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Grand Challenges of Today

Grand Challenges of Today

The Grand Challenges are felt by every nation, as they are the most pressing global issues that need to be addressed by policy makers, thinkers, stakeholders and citizens. The issue of the global grand challenges transcends the public and private sector. The White House site adds to this by saying that “In addition to Federal investments, there are a growing number of companies, foundations, philanthropists, and research universities that are interested in pursuing Grand Challenges.” Highlighting some of the work done by The Gates Foundation, Google and IBM among others.

Futhermore, USAID highlights two points when looking at the grand challenges saying that:

“1) Science and technology, when applied appropriately, can have transformational effects; and

2) Engaging the world in the quest for solutions is critical to instigating breakthrough progress.”

Organizations and governments are planning for future technologies, but the grand challenges priorities vary country to country. In some nations the grand challenges may be more simple of complex than in others.

Lewis Branscomb is critical of just focusing on technological and scientific advances. He asked the question “But is this policy focus on science sufficient to the tasks at hand?” The tasks at hand being large society challenges that need to be solved.

Branscomb continues to point out that, historically, the United States government “would support academic science, engineering, and medical research, leaving the management and finance for transforming scientific discoveries into economic value to the incentives of private financial markets. By this route, the United States has built the most powerful science knowledge engine in the world.”

Looking at the past as Branscomb just did, allows one to see trends that may be repeated.

I agree with Branscomb’s points that the current science may not be enough to catch up to a rapidly changing society with many problems to be addressed.

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Global Strategies & Frameworks

I once read about a Norwegian aid agency that decided  to invest in providing a village in Kenya with a fish-freezing plant. Only to find out that the people of this village raise goats. This was a useless investment that has been replicated time and time again. Bringing to question… can international “outsider” organizations impose on other nations? Do other “developed” nations really know what a “developing” nation most needs?

There is a double edged sword oftentimes when it comes to global strategies. And as the Sustainable Development Goals were only put into place a year ago, they Millennium Development Goals are a great point of reference to see what was done right and what was done wrong. Moreover these mistakes and successes can then be inspiration for the remaining years of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Task Teams are a great means of reflection. “The MDGs after 2015: Some

reflections on the possibilities” by Deepak Nayyar’s is a report with insightful points about the post 2015 development agenda.

A key point Nayyar makes, and that i have always argued when it came to the MDGs, is that “the MDGs specify an outcome but do not set out the process which would make it possible to realize the objectives. In other words, the MDGs specify a destination but do not chart the journey” (page 6 of report). Fortunately, the SDGs outline targets in more detail for each goal, which addresses the problem Nayyar points out.

Lastly, he also points of the importance of national context. That based on a country’s norms and mores, propositions and solutions need to be reformulated. Along with that is the importance of governments in making progress advance. Nayyar explains that “In rethinking development, it is important to recognize the relevance of the balance between domestic and external factors and the critical importance of public action.” Achieving that balance and fulfilling the call to action from local communities are fundamental in moving towards higher standards of life.

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Grand Challenges and the Multi-Stakeholder Approach

The concept of “Grand Challenges” is manifested in both the Millennium Development Goals and the more recent Sustainable Development Goals. Both represent difficult, yet achievable challenges that our world faces. In fact, the failure to meet the Millennium Development Goal’s represents exactly how ambitious “Grand Challenges” are. They are crosscutting issues that impact individuals at global levels. These issues are manifested in international frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. These grand challenges are meant to mobilize resources and empower communities. However, in order to do so, goals must first be established. As Tom Kalil stated in his speech delivered to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in order to tackle grand challenges, it is essential that clear goals are established. By raising this point, Kalil is making a larger assertion about the implementation of international frameworks addressing these grand challenges. Kalil asserts, “grand challenges should have measurable targets for success and timing of completion.” Because of the nature of grand challenges, these important issues not only need the attention of the international community, but also a commitment to the implementation and monitoring of these grand challenges. Without an international commitment to the implementation and monitoring of international frameworks, not much headway will be accomplished, other than acknowledging that grand challenges exist. A key example of this is in the international communities failure to meet the Millennium Development Goals by its’ deadline. The failure to meet the Millennium Development Goals fostered the understanding of the importance of implementation and monitoring mechanisms, in the efforts toward inclusive sustainable development. Another crucial step toward tackling grand challenges is in how these challenges are defined.

