Policymaking for future generations
As governments move from immediate crisis mode to building or designing for The After Times how do we think not just about the pandemic but those other Long Emergencies: like the climate crisis and racial justice? Who’s got their eyes on the ‘curves beyond the curve’, a thread which ran across our How not to waste a crisis series.
We’ve teamed up with the excellent Long Time Project to continue the theme. Ella Saltmarshe shares some of the urgency behind why we need to hone the art of being a good ancestor, and how some governments are already doing just that.
Locked into the short-term?
News cycles, election cycles, annual budgets; we seem locked into short-termism by many of our institutional, legal and political structures and cultures. But the challenges of government are long-term and slow as well as short-term and fast: from pandemics to climate change, to biodiversity loss, to the societal implications of AI; we face a growing number of crises that have the potential to both endure for a long time and have long-term implications for our collective future. To neglect these existential risks, will be to fail both present and future generations.
So who’s thinking about the long term? How are we evolving our institutions in ways that enable us to connect and tackle what is urgent today, with what will be urgent in the future? How can we operate with care for the world that will exist beyond our lifetimes?
“Next-generation policymaking needs to build in consideration for future generations.”
As the philosopher, Toby Ord writes, “protection from existential risk is an intergenerational global public good”. We’ve started seeing what this looks like.
Wales has the Well-Being for Future Generations act where public bodies report on whether “the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” At a municipal level, there’s Tatsuyoshi Saijo and the Future Design project who has developed methodologies where Japanese policymakers put themselves into the shoes (and ceremonial robes) of citizens from 2060. Every minister in Taiwan has two reverse mentors — young social innovators looking at policy from the perspective of the next generation. This has already led to concrete policy changes.
It’s not just policymaking, there are equivalent long-term initiatives happening in fields like law, finance and culture: all of us have a part to play in contributing to this new long-term movement. How do we adopt this approach in all that we do?
Cultivating long-termism.
Join us to explore practical ways to cultivate long-termism in institutions. The question: how can we be better ancestors? If you are a policymaker or work in or around government, and this sounds like something you are doing (or trying to do!) then apply to be part of our workshop. We’ll design new tools together to support long-termism and test them over the coming months. It’ll be intimate and interactive; we’ve only space for 18 people, so apply soon before the spaces fill up.
Apply for the online workshop.
4 August 7–10:30am London.
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