AUTHOR: Robert Whitfield, Chair of Trustees

The Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) in 2016 asked a question of fundamental importance to the future of humanity.  It deserves wide appreciation for seeking answers to this question, assessing those answers and launching a global movement to implement the ideas that emerge from them.  But did it address the right question?  Not entirely: it failed to adequately address existential risk and the emerging challenges of the 21st Century.  It is not too late to adjust however.
 
GCF launched the New Shape for Global Governance Prize (New Shape) in November 2016.  Participants in the competition were invited to  “Design a governance model able to effectively address the most pressing threats and risks to humanity.”
 
Each word in the above sentence is powerful: combined they define the essential challenge for humanity in the 21st Century.  The requirement went on:
 
“The task is not to come up with direct solutions to specific problems. Rather, it is to design a general model for decision-making, with the aim of generating such solutions and the ability to do so, and possessing the resources to effectively implement them.”
 
This made it clear that what was sought was not a list of solutions but a set of institutional changes that would reliably generate those solutions.
 
Finally the requirement set a time frame:  “The governance model must also be such that it can be implemented within the foreseeable future. This requires that it be acceptable to major states and the wider international community. A significant measure of civic acceptance is also required. This requirement eliminates models that rely on time-consuming and controversial changes in the political system of individual states, e.g. models that postulate that all states should be democracies.
 
This time condition avoided the arbitrary confines of a specific date, but at the same time indicated a “sooner rather than later” message.  This condition added a necessary element of reality to the question, without being too prescriptive.
 
The framing of the question successfully avoided the trap of being too constrained by the starting position whilst on the other hand avoiding the trap of being too theoretical.
 
The New Shape Prize attracted a remarkable 2,702 entries from 122 countries,.  This reflected the substantial prize and extensive promotion around the globe.  Furthermore, GCF organised and resourced an effective assessment and adjudication process.  Of crucial importance is that they do not appear to be stopping there.  By organising the New Shape Forum at the end of the assessment phase, they started to bring together a global community to nurture its development.  The current phase consists of working groups on the major themes to create coherent proposals in time for the Paris Peace Forum in November 2018.
 
The missing risks
There is one aspect of the question however that is open to some criticism.  It is not too late to remedy this weakness now, but it is essential that it is indeed remedied.  The weakness relates to the wording of the challenges that humanity faces.  The words used by GCF in the competition were as follows:
 
“The major problems and risks are climate change and other large-scale environmental damage and politically motivated violence (war, civil war, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction). Other major problems faced are extreme poverty and rapid population growth.”
 
The problems and risks listed are certainly major and need to be able to be addressed in an effective and timely manner.  But the GCF wording is not all encompassing and indeed omits some of the most devasting risks.  An all-encompassing term for the most serious of risks facing humanity is existential risk A "global catastrophic risk" is any risk that is at least "global" in scope, and is not subjectively "imperceptible" in intensity. Those that are "trans-generational" (affecting all future generations) in scope and "terminal" in intensity are classified as existential risks.[1] 
 
Nick Bostrom identified, in his key 2002 paper[2] a list of 23 existential risks.  This list included some catch-all items and some post-human risks that need not be addressed in this current governance design.  But the key point is that apart from the risk of a comet or asteroid collision with earth, the first existential threat in human history was not until the mid 20th Century, with the first detonation of an atomic bomb.  Nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are, in Bostrom’s words, “mere preludes to the existential threats we will encounter in the 21st Century.”
 
The GCF wording identifies two categories of risk that cut across the Bostrom classification, namely

•  Large-scale environmental damage, and
  
• Politically motivated violence
  

Only 5 of Bostrom’s 23 risks appear to fit one or other of GCF’s categories.  There are other categories of risk, such as those arising from accident or error or unintended loss of control.  The impact may be environmental but the risk could relate specifically to humans.  The gravity of such risks arises predominantly from the greater technological capability that has been and will continue to be developed.
 
Such an error or loss of control may lead for example to
 

1. the escape of a newly genetically-engineered biological agent that combines long latency with high virulence and mortality leading to an uncontrollable global pandemic.
   
2. an ever more powerful superintelligence, a transformative artificial intelligence that takes over from humanity as the driving force on the planet, leading to the likely imminent demise of humanity. 
   
3. the misuse of nanotechnology
   

 
Identification of such risks continues as technologies develop, our technological forecasting capability improves and our search for risk intensifies.  
 