Interestingly enough, Lewis Branscomb, Tom Kalil, USAID, and the White House, define grand challenges in respect to scientific and technological innovation. While I do believe that technological innovation is integral, I do not believe that innovation is the sole factor. Instead, it is my opinion that both multistakeholderism and innovation are integral to tackling grand challenges. A multi-stakeholder commitment to grand challenges is essential because it brings together a variety of stakeholders that bring their respective expertise along with them, thus fostering conversation and innovation. In my opinion, bringing key stakeholders together to facilitate conversation about these global grand challenges is key, as multistakeholderism fosters innovation. However, the Lewis Branscomb, Tom Kalil, USAID, and White House sources do not take into account the importance of multistakeholderism as a means to address global grand challenges.

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Habitat III, NUA, and Smart Cities

The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Agenda (Habitat III) met in Quito, Ecuador in October of 2016. The two previous habitat conferences were held in 1976 and 1996 respectively. During Habitat III the New Urban Agenda (NUA) was passed. The New Urban Agenda seeks to bring about more inclusive, sustainable development to cities. While officially passed at the Habitat III conference, the majority of the writing and negotiations occurred at preparatory meetings that occurred in the lead up to the conference. Among the New Urban Agenda’s most championed ideas are those of “smart cities” and “inclusive cities” both of which strive to make cities and their amenities more accessible to all. The New Urban Agenda seeks to complete all of this in a twenty-year time frame. This means that the next Habitat conference should be held in 2036.

Smart cities represent a new way of talking about and perceiving inclusivity within cities. By using new technologies, the New Urban Agenda hopes to inspire and advocate for a more inclusive approach to urban planning and development in order to create “smart cities.” Smart cities utilize information and communication technologies (ICTs) that allow more people to utilize recourses within a given city. For example, smart bus systems allow users to check online when busses are arriving to reduce wait times outside and to allow for better trip planning.

I believe that smart cities and many of the perspectives championed by the New Urban Agenda are the future of urban development. As cities rapidly expand, the reality of mega cities and the social, political, and economic inequities that exist within them must be addressed. In today’s model of urbanization recourses are concentrated in wealthy areas while poorer areas often struggle for access to basic societal goods such as transportation and recreation/communal spaces. Beyond this, as the proportion of countries’ populations living in urban areas expands, it becomes more and more critical to address the most vulnerable groups among us. Many of concepts contained within the New Urban Agenda speak to these vulnerable groups. One group that was explored thoroughly in class was persons with disabilities. Smart city initiatives allow for great access to societal recourses and therefore more involvement in the community as a whole. However, even once smart city or inclusive initiatives are implemented within a city, it will be exceedingly important to maintain these systems and ensure their continued use.

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Intersectionality in Sustainable Development

Intersectionality discusses the fact that different social identities and demographic groups cannot only be looked at in a vacuum; they are interconnected and will always be.  People identify with more than one demographic group, so when looking at how development is affecting certain groups we have to take these nuances into consideration to get a broader understanding of the situation.  Some demographics that are under examination when looking at development include race, gender, class, ethnicity, age, and more.  When looking at the interactions of multiple demographics within an individual or group, there are different outcomes and implications then if we were to only look at one.  For example, a disabled woman will face different challenges than a disabled child.  A disabled child may be excluded from receiving an education, and a disabled woman may not be able to access adequate prenatal care.

The Grand Challenges show us that participants from all these different groups need to be involved in development to help paint a more detailed picture of what the problems are, and how they can best be solved.  Stakeholder groups in international development include: Women, Children and Youth, Indigenous Peoples, Non-Governmental Organizations, Local Authorities, Workers and Trade Unions, Business and Industry, Scientific and Technological Community and Farmers.  These are the nine groups that the UN outlines in the Sustainable Development Goals, although there are many others.  Since the goals were redesigned, there has been a larger focus on paying mind to intersectionality among different stakeholder groups, and in making sure development practitioners have the opportunity to hear from many different viewpoints on what problems should be addressed.

