2019 CSF Foresight Report
“Social policies are particularly susceptible to the Law of Unintended Consequences, as human behaviour and societal changes are often shaped by deep, hidden and interconnected forces that — because of complexity — might not be fully apparent for years.” — CSF 2019 Foresight Report
We hope you enjoy this week’s Governance Gauge: for more reading material, you can always visit our reading list for more on governance, special economic zones, best practices and studies!
The Center for Strategic Futures’ biennial publication on foresight provides a great analysis of the next big issues for government and society from a Singaporean perspective.
And issues are not lacking: Many different trends were discussed. Futurism, escalation of trade wars, rising importance of AI and Data, aging, the gig economy and more.
How can one better deal with these international trends? One cannot know the future, but one can surely try to address it responsibly. The authors provide important insights regarding risk assessment. One that particularly stood out was the three tensions present in risk. These are that all risks come with an opportunity, there is a need to mediate between immediate demands and longer-term concerns, and that tradeoffs can exist between strategic and operational risks.
This document also has the importance of showing how a successful microstate sees its place in the world. The Singaporeans recognize that some trends are much bigger than them, such as the rising East x West dichotomy, but that there are also great things with global impact that can be accomplished by smaller countries. Some examples cited are Luxembourg helping shape the “Space market” and Estonia serving as an example to the whole world when it comes to E-governance.
Two great founders and visionaries — Lee Kuan Yew and Stamford Raffles — made Singapore what it is, but the Singaporeans don’t take it for granted that another great man will come to lead them into this new age. Instead, the people of Singapore are to create the conditions which will prolong their country’s exceptionalism.
Do they have any advantages in this regard? According to themselves, their own limited size helps them, as it gives them a “greater ease of implementation and great ability to test, iterate, experiment and prototype”. Further, they view their small state status as something that helps them “course-correct” much more easily if they take misguided or wrong policy decisions.
The document is split into 6 parts: First an introduction, then various articles on strategic issues, reports and commentaries, stories from the future, a “meet the team” and lastly the endnotes.
Creators of zones and societies should take a look at the chapter about the sense of identity of the population in the next years and the commentary on the new senses in which time can be explored.
Policymakers and analysts are advised to read the articles regarding work in future societies, the gig economy and the risks and possibilities regarding the use of data.
Scholars and experts may read the chapters on the impacts of longevity increases and on the implications of further developments of science.
The book can be found here.
Written by: Francisco Litvay
