Collective action can save us from a dystopian future

The challenges of environmental degradation, social inequalities, democratic decline, disruptive technological innovation, and dysfunctions in global cooperation have never been more pressing. Pandemic, unjust wars, and extreme weather have threatened social cohesion and democratic institutions, revealed new vulnerabilities, and laid bare the weaknesses of prevailing development approaches and global governance. Addressing these challenges require new forms of coming-together to recognise the mutual interdependence of these challenges along with the diversity of local and national contexts, to fully grasp and unpack the complexity of systemic transformation and the timelines of ongoing dynamics on Earth and in societies. This is essential to imagine adequate solutions and to make the most of the emerging opportunities. We, representing a group of several hundred scholars, social entrepreneurs and advocates from across the globe, have come together as the new iteration of the International Panel for Social Progress (IPSP) to construct a vision that averts the looming dystopian future and drive a discourse that can put social progress in the global centre stage.

In 2018, the IPSP offered a general picture of the type of institutions and reforms which, by allowing substantial variations across the world, could inspire the advent of a society based on the values of equality, freedom, emancipation, participation, and inclusion. Such a perspective constituted a powerful narrative to support the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, there is a growing sense that the piecemeal or sectoral implementation of good public policies or that inspiring but isolated civil society initiatives do not suffice to counter the negative social, environmental and governance externalities produced by the current power structures and by the predominant forms of economic organisations. The clear identification of the main causes of these negative externalities is key to developing a design, a sequencing, and an implementation of actions that would transform the dynamics at play.

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Manifesto for social progress

A broad outline for better societies exists. It includes: creating an inclusive and responsible economy by taming markets and corporations through responsible socioeconomic and environmental regulatory systems and by fostering economic and social organisations with a broader purpose; bringing circularity into our value chains and way of life; reducing social inequalities and empowering people through universal services and through pre- and re-distribution; deepening democracy through participatory and deliberative mechanisms and better information systems; enhancing global cooperation and reforming global governance to preserve common goods such as biodiversity and to improve resilience under global changes; and harnessing technology for positive impact.

While recognising that many of the solutions for better societies already exist, the need of the hour is a renewed big push on a global scale, both at the level of ideas and actions, because progress has been decidedly mixed and new complexities and concerns have accentuated the challenge. There is an urgency of new coming-togethers adapted to local conditions, cast in long-term systemic visions and narratives of better futures, and co-constructed, promoted and implemented by fluid coalitions of public, private and non-governmental actors. The question that motivates us as the new iteration of the IPSP is how we can help coalitions of actors to emerge and to organise, and how we can help nurture them, to implement the social progress agenda.

The new big push by IPSP to put social progress in the global centre stage starts with six priority work streams: mapping of the systemic interactions and power structures of societal challenges; measuring what we value; rethinking the information system as a public good in the age of social media and artificial intelligence; developing a framework for an ecological rule of law; defining performance for governments and businesses that reflects social progress; and identifying and promoting new pathways for global solidarity.

In 2023, the IPSP, established 10 years ago, decided to reconvene, in a larger and more inclusive format, to continue its tradition of scientific objectivity and independent analysis, but now also to engage in co-construction with stakeholders and member-based organisations to ensure greater relevance of its work for change-makers, and thus aiming at much greater impact. It will gather cross-sectoral and transdisciplinary expertise, from science and from practice, to provide a comprehensive, systemic understanding of the complex dynamics of multi-actor interactions, with a special attention devoted to the Global South and to underrepresented voices. Starting in 2024, it will work towards operationalising the social progress agenda as a new global horizon through developing innovative formats and tools to support change-makers and to impact processes leading to the transition. It will work towards designing reforms and transformations that address the structural flaws of current economic and social institutions and regulations as well as the biases of power realities while fostering the potential for social change by supporting dissemination of social innovations and rethinking our relationship with living organisms to respect the system of complex and dynamic interactions in which we live. An International Platform for Social Progress as a web source will be available later this year to crowdsource the transformative initiatives and projects throughout the world and to provide a guide to the most inspiring and most replicable ones. Intergenerational dimensions will be central to our work and younger generations will be mobilised through networking, and social media.

There will be many options and possibilities to join the IPSP and to contribute to its work: from the local to the global, from inner communities to larger networks, from civil society to the largest corporations, from city governments to supranational organisations, from education circles to the general and social media. Technology will help us translate, communicate, transfer knowledge, and connect change-makers. The diversity of contributors will match the diversity of users of the knowledge base developed by the IPSP.

The new big push by IPSP to put social progress in the global centre stage starts with six priority work streams: mapping of the systemic interactions and power structures of societal challenges; measuring what we value; rethinking the information system as a public good in the age of social media and artificial intelligence; developing a framework for an ecological rule of law; defining performance for governments and businesses that reflects social progress; and identifying and promoting new pathways for global solidarity.

A dystopian future cannot be humanity's destiny. Coalescing the individual and collective will for sustainable and cohesive pathways towards better societies has never been more urgent. The task is huge and success far from certain. But the responsibility is existential, and the challenge must be seized now by everyone, everywhere, all at once.

A version of this article was first published in Le Monde on April 19, 2024.

Olivier Bouin is director of the Network of French Institutes for Advanced Study.
Marc Fleurbaey is senior researcher at CNRS and professor at the Paris School of Economics.
Merike Blofield is professor of political science at the University of Hamburg.
Pedro Conceicao is director of the Human Development Report Office, UNDP.
Ravi Kanbur is professor of economics and world affairs at Cornell University.
Takyiwaa Manuh is emerita professor of the University of Ghana.
Elisa Reis is professor of political sociology at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Marie Laure Salles is director of the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.
Dennis J Snower is president of the Global Solutions Initiative.
Margo Thomas is president and CEO of Women's Economic Imperative.
Ingrid Volkmer is professor of digital communication and globalisation at the University of Melbourne.
Hossain Zillur Rahman is founder-chairman of Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and chairperson of BRAC Bangladesh.

Views expressed in this article are the authors' own. 

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