United States appears increasingly likely to face a major economic slowdown, a recession is not the most likely scenario. Similarly, China — normally a powerful engine of global growth — is set to experience low single-digit growth for at least a year, owing to the combined effects of COVID-19 lockdowns, low vaccination uptake among the elderly, some loss of investor confidence in high-growth tech sectors, and a real-estate sector beset by high debts and falling prices. The second key question relates to the trajectory of inflation. The proximate cause of recent price increases is supply-chain
blockages and imbalances between supply and demand. The war in Ukraine has intensified upward pressure on energy, commodities, and food prices. Some of this will be transitory, though it will last longer than initially expected. But inflation is also being fueled by secular trends that are not set to fade anytime soon. Populations representing about 75% of the global economy are aging, labor-force participation is declining, and productivity growth is trending downward. Moreover, unused productive capacity in developing economies — a key source of deflationary pressure in the past — is smaller than it used to be, and what there is remains unused. Add to that a coming policy-driven diversification of supply and demand linkages — a response to myriad shocks, from the pandemic and climate change to geopolitical tensions and conflict — and an extended period of supply-constrained growth with embedded inflationary pressures seems likely.
The green transition is a powerful mechanism for increasing resilience and reducing vulnerability to the weaponization of energy supplies. The third recurring question is: What is next for the tech sector and the digital transformation it is propelling? Lockdowns and other public-health measures spurred an acceleration in adoption of digital technologies during the pandemic. But, contrary to market expectations, this trend is likely to slow as pandemic restrictions are removed. Amid overly optimistic growth projections, equity markets produced valuations that would have been unrealistic in the best of times. At a time of surging inflation, monetary tightening, and falling growth projections, markets have begun correcting. Not surprisingly, growth stocks, whose value is UNGA | 55
derived from expected future cash flows, and which tend to be concentrated in the tech sector, have fallen particularly sharply. These market gyrations do not mean that the digital, energy, and biomedical transformations that are underway lack substance, or that they will not have long-lasting economic effects. Markets naturally tend to be more volatile than the underlying economic reality they are supposed to mirror. Momentum incentives cause overshoots in both directions. Higher market volatility will have important short-run consequences, because venturecapital and private-equity funding, which plays a vital role in supporting innovative, potentially high-growth companies, is not insulated from it. During upswings, valuations are rich, and some companies with dubious claims to durable growth dynamics are funded. During downswings, private valuations lag behind market adjustments by about 6-9 months (experts estimate), partly because both investors and companies resist adjusting valuations downward until the need to raise additional capital forces the issue. (Even now, growth companies are being urged to cut costs and conserve capital.) During this period, deal prices are out of line with realistic longerterm values, making funding difficult and impeding growth and innovation. A final question that seems to be preoccupying minds lately is whether the war in Ukraine, Europe’s resolve to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas, and skyhigh fossil-fuel prices will derail the lowcarbon transition. Fortunately, there are good reasons to think that it might not, at least not in a lasting way. For starters, high fossil-fuel prices create a strong incentive for countries and consumers to boost energy efficiency and invest in sustainable energy solutions. In this sense, they go some way toward offsetting the failure to establish an effective global carbon-pricing scheme. High fossil-fuel prices will have adverse distributional effects within and across coun56 | D I PLOM AT I C CO URIE R
Inflation is also being fueled by secular trends that are not set to fade anytime soon. Populations representing about 75% of the global economy are aging, labor-force participation is declining, and productivity growth is trending downward. tries, resembling the impact of a regressive tax. But these effects can be mitigated, ideally through some form of income redistribution. What governments should not do is subsidize fossil fuels by regulating final prices below market levels, as this would weaken the incentive to pursue more sustainable options. There is a good argument for stabilizing energy prices to encourage investment in alternatives. But that does not mean cutting off the peaks while leaving the troughs in place. Geopolitics is also bolstering the clean-energy incentive: unlike fossil fuels, renewables largely do not create external dependencies. The green transition is thus a powerful mechanism for increasing resilience and reducing vulnerability to the weaponization of energy supplies. Ultimately, the green transition is a multidecade process, during which the energy mix shifts gradually from fossil fuels to clean alternatives. In the near term, economies—especially Europe—might resort to “dirty” energy, including coal, to meet their needs. But this need not spell disaster for the energy transition, let alone the global sustainability agenda. ***** About the author: Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is an emeritus professor at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
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Therefore, ending cigarettes globally requires that: Policymakers and regulators learn from nations where smoke-free alternatives have contributed to successful anti-smoking efforts. What works in one country can work in another, and that should inform regulations and other decisions about smoke-free products. Public health advocates and activists use the complete body of facts when discussing the relative risks associated with smoke-free products. The most harm from cigarettes comes from burning tobacco—there shouldn’t be any confusion about that. Leaders at the local and national levels recognize that new technologies—digitally activated age verification, for example—can greatly enhance efforts to prevent youth from using tobacco or nicotine products. Everyone wants a world without cigarettes—but it will take our collective action. It’s not enough to wait for smokers to stop on their own. We have to do everything possible to help those adults who would otherwise continue smoking move away from cigarettes for good.