The conceptual basis for my final capstone project on sustainable urban transport in São Paulo had a lot to do with the concept of intersectionality in development.  The recommendations I made came from multiple angles, and did not simply suggest the government expand transportation networks.  Since the issue affected urban residents in many different ways, I made recommendations that would also indirectly fix the problems seen in the city to fill in the gaps where simply building more public transit wouldn’t fix the issue.

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Inclusive Education

Inclusive education is another grand challenge international development practitioners have grappled with for a long time, and universal primary education is one of the top concerns or goals to achieve for the Sustainable Development Goals.  When talking about inclusive education, a main problem we see is students with disabilities being excluded from the classroom environment.  There are many different reasons behind this. Oftentimes, people say they will promote disability-inclusive education, but it is much more difficult to do in practice, and much less common.

This can be for cultural reasons.  In many countries, students with mental or physical disabilities are stigmatized for their condition.  This certainly happens in the United States, but we have stronger protections in place for ensuring that students of different backgrounds and abilities are included, relatively speaking.  The cultural stigma of someone having a disability will lead schools to say they cannot have that student in the classroom.

Another cause behind this problem is the extremely daunting financial and professional burden of ensuring that every student, regardless of level of ability, has a seat at the table of education.  It can be extremely costly to get professionals who are trained in working with students with disabilities, and to purchase appropriate equipment and tools that may be needed for a disabled student to have the same level of success as a student who does not have a disability.  It can also be costly, for example, to make an educational facility accessible to a student with a physical disability.  These may mean building wheelchair ramps or installing elevators, which many schools to not have the funds to put in.

As previously discussed, the Millennial Development Goals did not mention these issues enough, but the CRPD has been working hard to increase the rights of people with disabilities.  The cultural stigma is tough to combat if it is so deeply ingrained in the cultural fabric of a country, but the CRPD and the new SDGs recognize the need to combat the issue from a cultural standpoint and a financial one.  Students with physical and mental disabilities have unique problems, and the tactics used also need to be tailored to the country of operation due to cultural reasons.  That way, the outcome can be as effective as possible.

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Inclusive Cities, Habitat III, the New Urban Agenda

The United Nations had their conference on housing and sustainable urban development in Quito this October, which had the aim of discussing how to improve urban development in cities around the world.  The New Urban Agenda outlines the next steps with which to tackle the Grand Challenge of sustainable urban development.  This is an extremely important issue, especially when we consider the number of people that are moving from rural to urban areas every year.  Urban areas are exploding in size, and it is crucial that we properly manage them.  IF poorly managed, these urban centers could have detrimental effects on society and on the environment.  Managing this growth is so important, and in fact, by the year 2050, the number of people living in urban areas will double.

Urban development affects every aspect of a person’s daily life, from education to health care, economy, food security, and sanitation, just to name a few.  The ideas laid out in this Urban Agenda have a lot to do with my own capstone project, which was about sustainable urban transport in São Paulo, Brazil.  Public transportation is one of the main challenges that hose focusing on improving urban sustainability focus on.  That’s mainly because public transportation is in many ways the backbone of an urban center, and is what allows a city to develop and thrive.  Half the battle of development is providing access to the different centers of urban activity, like schools, the workplace, hospitals, and more.  Without access to these places, or with poor urban transport infrastructure where commutes to these places can take hours, one cannot live a sustainable and healthy lifestyle, and more importantly, it makes it more difficult for everyone to contribute their skills and talents to the development of the city.

There are many different ways to improve urban transport, whether that be through actual construction of more public transportation networks, or through restructuring new urban development around pre-existing transit stations to increase accessibility (especially for the urban poor, who are the most often excluded from urban activity.)

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Multistakeholder Global Governance

Internet governance is a sticky issue, because it is used in every corner of the world and not directly controlled by any one specific entity.  The internet is a public good where information is freely shared.  While the internet was invented in the United States and originally began as a research project done by our military, it has spread to be used worldwide.

