Moving towards whole-of-society intergenerational dialogues
Written by Lewis Lloyd
The UK is at a point of inflection. Grappling with pandemic recovery, increasing cost of living, and reorienting itself post-Brexit. While also making efforts to manage changes in its external environment, such as the climate crisis, emerging technologies, and shifts in geopolitics, demography and values. And being more affected by developments beyond its borders, as seen with Covid-19, than ever has been in the past.
There is an increasing recognition that decisions and policy making processes need to reflect citizens’ voices, values and lived experiences. Empowering them to shape their future for one that is better, fairer and more sustainable for current and future generations. At the centre of this approach are young people whose voices have historically been missing from decision making forums but who will inherit the impact of these decisions.
To bridge this gap between future generations and today’s policies, SOIF, in 2020, initiated the National Strategy for the Next Generations (NSxNG) programme. As a way to explore participatory ways of making policies that are better suited to turbulent times by supporting young people to run intergenerational dialogues in their communities and connecting the outputs from these into government. These efforts help ensure that a country’s future course takes into account the hopes and fears of its citizens and its history and leaves positive legacies for future generations.
The NSxNG Coalition
In January 2023, SOIF hosted the NSxNG coalition for a day-long gathering in London, reflecting on the last three years of the programme and the way ahead. A diverse group of young people, policy makers, civil society partners and funders gathered to explore the role that whole of society, youth-led, futures-focused intergenerational community dialogues could play in shaping decisions about the future of the UK and its role in the world, to help work through these challenges.
There was huge collective potential in the room: an optimism and enthusiasm shot through with a dose of hardnosed pragmatism. Attendees proposed a range of radical yet realistic ideas about how we could move the programme forward over the next 12 months and really change the way that government makes decisions about the future of the UK.
Learnings from A National Strategy for the Next Generations
The day started with a hybrid component, where we were joined by supporters, friends and other interested parties online to watch a double whammy of panel discussions. The first featured reflections on why a whole-of-society conversation about the future of the UK would be so powerful, with contributions from Lord Peter Ricketts, former National Security Adviser to the UK Government, Sophie Howe, the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, and Richard Fisher, Editor at BBC Future and author of The Long View.
There is both the need and the opportunity for young people to be much more engaged than they were in the past… The decisions that are taken now will influence and affect the world you grow up and inherit.
Lord Peter Ricketts
We then heard from some of the young Next Generations Champions we’ve been working with on the programme, as well as coalition members from organisations including King’s College London (where we held the event) and DemSoc.
Creating enabling environments for young people to be heard throughout the development of some of these ideas, especially with the opportunity to bring our lived experiences…has been really valuable.
Amaleehah Aslam Forrester, Next Generations Champion
Both panels emphasised the value of futures and foresight to the policy space as tools that create room for interrogating system dynamics, bringing disciplines together, challenging assumptions and imagining better futures.
Futures was also recognised as a powerful mechanism for creating room for those not usually featured in these conversations to contribute meaningfully without needing to have years of expertise under their belts.
They also spoke to the power of weaving networks of diverse actors from across the ‘three horizons’: incumbents, those that are innovating on the status quo (often from within ‘establishment’ institutions, such as forward-thinking civil servants), as well as young people and others who are working towards alternative models for the future. Only through this sort of diverse coalition can we drive widespread change that makes lives better for current and future generations in the here and now, at the same time as building sustainable long-term alternatives to existing systems.
Plans for 2023 and beyond
The value of such a diverse network was further borne out in the room in the later sessions. Breakout groups got stuck into some foresight work, tackling some of the biggest challenges facing the UK currently and considering how the policy environment might have changed by 2045 in areas such as health and wellbeing, climate and energy, democracy and identity, levelling up and economic growth, and more.
Attendees then went on to consider how we most effectively move forward on different aspects of the programme, such as supporting a community of young people to use foresight in their communities, working more closely with civil servants and parliamentarians, and integrating international perspectives into NSxNG’s future work.
As a result of the wide range of views and backgrounds in the room, we had some really insightful discussions on a variety of topics. Demonstrating the power of carefully designed experiences in bringing people together around common challenges and creating meaningful outputs and a shared sense of direction and agency.
We’ll now be working with partners to take this forward.
- Further building the network, understanding our strengths and weaknesses and how best to drive impact, while decentralising power and decision making (especially through the ongoing, deepening involvement of young people).
- Continuing to refine the language and narrative to ensure we can reach new audiences — especially working on how we effectively bridge linguistic differences between policy and non-policy communities.
- Clarifying our policy asks, developing these intergenerationally and working with partners to connect these asks up to the right people.
If you would like to hear more about the programme or get involved, you can sign up to the mailing list here or get in touch with finn@soif.org.uk. We look forward to seeing you at a future event!
