Transcript Sustainable Development Policy Making – Challenges and Opportunities Marek Haliniak National School of Public Administration, Warsaw, Poland Leslaw Michnowski Committee for Futures Studies "Poland 2000 Plus," Polish Academy of.

Sustainable Development Policy
Making –
Challenges and Opportunities
Marek Haliniak
National School of Public
Administration,
Warsaw, Poland
Leslaw Michnowski
Committee for Futures Studies
"Poland 2000 Plus,"
Polish Academy of Sciences
The properly defined notion:
Sustainable Development (SD),
as a basis for proper
SD policy making
(with help of information culture)
Sustainable Development - development
without crises or collapses
Dynamic monitoring predicts - by means of
computer simulation (System Dynamics –
Jay W. Forrester) - future of monitored
process on condition that no intervention
into it will be undertaken.
Dynamic monitoring delivers warning
forecasting, i.e. long-term early warning
information about negative consequences
of previous socio-economy activity and
environment change.
Sustainable Development (SD):
development that must integrate:
- social development,
- economic development, and
- environmental protection
(Johannesburg 2002, EU SDS
2006).
Global crisis obviously
means that formally-binding
“three-pillar”
sustainable development
of world society policy
is
unsuccessful.
To durably overcome the global
crisis and achieve SD we
need, among other things, to
reshape
forms of Public Administration (PA)
education
Some premises for such
educational reshaping:
(1) – „Washington Consensus is
over” (G. Brown, G20, April 2nd);
(2) - The EU SDS forms the overall
framework within which the Lisbon
Strategy, with its renewed
focus on growth and jobs, provides
the motor of a more dynamic
economy (renewed EU SDS 2006).
Notwithstanding all the declarations
putting the three pillars of sustainable
development on an equal footing, the
last decade has witnessed continuing
de facto recognition of the primacy of
economic growth founded upon the
competitiveness of enterprises on the
free market, with a role for the state
that is as limited as possible.
Only now is there a recognition of
the true worth of the public sector in
ensuring balance between the SD
pillars: administration is now tasked
with a much greater involvement in
steering development than
previously.
To overcome the global crisis and
achieve SD we need „two hands”:
(1) – the „invisible” market one;
(2) – WISE GOVERNANCE on
many levels.
For wise governance
we need to include into PA
education more
systems knowledge,
especially
about properties of information
“information is the key to (sustainability)
transformation. When information flows
are changed, any system will behave
differently” (Meadows 2004).
“in the new world of infinite information
resources, one country's creation of
wealth based on information can be
shared by all. The value of information
increases, the more it is shared”
(Utsumi, ITU, WSIS 2005)
A. P. Sage, Methodology for large scale systems, New York 1977.
We propose to include
into PA education
the System of Life (SoL) conceptual
model
(Sage, Michnowski),
that treats different kinds
of life-system development
as process of information (sensu
Wiener) creation
In the light of SoL-based analysis of
global crisis essence and causes:
(1) – current financial-economic crisis is
evident phase of global civilizational
crisis starting about 1970;
(2) – overcoming it willl recuire
ecohumanism instead of socialDarwinism
Meadows, Limits to Growth, 1972
Meadows, Limits to Growth The 30-Year Update, 2004.
The main causes of this global crisis are:
- egoism and short-sightedness
of policy-makers;
- lack of knowledge about complex, social
and environmental (including temporaly
and spatialy long-range), consequences of
socio-economy activity and other changes
in environment;
- lack of connection between access to
wealth/profits and eco-social usefulness of
person’s and organization’s activity.
Eco-humanism: a partnership-based
co-operation for the common good
of all people (rich and poor, from
countries highly developed and
behind in development), their
descendants, and the natural
environment - COMMONLY
SUPPORTED BY SCIENCE AND
HIGH TECHNOLOGY AS WELL AS
INFORMATION CULTURE.
To overcome the global crisis we need to:
- rationalize consumption based on depleting
of deficit resources (including environmental);
- access new sources of resources in place of
ones depleted irreversibly;
- initiate new science-technology revolution
that will allow all techno-sphere/technology to
be made ecosocially friendly one;
- stop overpopulation trend by instaling
popular intellectual (cognitive – innovative)
creativity in place of natural/biological
defensive creativity.
The basic conditions for overcoming
global crisis and achieving SD:
(1) - to convert global financial system
into one that will support/aid above, ecosocially useful activity;
(2) - to build information bases of
sustainable development policy and
economy;
(3) - to create adequate, inter alia global,
subsidiary governance institutions.
In our SD education field
it is necessary,
as a first,
to include task of shaping of PA
information culture
PA information culture will help in:
(1) projecting long-term SD strategy by
means of backcasting method
(with help of SoL - EU SDS 2006);
(2) – indirect control of proper market
forces stimulated SD activity
(3) – creation of informationally efficient
socio-economy infrastructure;
(4) - stimulating cognitive-innovative
activity be means of innovative
susceptibility of socio-economy
infrastructure shaping.
Without proper systems
knowledge education and
ecohumanistic mindset of PA
it is impossible to durably
overcome global crisis and
achieve sustainable development
of world society
Thank you for your attention
Marek Haliniak
[email protected]
Leslaw Michnowski
[email protected]