A 2025 social fiction: Megatrends & possible implications for Save the ChildrenLooking 10-15 years ahead to start the planning nowSave the Children Denmark Board Seminar1 & 2 February 2013 Jonas Keiding Lindholm

Megatrends … for Save the Children to watch and act on in

order to stay relevant for vulnerable children and young people in the years to come

• Demographics• Poverty and inequality• Climate change and resource scarcity• Technology• Multipolarity and global governance• New actors and new ventures• A new altruistic economy• Summary considerationsA Social fiction, not Science Fiction. Does not incorporate perspectives on biogenetics, cyberterrorism, radikalism and geopolitical security nor trade and investment.

Considerations for Save the Children highlighted in yellow boxes

Inspiration

And several others

DEMOGRAPHICS

Growing and ageing

8 billion in 2025, 9 billion in 2050. Next billion in Asia and Africa

3 generational categories of countries:• stabile or decling population growth in HICs; 50% >40years• soon levelling growth in MICs & USA; 50% >30 years• continuous rapid growth in LICs and CAFs; 50% >20yearsHIC = High Income Countries MIC = Middle Income Countries; LIC = Low Income Countries CAFS

(Conflict Affected States)

Surviving and living longer

Great progress made on reducing infant and <5 mortality, yet still work to be done, especially in Africa

But getting fatter and sicker

• Broad shift from communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional causes of death in 1990 towards non-communicable diseases (account for 2/3 deaths) ie heart disease and diabetes. Large regional discrepancies though.

Consideration: Obesity and foul nourishment, not only under-nourishment, as a new global health priority?

Settling in urban areas

• More people on earth now living in urban rather than rural areas

• 60% will live in urban areas in 2030 (twice as many as on Earth in 1970)

• 50% in Megacities (>10 mill people) and 50% in small and medium-sized cities

• UN predicts 32 megacities in 2025, only 8 in the developed world

• Most in Asia, yet approximately 1 bn in cities in Africa• Up to 65% of urban population now live in slums in

countries like Bangladesh and Nigeria. Percentage slumdwellers expected to drop.

Consideration: New risks, new socio-economic dynamics, inequalities and mobility in complex urban areas than in rural settings. Need to reorientate focus towards urban areas and the ‘hardest to reach’

WEALTH/POVERTY, INEQUALITY AND EMPLOYMENT

Getting richer, more places. Booming middle class

Sharp decline in poverty

Populations in conflict affected states not seeing the same drop in poverty

Consideration: Grow presence and ramp up poverty reduction efforts and service delivery in (all) conflict affected and fragile states

New distribution of poverty

• 50% of the world’s poor live in China and India; another 25% in other large MICs; remaining 25% in LICs.

• Projection that at least 50% of world’s poor will still live in MICs in 2030, though likely in a new and broader set of countries

But inequality is on the rise

• Inequality on the climb everywhere (few exceptions eg Brazil), in both HICs, MICs and LICs – is the cause of social tension and disintegration.

• Is inequality a transitional phenomenon in growth countries? Will the bottom 20%/poor in those countries eventually benefit from the growing wealth? HICs are no good role model, themselves seeing an increase in inequality.

Consideration: Shift focus from poverty reduction to confronting inequality/social exclusion and fight for equal opportunities and fair shares of wealth? An opportunity to unite thinking/efforts and transfer knowledge across programs in Members (mostly HICs) and MiCs (mostly SCI –countries)?

Is absolut poverty history in 2030? Ending poverty in

MICS (incl large countries that are currently LICs) will remain a priority in the years ahead BUT will primarily become a matter of internal redistribution, taxation and inclusive growth as most MICS will want and will receive less/zero development aid (ref later slides on aid and poverty reduction in MICs)

25% of world’s poor in CAFS will still require external ressource transfers/aid as we know it today combined ie with anti-corruption efforts

Will there be enough jobs?

• Need for 600 mill additional jobs in 2020; more than 175 mill (approx 1 mill@month) will be in South Asia.

• Job market in Africa will need to grow by 50%. Concerns about capacity of production sector in Africa to cope with population growth.

• Need to grow decent and decently paid jobs in the formal sector to have impact on poverty.

What about the youth?

• 620 mill young people without employment in 2012 – likely to grow?

• Youth in Africa and MiddleEast more exposed given demographics, skills and low capacity of labour market – potentially leading to social tension and new waves of migration to cities but increasingly not to Europe

• Evidence of what works to increase youth employment and empowerment demonstrated by SCs Work2Learn and Skills2Succeed programmes

Consideration: Ramp up efforts to address youth unemployment and disempowerment, and combine with efforts to attract new revenue sources and form new partnerships with corporates in MICs?

TECHNOLOGYRESSOURCE SCARCITY AND

CLIMATE CHANGE

Two very different mega trends - only combined in the present pack to limit # of sections

Tectonic shift in development

• Solar power energy innovation and mobile phone technology – two revolutionising drivers of social transformation in the last decade and ahead.•Example: Only 10% of absolute poor with bank accounts in 2010, but 6 billion mobile phones world wide. • Near universal mobile phone coverage expected in 2025. Will see new and widespread forms of mobile education, mobile health, mobile banking etc• Technology innovation and dissemination driven almost exclusively by private sector. Slow uptake and utilization by INGOs.• Uncertainty whether new forms of technology and innovation will benefit the poorest OR continue to mainly address ’diseases of affluence’ and contribute to further inequality (ie job-technology). Potentiel role for INGOs!