Whether these risks arise from malintent or from error, what is clear is that governance for the 21st Century must be designed to protect humanity from both the global catastrophic risks of the 20th Century and the new existential risks emerging in the 21st Century.
 
 
[1] Bostrom, Nick (2013). "Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority" (PDF). Global Policy. Future of Humanity Institute. 4 (1): 15–3. doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12002 – via Existential Risk.
[2] Nick Bostrom, Professor, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University www.nickbostrom.com
[Published in the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2002). (First version: 2001)] 
 

AUTHORS: Titus Alexander and Robert Whitfield, Trustees

Humanity has evolved through groups of people cooperating amongst themselves and competing with others. In today’s world, violent competition with others can be catastrophic and a shared human identity is essential not only for survival but for a just and prosperous world for all. Public understanding of, and support for, global cooperation is therefore fundamental for global decision-making to be effective.
 
What is needed
There are many initiatives in this area, which could be harnessed through three strands of action:

Education and awareness
UN member states have pledged to promote education for human rights and global understanding[i], UNESCO and many other agencies seek to ‘nurture our common humanity and help learners become active global citizens’. But most of the world gets no education or information about human rights, global issues or the role of global institutions.
Accelerated Global Action is needed to ensure that:  

• Every child worldwide is taught human rights, global issues and the role of global institutions, relevant to their context;
• Schools across the world are linked online to share experiences of global issues and foster a sense of shared humanity;
• Every member of the world’s political assemblies understands the role of global institutions in tackling global issues to protect local interests.

Knowledge and Skills Sharing
The UN recognises knowledge as a strategic asset, and has a strategic vision and recommendations for action[ii], many of which have not yet been implemented.   The development of the internet is greatly improving equitable access to knowledge, but Accelerated Global Action is needed to

• Strengthen cooperation between knowledge centres in the UN system, universities, governments, business, internet companies and civil society and ensure that the internet is accessible, secure and trustworthy;
• Increase capacity for all countries to take part in global governance and provide leaders and staff with the necessary abilities and qualities;
• Create equal access to knowledge, particularly in developing countries;
• Connect global knowledge platforms to every government and parliamentary website to give policy-makers, politicians and citizens direct access to global knowledge through their own governance portals;
• Promote information in ways that enable citizens and decision-makers to find and use this knowledge effectively.

Civic Engagement
Accelerated Global Action is needed to deepen civic engagement in global issues and the SDGs within and between countries and build on the Civic Charter’s global framework for people’s participation[iii].
These three strands of education, knowledge and civic engagement should be brought together in a new kind of networked global agency, the ‘People’s Knowledge Agency’. A networked international agency to coordinate and promote impartial knowledge-sharing, education and civic engagement in global issues, so that every community, education institution and government agency throughout the world can use their experience and intelligence to help solve global problems.
 
A question of timing
After the Second World War, there was for a few years an active movement towards World Government.  Henry Usborne lead a crusade for World Government but despite significant support from a number of prominent people around the world the People’s Convention in 1950 ended in failure.  It was acknowledged that not only had the World Federalists failed to sieze their moment (1942/3)[iv] but that the People’s Convention would have required extensive global citizenship education for many years preceding the Convention in order to enable to people to respond as desired.
 
For a radical strengthening of global governance in the 21st Century, the sooner a greater emphasis is placed upon the creation of a global consciousness, in the manner described above, the sooner the world’s citizens and their governments will be in a position to respond and support.  As Baratta concludes, “clearly immense works of preparing world public opinion for new political leadership will be required.”[v]


[i] Declaration for Human Rights says signatories will “strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms”; Convention on The Rights of The Child says signatories will provide “education in conditions of peace and security” ; See also World Plan of Action on Education for Human Rights and Democracy - Montréal, 1993)
[ii] Dumitriu, Petru (2016) Knowledge Management In The United Nations System, Joint Inspection Unit,  Geneva:  https: //www.unjiu.org/en/reports-notes/JIU%20Products/JIU_REP_2016_10_English.pdfSee also:  The Knowledge for Development Partnership (K4D) (2014) Knowledge Development Goals
[iii] Civic Charter:  The Global Framework for People’s Participation (2016), facilitated by the International Civil Society Centre,  https: //civiccharter.org/about-the-civic-charter-how-it-came-about/
[iv] Baratta, J.P. (2004) p 528 The Politics of World Federation Praeger, Westport Connecticut
[v] ibid p 531