AC/UNU Millennium Project
Updating the Global Challenges Facing Humanity
9. Capacity to Decide
How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?

This is the short description of the challenge as appears in the print version of the 2006State of the Future report. The more complete version of this challenge along with actions to address it, graphs, and indicators to measure change is available on the CD-ROM included with the report.
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General Description

Too much time is wasted shifting through useless data and information, and the increasing volume makes it difficult to separate the noise from the signal of what is important to know in order to make good decisions. Ubiquitous computing will increase the number of decisions per day, constantly changing schedules and priorities. Accelerating rates of change make many people unsure about the future and the basis for decisionmaking. The sheer number and intricacy of choices seem to be growing beyond our abilities to analyze and make decisions. Democratization and interactive media are adding to the number of people involved in decisionmaking, which increases complexity—making continuous modifications of decisions more likely than decision closure. As decisionmaking to address global challenges becomes too complex, it may appear chaotic until new systems emerge.

The amount of data will explode—with sensors imbedded in products, in buildings, and in living bodies and with more data from transactions, communications, physical inspections, and diagnostics. Future forms of analysis and simulations are planned to use these data to provide insight into correlations in fields as diverse as social behavior and nanobiology. More user-friendly, powerful, and flexible simulation and modeling software will eventually find its way into decisionmaking, as have spreadsheet software and search engines.

Coupled with ubiquitous sensors and other monitoring systems, decisionmaking will be technologically augmented on a continuous basis and integrated into institutional and personal intelligence software. Such future capacities might help identify attractors of responsible decisionmaking and network them for improved efficiencies. In the meantime, we have to learn how to improve and deploy Internet-based management tools and concepts fast enough to catch up with all the change. One new example is the “real time” Delphi that provides decisionmakers with rapid access to an ongoing synthesis of experts’ judgments in real time. Self-selection and self-organization of volunteers around the world via Web sites is a new strategy to increase transparency of public issues and to participate in decision processes.

E-government systems are growing rapidly to help automate administrivia, make decisionmaking more transparent, and facilitate public participation, but they also create new vulnerabilities to manipulation by organized crime and to cyber-terrorism. To counter the annual $1 trillion in bribes affecting political decisionmaking, the UN Convention against Corruption has entered into force; it sets out guidelines on how to prevent and criminalize corruption as well as measures for international cooperation and asset recovery. The World Bank now requires national governance assessments and approved $2.6 billion for improved governance. UN organizations are the only trusted decisionmaking system for many people around the world. Yet they were designed for decisionmaking among governments. Today’s challenges cannot be addressed by governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and intergovernmental bodies acting alone; hence, transinstitutional decisionmaking has to be developed and common platforms created for transinstitutional strategic decisionmaking and implementation.

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Approaches to address this challenge

Challenge 9 will be addressed seriously when the State of the Future Index or similar systems are used regularly in decisionmaking, when national corporate law is modified to recognize transinstitutional organizations, and when at least 50 countries require elected officials to be trained in decision-making. Such training should bring together research on why irrational decisions are made, lessons of history, futures research methods, forecasting of intended and unintended consequences, insights from cognitive science, data reliability, utilization of statistics, conventional decision support methods (e.g., cost/benefit, PERT, utility and multi-attribute analysis, econometric modeling), ethical considerations, goal seeking, risk, the role of leadership, transparency, accountability, and participatory decisionmaking. It should also include the current state of e-government, ways to identify and better an organization’s improvement system, and decision-support software, including knowledge visualization, prioritization processes, and collaborative decisionmaking with different institutions. Just as efficiency is a key criterion in decisionmaking for industrial economies, wisdom based on global ethics will be a criterion in decision-making for successful knowledge economies, along with an emphasis on partnership and participation between decisionmakers and stakeholders.

Please suggest other actions to address this challenge or edits to the ones above:

Regional Considerations

Africa: The New Partnership for Africa’s Development has begun improving collaborative decisionmaking. The main problem in Africa is lack of good leadership and the ability to transfer power from one leader to the next. Decisionmaking can be improved by developing informed civil society and NGO pressure for freedom of the press, accountability, and transparency of government; by adopting participatory decisionmaking practices and civil service reform; and by reversing the brain drain or connecting expatriates to the development processes back home through Internet systems.

Please suggest edits concerning Africa:

Asia and Oceania: Traditional hierarchical decisionmaking in Japan is beginning to be affected by NGOs. Regional dialogue and cooperation are needed to create a regional development plan. Advanced information technology should be used for improved educational access, knowledge management, and decision support. Internet access is still limited in Oceania.

Please suggest edits concerning Asia and Oceania:

Europe: Europe is supporting foresight and its integration into decisionmaking, but the tensions between the EU and its member governments and among ethnic groups is making decisionmaking difficult. A global observatory and advanced information technology may facilitate public participation in direct democracy. Transition economies need public discussion of new development concepts and more education and training for their leaders. A list of firms with good decisionmaking should be organized.

Please suggest edits concerning Europe:

Latin America: The region is increasingly demanding the modernization of state management and a new qualitative scale of state intervention. Latin America has to improve political educational awareness and the involvement of the people and to reduce corruption. Foresight and environmental scanning draws attention to future opportunities, too often missed today.

Please suggest edits concerning Latin America:

North America: The Internet is a medium for self-organizing global brains that is becoming a de facto decisionmaker. The region will evolve using “subsidiarity,” with decisions made at the lowest level appropriate to the problem. North Americans need to move from cause-effect, single-issue problem analysis to integrated, holistic visions and problem solving, using futures research, systems thinking, and technology assessment. Decisionmaking responsibility is being diffused through a complex workforce. Many people are increasingly working on short-term jobs with changing “strategic partnerships” and are involved in volunteer and educational activities beyond traditional retirement ages.

Please suggest edits concerning North America:

Graph: Growth of International Organizations (NGOs and IGOs)


Source: Union of International Associations with Millennium Project estimates

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Additional Comments
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Thank you for your participation. The results will be sent to you in the 2007 State of the Future in August 2007.



Survey conducted by the Millennium Project of the ACUNU