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Fact-Checking the Deglobalization Narrative By Andrés Velasco
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he left and the right united shall never be defeated,” claimed the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra, and the current debate over deglobalization illustrates the point. So-called progressives never liked fast growth in world trade and now greet any reversal with cries of “I told you so!” Globalization-supporting conservatives, on the other hand, react to the smallest setback with Chicken Little-like cries that “the sky is falling!” Both camps have an interest in exaggerating the extent of deglobalization. The result is a widely accepted narrative of decline: After repeated financial crises, a nativist reaction, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now Russia’s war on Ukraine, globalization’s days are numbered. It’s an eye-catching claim. But is it true? According to the World Bank, trade in goods and services as a share of global GDP fell from a peak of 61% in 2008, just before the global financial crisis, to 52% in 2020. But this figure is still very high by historical standards—the trade-to-GDP ratio averaged just 42% in the 1990s, when critics were already complaining about hyperglobalization. Once final data are available, they will show that trade recovered in 2021 and 2022 as the pandemic receded. More interestingly, the all-out tariff war predicted by trade skeptics never erupted. Starting in 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump increased tariffs on some Chinese goods, China retaliated, and the dispute spilled over into a handful of other markets. President Joe Biden initially found it expedient to keep some of Trump’s tariffs, but now plans to roll them back in an attempt to reduce U.S. inflation. A worldwide escalation in tariffs and quotas will not happen, for the simple reason that voters do not want it to happen. In rich and poor countries alike, a parent can buy a pair of Chinese-made children’s sneakers for $10 or less. A generation ago, the only option in most places was a locally-made pair costing several times that.
Protectionism is supposed to be popular with voters, but the reality is subtler. As any pollster will tell you, the statement “government should do what it can to protect local businesses and local jobs” typically elicits overwhelming support. The statement “government should protect local industry even if that means much higher prices for consumers” meets with widespread derision. Three big changes are afoot in world trade, but none of them need imply widespread deglobalization.
According to the World Bank, trade in goods and services as a share of global GDP fell from a peak of 61% in 2008, just before the global financial crisis, to 52% in 2020. The first change is the reconfiguring of global supply chains. As the media have reported in gory detail, first the U.S.-China tensions, then the pandemic, and now the Russia-Ukraine conflict caught many global firms—in sectors ranging from cars to baby formula—without a Plan B to source the inputs they need. So, they are now switching from “just-in-time” to “just-in-case” supplies. “Resilience,” “near-shoring,” and “friend-shoring” are the buzzwords du jour. The expansion of world trade over the past two decades resembled the Gold Rush or the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s. Firms that found the lowest-cost supplier internationally, with little regard for the risks involved, could make big money. Other companies followed suit because their competitors were doing it. Eventually, something had to give. While the dot-com crash took away Pets. com, it gave us Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix. This time around, crises are causing firms to diversify suppliers and draw up plans B, C, and D. Costs will increase, but UNGA | 59
so will safety and reliability. Crucially, most supplies will still come from abroad. Apple recently decided to move some of its assembly operations from China to Vietnam, not to Arkansas or Alabama. As I wrote in a previous commentary, Guangdong’s loss could well be Guadalajara’s gain. The second big change is a gradual but unmistakable shift from trade in goods to trade in services. Manufacturing’s share of total output is falling almost everywhere, and the drop has been particularly sharp in China. Unsurprisingly, trade in manufactures is declining as a share of global GDP. Services will likely make up the slack, but trade in services is hampered by all kinds of political, regulatory, and cultural barriers. There is no need for customers to speak the same language as the people who make their smartphones. But they are right to expect their doctor, architect, asset manager, or airline pilot to be able to communicate with them in a moreor-less comprehensible version of a shared language. And that takes time. Yet, by forcing people to hold business meetings across a computer screen, the COVID-19 pandemic has given services trade an unexpected shot in the arm. Why not use similar technology to sell services around the world? Radiologists in Bangalore were already reviewing X-rays produced in Boston or Birmingham before the pandemic. Now architects in Buenos Aires design housing projects for Beijing, and programmers in Bangkok write code for firms in Brussels. The economist Richard Baldwin has described globalization as a sequence of “great unbundlings.” The first occurred in the late nineteenth century when steam power cut the expense of moving goods internationally. The second came in the late twentieth century when information technology radically lowered the cost of moving ideas across borders. A third great unbundling beckons, predicts Baldwin, as digital technology makes it cheap and easy to move people across borders—without making them leave their bedroom or kitchen.
