Human development, sustainability, and agency

Despite multiple scientific warnings about human impacts on ecosystems, decades of insufficient action have heightened the risk of irreversible tipping points in the Earth systems. Our current decision-making systems are geared to propel unequal economic growth, concentrated wealth accumulation, and unsustainable consumption. Moreover, insufficient progress on fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been further undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic, while geopolitical tensions and conflicts are derailing prospects for global cooperation on global challenges. Although technological progress continues to enhance our (creative and destructive) capabilities, there is a mismatch between current challenges and the response from institutions and behaviors.

It is becoming evident that technology alone along with existing institutional arrangements cannot respond and bring about the sufficient degree of change. Scaling up the transformation of our society to sustainability requires a coordinated action of key actors. At the heart of the challenge is that current socio-economic-environmental systems facilitate skewed distribution of power and constrain agency of many actors. This event will focus on the topic of agency, that is the ability of individuals and groups to take action and make a difference over a course of events, which is a foundation for sustainable human development. The program includes a keynote presentation by the Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Pedro Conceicao featuring the Human Development Report 2021-2022 Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World, followed by a panel discussion. 

The event is organized as part of IIASA Transformations within Reach (TwR) project which looks for ways to transform societal decision-making systems and processes to facilitate transformation to sustainability.