A commission of six Global Future Councils of experts brought together by the World Economic Forum identified the most urgent challenges which are results of the Covid-19 pandemic together with some response options. The experts drafted a report with 6 recommendations areas to focus on.
The first area concerns fiscal and monetary policy, with particular interest for the middle-income countries (thus, not only for the advanced economies, as it was the case in the beginning of the crisis); Furthermore, the focus should be on the education and transformation towards digital and innovation. The second and third areas, strictly connected with each other, focus on a better employment development as unemployment was one of the biggest disruptions of the Covid-19 crisis and the education system which was also enormously affected by the pandemic; There is an evident need of improving digitalization in this field.
The experts also found, in their fourth point, that equity and social justice in the post-Covid times. Reforms will need to include legislating to outlaw all forms of discrimination, for businesses to advocate for positive societal reform and for all decision makers to prioritize the interests of marginalized groups.
Another important area to focus on is the need to create new markets through a “green and equitable” economy, with a new set of products and services as well as new business models. To this regard, intellectual property rights will play a key role. New technologies then lead to the sixth and final point put forth by the panel: As new technologies bring new opportunities, they also create new risks with unknown likelihood and impact, so-called frontier risks. Societies will need to achieve greater resilience in particular with a view to new risks associated with new technologies.
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Source: INSME Secretariat