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A worldwide escalation in tariffs and quotas will not happen, for the simple reason that voters do not want it to happen. The final change is political. Until now, globalization has largely shaped governments’ policy options. Today’s policymakers rightly want to shape the paths that globalization follows. International flows of hot money can be destabilizing and need to be regulated (as even the International Monetary Fund now recognizes). Similarly, the direction of technological change is not preordained; as Harvard’s Dani Rodrik and Stefanie Stantcheva have argued, it can be shifted to create jobs rather than destroy them. A growing number of essential global public goods—from climate control to pandemic relief—also call for more activist policies. If governments get it right, a more subdued, but also more sustainable and longer-lasting kind of globalization will emerge. Peddlers of deglobalization theories may then need to change jobs and re-skill. Fortunately for them, that is easier to do in an open and growing world economy. ***** About the author: Andrés Velasco, a former presidential candidate and finance minister of Chile, is Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
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Economic Equality After the Overturn of Roe v. Wade By Donnica Hawes-Saunders
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omen have fought for equal voice and influence since at least the mid-19th century. The Homestead Act of 1862 was the first law of many that provided opportunities for women, married or single, to gain financial independence with an opportunity for ownership of land previously owned by the government. Fast-forward to 34 years ago, The Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988, gave women the freedom to take out business loans without receiving a male cosigner’s signature. In the 21st century, women have continued to make significant progress toward economic empowerment through legislation, public policy, and political involvement. However, there remains much to do before true economic freedom is achieved, including full and equitable agency over our lives. The gap between how much money men and women are paid has long been a feature of the U.S. economy. While the pay differential has narrowed since the 1960s, progress seems to have slowed in the past decade or more — a dynamic that has significant implications for women’s financial security and wellbeing. According to The American Association of University Women, today, when comparing women to men in the workforce, women will earn on average 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, a figure that remains the same as the statistics in 2021. When race and ethnicity are added to the equation, the wage gap widens further. This is important because lower pay contributes to lower lifetime earnings, wealth, and expands into other disparities. For example, individuals who are facing income and wealth inequalities are impacted by power imbalances that compromise their basic human rights — access to healthcare, education, housing, and other necessities that are emblematic of economic and social freedom. In addition, less wealth compromises fair access to justice and political representation. Three months ago, women’s journey to economic freedom received another barrier. The U.S. Supreme Court released a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, upholding the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court also ruled
5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 decision that protects pregnant people’s right to privacy without excessive government restriction. This decision is devasting for women’s rights. Women and doctors will risk prosecution when traveling for abortion care. Doctors in certain states will be afraid to treat ongoing miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, so women will suffer and die from those conditions when they could have been treated and saved. In countries where abortion bans are in place, abortions have not decreased, but the number of unsafe abortions has increased, especially among those who are economically disadvantaged. Roe’s fall will have a strong economic impact on women in the 26 states that are likely to implement laws that ban abortion, as they already face lower wages, worker power, and access to health. Women with higher economic standing will have the privilege to travel to another state to receive care, yet those who cannot afford to travel will be forced to abide by the ruling of their State. If our society will evolve to one in which women can enjoy true economic equality, which includes control over our own bodies, then a stronger economy will emerge. When more women work, economies grow. In addition, the history of feminism is a powerful one — the concept of a woman being able to vote in the U.S. used to be unthinkable. Today, women can vote, own their own businesses, and work for pay. Although there is still much to do and despite recent setbacks to access to healthcare, women have been gaining ground toward economic freedom in these modern days. Individual freedom, pay equality, and political participation are not just vital in developing equal opportunities for women in broader society — a healthier, wealthier, more sustainable future depends on it. ***** About the author: Donnica HawesSaunders manages global and U.S. public affairs outreach and external communication engagements for Philip Morris International.