Considerations: Build partnerships around and invest in sophisticating our program work across all thematic priority areas using mobile technology and technology driven innovation.

Age of scarcity?Food: Demand will increase by 50% in 2030 … BUT global productivity gains have fallen in last 30 years and are still declining.

Land: Increasing demand related to food, feed for livestock, biogas etc BUT global total arable land per capita has dropped from 0,39ha in 1960 to 0,21ha today

Vand: Demand for fresh water will increase from 3.973m3 i 2000 til 5,235m3 i 2025 … BUT existing ground water extraction is not sustainable.

Energy: Demand will increas by 45% by 2030 … BUT current investment is wholly inadequate to meet these levels, creating the risk for another oil supply crunch

• New economies and the new middle class will increasingly demand a ’western diet’

• The poor will suffer the most from rationalisation, price spikes, new land and water management efforts …

The cause of future conflicts?

Resource scarcity has the potential to cause new intra- and interstate conflicts and will feature prominently in future discussions around fairness and equity, both in countries and internationally

Consideration: The ’Fair Shares’ and ’Resource Limits’ agenda is not an obvious one for Save the Children, but question is whether we can afford to not engage?

Climate Change – a definite cause of strain

Consideration: Ramp up efforts to mainstream DRR across all programmes and invest in resilience building in both LIC, MIC and HICs. Building adequate response capacity a must. Meanwhile, governments in emerging economies are increasingly asserting their sovereignty and capacity, and we need to understand and plan for complementing/ partnering with national disaster management agencies.

Barack Obama issued a record 99 national emergency declarations in 2012

NEW GLOBAL POWER BALANCE

A polycentric world

Next layer of growing and powerful nations/N11: Indonesia, Iran, South-Korea, Mexico, Egypt, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Turkey + others. Increasingly also as aid donors.

+ Brazil

Consideration: How to position ourselves as a partner of choice on childrens’ affairs - domestically and overseas - as new non-OECD powers grow their aid port folios and look for expertise on human and social sector affairs?

… and a league of ’failed states’Generated using a Human

Resilience Index exploring the links between human ecology conditions, human resilience and conflict

Not much change from today

Others: Mali, Mauritania …?

Consideration: Build/maintain strong operational programmes in these countries enabling principled humanitarian action and incorporating conflict risc reduction elements.

Rising power of non-state actors

The future of political influence: 1) New actors; 2) Social networking technologies and empowered individuals

”The shift in national power is only half the story and may be overshadowed by an even more fundamental shift in the nature of power … Enabled by communications technologies, by 2025 power almost certainly will shift more towards multifaceted and amorphous networks composed of state and non-state actors …and the international community will lack an overarching approach to global governance”

US National Intelligence Council

New powerful actors34 cities og 13 corporations among the

world’s top 100 economies

The role of cities is already evident in networks ie C40, in shaping policy debates and leading national responses to governance challenges. In fragile states, cities and local governance structures are often the only ones that work

Consideration: Need to apply a city-approach in addition to - or perhaps in lieu of - a national/country approach, at least in some countries?

Megacities will account for <15% of

world’s population,

25% of world’s GDP and 12% of global CO emission

New powerful actors (2)1. Growth in ’issues’ focussed civil

society movements with the ability to quickly attract global attention, blurring north-south boundaries

2. Youth as a driving force behind the call for political and social change

3. Powered by mobile and internet technology

4. New social movements are organised differently than current NGOs, expressing alternative values of inclusion, participation and innovation.

Consideration: How can Save the Children partner with new social movements – networked, transnational , issue-focussed and loosely organised civil society campaigning actors - with the ability to mobilise quickly, draw attention and carry out sustained action?

IT and empowered individuals

1. Spread in mobile technology and internet (50% i 2030) = significant reduction in the digital divide2. Increasing education levels + spread of IT =

empowerment ofindividuals who will demand equality, transparency

and fairness3. Will it produce a new political responsiveness

and legitimacy?How will this play out in democratic deficit

countries?4. IT will radically change the process of

’government’ ie crowdsourcing public (NGO?) budgets and

priorities

Consideration: How to better use IT to educate and campaign on rights, equality and transparency, and support citizen’s calls for the same? Use of crowdsourcing ie in emergencies? And how to manage the expectations of active participation ie using technology platforms to provide choices of what to campaign for?

Impact on global governance

G20

• Megacities, corporations and regional networks are likely to assume increasing powers.

• Countries and multilateral institutions (in their current make-up) will struggle to deal with the diffusion of power, and will be unable to provide solutions to global issues ie resource scarcity, climate change etc

• Will we see a reform of the multilateral institutions we have today?

Governance, ikke Governments?

Consideration: Should we start focusing on Governance (corporate, cities etc) rather than Governments? Impact for normative instruments ie CRC to which only governments are accountable?

