Translator: Kanako Miyabayashi Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Just a few weeks ago,
in this very same building,
scientists, policymakers,
and business people from all around the world
got together to try to make a better world.
The Science and Technology in Society forum
explored the lights and shadows cast by rapid innovations -
things like gene editing, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
Many approaches were discussed,
but one thing I am sure of is this:
We need to build strong, inclusive and global institutions
to manage this change, or it will manage us.
Throughout my career,
I have had the opportunity to observe this from various perspectives.
I started as an engineer, working at a factory.
Any medium sized firm is a microcosm of society,
with various people working on different pieces
that ultimately need to function together as an integrated whole.
My curiosity and passion for model building led me to economics
because I wanted and had a desire
to understand how societies organize themselves.
Later on, my activities as an academic,
as a policy maker,
and more recently as a diplomat
have allowed me to observe
how different economic sectors and countries try to manage for success.
Sometimes they reach their goals and prosper.
Sometimes they fall short.
It is very clear to me
that the big thing that explains human success in relation to other species
is our ability to coordinate at a wider scale.
And coordination among humans is done through institutions.
Engineers know this,
economists know this,
and diplomats do too.
Institutions are what put ideas into motion
and coordinate our actions
given our specific circumstances and constraints.
The theory of institutions encompasses a wide range of concepts,
from informal customs to highly structured systems of law.
Today,
I want to focus on formal organizations
created to deal with collective challenges and goals.
We hear about so many terrible things these days.
So how many of you believe the world is getting worse?
Well, despite what you may think,
the facts show that we have made significant progress in recent years
in reducing hunger, sickness, and war.
These improvements did not happen just by recognizing the problems.
They represent an ongoing relentless process
of moving forward inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter,
using agreed-upon methods in pursuit of common goals.
Institutions such as firms, markets, nations,
and international organizations have made this happen.
The best of them, in the best of times, do not stifle individual objectives;
to the contrary,
they provide the muscle and momentum to make them possible.
Extreme poverty is said to be less than half what it was 30 years ago.
Part of the reason is that essentially all the world’s countries
agreed upon a goal of eradicating extreme poverty by the year 2015.
They set this as one of the Millennium Development Goals
in a summit in the year 2000.
It was organized by an institution to which they all belong:
the United Nations.
Other institutions,
like the World Bank and most regional development banks,
got involved.
The fact that some poverty is still with us
does not diminish the indisputable improvement.
Progress does not require perfection.
Now, let’s take a survey.
Raise your hand if you use the Internet.
Now, raise your hand
if you organize the Internet.
Well,
if you don’t do it, who do you think does?
The answer is:
an institution.
ICANN,
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,
that started as a United States-controlled entity.
To its credit,
the U.S. wisely recognized
that the internet had become a global entity
that deserved a global institution.
In the year 2016, the U.S. government allowed ICANN
to go along its way as a nonprofit institution.
ICANN now makes decisions through what it calls a “multi-stakeholder model.”
It explains the meaning this way:
"Internet governance should mimic the structure of the Internet itself -
borderless and open to all."
Thank that institution next time you go to any site
ending on .com or co.jp or somewhere else
and find it where you expect it to be.
The world has changed,
from hunting and gathering
to agricultural production,
to farming,
to industries and manufacturing,
to services, to communications, to information;
thus, institutions need to change, too, to handle the new realities.
One of the most significant of this reality is internationalization,
which builds upon the foundation of nation states.
Positives and negatives do not stop at national borders.
Developments in technology, transport, information, and communication
have made the world smaller and more interconnected.
In production and distribution systems, we talk about "global value chains."
What we wear today, what you see around, what we eat
depend on technological development
and the production capacity of various countries.
At the same time,
our technology and production systems are affecting our environment,
the sustainability of our planet,
and are continuously reshaping our labor markets and required skills.
Humanity is facing more and more global challenges.
My simple definition of technology is "The limit of what is possible,
given what we have and the constraints we face."
We need to be prepared
and respond to the new technological, environmental, and educational challenges.
That leads me to two main points.
First,
the growing speed of technological change
and its effects on the environment and work
requires new and revised institutions to address upcoming challenges.
And second,
we must accept and even embrace our global interdependence -
in particular,
the need for multilateralism to face growing worldwide challenges.
You don’t have to look far for examples:
multilateral treaties
limiting the stockpiles of certain types of weapons,
multinational medical cooperation through the World Health Organization
to arrest the spread of pandemics,
international trade flows through predictable rules
supervised and enforced at the World Trade Organization,
or international crime fighting through Interpol.
Some newer innovations
call out for institutions to manage the issues they create,
things such as artificial intelligence,
the Internet of Things,
big data,
cyber security,
robotics,
gene editing -
we are never without challenges.
The most important thing is
we cannot take institutions for granted.
They may become big and sometimes they might seem remote;
however,
they are made out of people like you and me.
And moreover, and more importantly,
they are the product of our actions and decisions.
Recently, some countries, even big and prominent ones,
have decided to concentrate only on their national interests
and on the short run.
Yet the problems and challenges we face are global,
and if not tackled now, will be unmanageable in the long run.
I think they will eventually realize that we cannot afford to look inward
when the actions we take - or don’t take - determine the future of humanity.
Even if we only consider the effects on our own children,
we are bound to act together,
for even now, and certainly more in the future,
our children may be living anywhere around the world.
Look around this room,
and I believe you will find many examples of people
that did not start their lives in this country.
A wiser course of action
is to accept and internalize the idea of interdependence.
Initiatives like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
or the Sustainable Development Goals initiative have this intention.
But the world is full of examples of delays in accepting them
and including them in our decisions and actions.
Interdependence can only be dealt with in an inclusive way
through multilateral institutions.
The sustainability of our planet and the pace of technological change,
very clearly, won’t wait.
The challenges are growing and coming ever faster,
regardless of whether we choose to keep up and work together
or fall behind and go it alone.
The more we work together through institutions,
the more likely the change is to turn in our favor.
Thank you very much.