In 2005, the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) created the concept of internet governance.  Since almost everyone is affected by these decisions, WSIS took a multistakeholder approach to their internet governance and encouraged all to be involved.  Some stakeholders in decisions that are made about the internet include individuals, schools, businesses, and many others.

The Internet Governance Forum was created to be an outlet for voices and opinions of stakeholders to be heard, and for informed decisions to be made.  While governing a free-flow of information is a daunting task, creating this outlet for input from many different groups has helped the situation.

Another important group is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).  This group’s main goal is more administrative in nature, and a common critique with the group is there isn’t a strong enough focus there on international development through the internet.  However, their main objective is the run the technical side of the web, and do things like assign domain names.

In my opinion, having multiple organized groups that administer the internet and monitor its usage allows everyone to benefit, because each of the groups keeps the others accountable for their actions and keeps everyone’s needs in mind.

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Intersectionalities

An intersectionality is how different issues, solutions, and areas of interest converge and coincide. Many issue areas may face the same problems. Or the solution for an issue may be multidisciplinary, requiring input from multiple interested actors. In the extremely globalized world that we now live in it is nearly impossible to find two issues that are totally disconnected. There are always factors that can totally reinvent something because of an innovation that happened thousands of miles away. This has serious benefits in international relations. Innovations in communications and technologies benefit all aspects of society. They increase profits for corporations, help educate children in developing countries learn, allow two politicians speaking different languages to communicate, and much more. This is a wonderful aspect of international relations because you can always find a way to make something in the best interest of multiple stakeholders. Technological developments benefit big corporations, so they invest large amounts of money in them. These developments also help the disenfranchised as an externality. It may not be the intention of the corporation to help these people but because of the intersections it benefits them and it helps the world as a whole. Politicians may fund research into a certain scientific process because of economic or social impacts only to discover that this research can help ease climate change.

 

This is why it is now more crucial than ever to be aware of these intersectionalities. If we are unaware of the unintentional benefits of our disciplines, we may fail to apply these benefits and lose so much in the process. Awareness of intersectionalities is crucial to sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals reflect this. Though there are seventeen different goals, there are clear areas of crossover between the goals. Climate change affects certain areas far more strongly than it does others. This combines two different goals, #13 climate action and #16 peace and justice, to create a new discipline of climate justice. Remaining cognizant of these overlaps ensures that we can share solutions and innovations to benefit both disciplines.

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Education and Development

If a country is to achieve progress on social, economic, and political levels they need to have the human capacity to reach these heights. Progress comes from the people of the country. One cannot import politicians, businessmen, laborers, etc and then leave the people of the country in the dark. A state needs to look inward and build the capability of their own people through education. When I studied in Denmark I learned about the governance of their satellite state Greenland. While Greenland is technically governed by the indigenous people who live there, closer inspection reveals that their bureaucratic and high income positions are all occupied by wealthy Danes who work in Greenland for a year or two before returning home. The Greenlandic people themselves do not occupy these positions because they do not have the skills, most of them barely graduate high school. If they do not receive the education necessary they can never develop economically or politically.

So how do you improve education in developing countries? And how do you do so without excluding certain groups? In many developing nations, a lack of infrastructure prevents children from attending schools. They may have to cross long distances without access to transportation. The schools may be built in a way that doesn’t accommodate students with disabilities such as no wheelchair access. The teachers may not be trained to teach students with disabilities. There are many cases such as this and students are left out because no one has the knowledge or experience to help them. This excludes a major segment of society and leaving people out of the workforce leads to a loss of innovation and expertise that can help economic and social development. Education is an example of how interconnected development issues truly are. Working on one area can lead to solutions in other areas. If infrastructure like roads and buildings cannot be changed to accommodate students, information and communicative technologies can help. ICT’s allow students to access information and attend class sessions without needing to be in there in person. They can also provide alternative methods of learning for those whom traditional modes of education fail. ICT’s also benefit educators, who can tune into training seminars online and educate themselves on new teaching methods from places around the world. Education is fundamental to development, but first we must develop education so that it accommodates everyone.