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Gender-Equal Education Is About More Than Access By M. Niaz Asadullah
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nsuring inclusive, equitable, highquality education for all is a major pillar of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Three decades ago, fewer girls were in school than boys. Among those girls who were fortunate enough to be enrolled, the majority dropped out early. In many parts of the developing world, social norms and poverty combined to limit girls’ educational and social opportunities. However, improvements over the past 25 years in girls’ enrollment in primary and secondary education have been dramatic, significantly reducing educational gender disparities. While girls still face extreme exclusion in Sub-Saharan African countries such as Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Togo, the gender enrollment gap has been closed or even reversed (with boys lagging girls) in developing Asia, often owing to government partnerships with religious and other private schools. For example, during the 2000-2015 campaign for the Millennium Development Goals (the precursors to the SDGs), Islamic madrasas helped close the gender gap by widening school choice in Indonesia and Bangladesh. In Muslim-majority communities, religious and educational norms often conflict, with parents who want to educate their daughters facing opposition from local religious authorities. But madrasas reconcile these differences by educating unmarried girls without violating community norms, and they are often the only schools available in remote villages without public schools and where for-profit private institutions will not go. By collaborating with co-ed faith-based schools to close their primary-education gender gaps, Bangladesh and Indonesia offer valuable lessons for others in the region, not least Afghanistan and Pakistan, where single-sex educational formats have reinforced segregation at the expense of girls. But faith-based providers also can create new challenges and introduce difficult trade-offs. Some madrasas’ educational
practices can cancel out whatever benefits they provide in terms of educational access. Because their textbooks, curricula, and classroom settings are not always gender-inclusive, the schooling that they offer to girls can end up reinforcing traditional gender roles. For example, my research for UNESCO finds that female students and teachers in Malaysian state-supported madrasas systematically express a preference for more traditional, gender-unequal norms, raising concerns about the society-wide implications of the type of education these institutions provide. One solution is to pursue greater gender parity in staffing, since madrasas that recruit female teachers tend to instill less gender-unequal attitudes and practices. The problem, of course, is that the conservative madrasas that are most likely to reinforce patriarchal norms also are the most likely to shun female teachers.
female students and teachers in Malaysian state-supported madrasas systematically express a preference for more traditional, gender-unequal norms, raising concerns about the societywide implications of the type of education these institutions provide. Given this mixed record, UNESCO has used the 20th anniversary of its Global Education Monitoring Report to consider what role faith-based schools should play in achieving gender equality by the SDGs’ 2030 target date. Governments have tools to minimize faithbased schooling’s potential negative effects on gender equality, such as by ensuring that all madrasas are registered and follow the same curricula and gender-bias training processes as public schools. But that is easier UNGA | 65
said than done. Much depends on whether government institutions have the capacity to enforce standards and mediate between competing interest groups. Moreover, faith-based schools operate across a wide range of institutional and political contexts. They have a large presence not just in democracies like Indonesia but also in authoritarian countries like Afghanistan under the Taliban. And even within these countries, there is enormous diversity in how madrasas are organized, financed, and regulated. Many remain outside of state control and will not take it upon themselves to hire more female teachers or adopt gender-equal curricula. Complicating matters further, the state capacity needed to govern and regulate education systems tends to be inversely correlated with the supply of faith-based schools. Because Malaysian politicians have long advocated high public spending on education, non-state Islamic schools did not proliferate there. In Bangladesh, by contrast, low public spending on education encouraged the unregulated growth of non-state madrasas, whose leaders now enjoy significant bargaining power over state authorities. Policymakers, education activists, and others who are worried about girls being left behind must look beyond access. While madrasas can increase the share of girls in classrooms, the substance of those girls’ educational experience matters, too. Addressing this fraught issue may require unpopular reforms. Given the complexity of the madrasa sector, a collaborative approach based on grassroots dialogue with faith leaders is essential.
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Policymakers, education activists, and others who are worried about girls being left behind must look beyond access. While madrasas can increase the share of girls in classrooms, the substance of those girls’ educational experience matters, too. To that end, Sierra Leone’s charismatic minister of education, David Moinina Sengeh, has championed the idea of radical inclusion, proactively engaging both religious leaders and other interested parties to support the rights of vulnerable students. But, ultimately, madrasa reform will be much easier if there is also a political consensus in support of greater investment in public schools. There are no shortcuts to universal, inclusive, high-quality education. ***** About the author: M. Niaz Asadullah, Professor of Development Economics at Monash University Malaysia, is Head of the Southeast Asia cluster of the Global Labor Organization. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
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