AID AHEAD

Institutional aid in a multipolar world1. New donors emerging

2. Growing sense of national sovereignty in emerging powers/MICs

3. New balance of power in multilateral institutions

4. Regional centres of power dominated by OECD and BRICs

5. Converging og diverging development models? (ie Wilsonian, Solidarity, Dunantism/Rigths-based, Contractualism)

6. Increasing horizontal/South-South development cooperation

Middle-Income Country DilemmaEU – Agenda for Change, 2012

We cannot work with India or Brazil in the same way we work with the Democratic Republic of Congo or Mali. Some countries can now afford to fight poverty themselves and, as a result, this will allow us to focus on places that need more of our help.

Andris Piebalgs, European Commissioner for Development (2012)

Middle-Income Country Dilemma (2)

• Poor nations, not poor people as the determining factor. Other donors ie Dfid, Danida etc operate similarly• EU grant based bilateral aid will be cut starting 2014• Will still maintain Thematic Envelopes, Partnership Instrument, Democracy and Human Rigths Instrument.

Consideration: How to maintain relevance for the majority poor children in MICs going forward given our current funding model and organisational set-up? Need to understand scope of remaining funding envelopes/ODA element and preferred funding modality ie to FPA holders/European INGOs or national agencies.

WHY THIS IS A DILEMMA FOR

SAVE THE CHILDREN

2/3 of world population75% of world’s poor

Growing wealth, future donors & filanthropists

BUTRapidly declining OECD aid

Limited SC footprint: dwindling SCI Country Offices + a few

Members

Save the Children Members

’Only’ 25% of world’s poor

Majority of SCI Country Offices

Institutional Aid v 2.0 in the new poverty landscape

• MICs will want and will receive much less/zero aid

• Aid: from an external driver to support inclusive policy processes, co-financed global public goods, knowledge transfers and development policy coherence.

Social change is ultimate internally driven processes ie taxationAid to focus on global ‘bads’, risks and shocks Knowledge transfers (multiple in nature) and systems learningPolicy coherence across all development areas: trade, migration etcLICs/CAFS will still need Aid v 1.0

Consideration: Impact on INGOs of this paradigmatic shift? Need to start adressing global collective ’bads’: inequality, poor governance, resource scarcity, climate change etc (across policy, campaigning and programming) with less of a country by country approach, except in LICs & CAFS?

Development aid… not the full story

BUT: Every year approximately 1000 billion USD escape developing countries through illicit capital flight. Succesful taxation = an income 1.5 times higher than global ODA.Consideration: How to address issues around corporate governance while also partner with investors and corporations to improve pro-poor impacts of foreign investments?

New visions, New ventures, New ActorsNew actors + limited budgets + impatience for positive social change = new ventures and new hybrid forms of aid

Young people don’t care if the catalyst

for change is a traditional non-

profit, government or corporate entity. The organizational

forms of the last 100 years are liquefying

and then crystallizing into

new configurations all the time.

Consideration: What is our value proposition, and how to position ourselves as a partner of choice for social entrepreneurs, social impact investors and corporations increasingly keen to deliver transformative change (in shared value partnerships) – domestically and internationally?

A new altruistic economy

New behaviours in filanthropy = a shift in values – towards engagement and conversation (over “informing” and “educating”), collective determination (over professions and institutions), transparency (over knowledge-hoarding).

Consideration: While not magic bullets for poverty reduction, these new platforms are scalable and with low overheads. A risc to established NGOs? What is our answer, and how to grow with the trend and new altruistic values, and to tap into new national wealth in emerging economies?

Only the tip of the iceberg?

Volatility and shocks

RESILIENCE

Economy

Geopolitics

Governance

Health

Resource

Climate

Shocks, not stresses, will do most to define the next 15 years

Need to build resilience of the poor and vulnerable

Consideration: How do we gear ourselves to campaign and lobby aggressively to maximise the window of opportunity for political influence and change that will open up shortly following shocks?

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR INGOS LIKE SAVE THE

CHILDREN?More people, richer, older, fatter, better educated, in cities, unequal, resource scarcity, interconnected, increased activism, new actors, new alliances, new aid, new opportunities, governance crisis …

Summary Considerations1. Focus on resilience and response – the

bottom poor children and families are in the firing line

2. Confront inequality, not poverty – inequality is a global ’bad’

3. Put youth on the agenda – they risc loosing out on the ’wealth surge’ and are social transformators

4. Address governance and fair shares – it matters the most

5. Focus on urban areas/cities and middle income countries – from within!

6. Be ready and run blitzkrieg campaigns – shocks will be drivers of social change

7. Work in new ways in new alliances and networks – not just with likeminded NGOs

Summary Considerations (2)8. Expect pressure, document and deliver –

support and survival is not given9. Connect, engage and modernize – to stay

global, to stay relevant and tap into new forms of citizenship and altruism

10. (Balance) outrage and principles – action and position will define tomorrow’s civil society agencies”Those agencies that are nimble and responsive can be expected to survive and thrive. Those that are caught unaware of the changing donor landscape, or that are too rigid to adapt, will face problems”

ODI 2012