In the last three years that we have lived with COVID-19, we have become accustomed to the state of emergency that governments all around the world resort to, not to mention increased dependence on technology such as delivery applications and online shopping. Certain government measures are there as a pandemic prevention, but measures such as the state of emergency can also be used to restrict freedom of expression, and technology that provides convenience such as booking vaccination slots, texting, ordering food, has left some people behind. The elderly without a smartphone or those in the countryside, do they have access to the same technology as people in the urban areas?
Some signals have unravelled conflicts of different ideologies and beliefs, including the technology divide. As policymakers, how can we turn those conflicts into opportunities?
The UNDP Strategy & Futures Team categorises these signals into the theme “useful tension” to unflip conflicts into future policy opportunities as seen the following 5 topics:
1) When democracies autocratise
With the pandemic, several countries choose to govern under the state of emergency under the pretext of pandemic prevention, while such emergency is simply to restrict civil protests. At least 31 governments used military ordinances to enforce pandemic restrictions, such as in Romania. In countries that often encounter natural disasters such as the Philippines and Haiti,the governments often depend on the military to provide the needed help by which the citizens feel indebted to and have to tolerate human rights violations under certain situations.
These signals are telltale signs of the trend towards autocracy where democratic states use the state of emergency to restrict civic freedom under the name of pandemic or natural disaster response. Autocracy has created not only democracy backsliding but also regression of gender equality where governments ban protests on bodily, reproductive, or abortion rights.
The use of emergency decree or the military ordinances can be disproportionate to actual situations and instead creates democracy backsliding and gender equality regression. Policymakers should find a measure that, in times of emergency, still adheres to democratic values, to avoid polarisation and the turn towards autocracy.
2) Can the courts save us?
The courts around the world and the International Court of Justice have become more proactive in combating climate change. Vanuatu, for instance, after being affected by four consecutive cyclones, has taken climate change to the International Court of Justice, demanding that every government in the world must address climate change as a national agenda. On a national level, the youths in Germany have appealed to the German Constitutional Court for the country to change emission targets from 55% decrease to 65% decrease of greenhouse gases by 2030 to alleviate the burden of later generations. In India, India’s Madras High Court ruled that “mother nature” has the status of a legal person.
As mentioned, the signals show that the courts have become more proactive in addressing climate change and more considerate of the next generations. Still, this depends on the legitimacy of the court in each society – sometimes the courts do not side with the people as seen when the US Supreme Court curbed the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.
Can the courts save us in the future? Even though the courts can give legal status to nature, we still need implementable plans. However, appealing to the International Court of Justice can help expand the public conversation about who is responsible for the harm done to our climate and how to expand legal protection to other development dimensions.
3) Dare to be unpopular
Do you remember when people were displeased with the plastic bag policy at the convenience and department stores? The policy does not get negative response only in Thailand but also in Barbados where the government enacted a law to ban single-use plastics or in Nigeria where the government enacted a law to reduce the use of fossil fuels, which the Nigerians came out to protest against. Not to mention that the EU is reconsidering the ban on GMO and allowing GMO for certain plants due to drought and food scarcity.
These signals reveal the trend that government and unions may implement measures that challenge popular preferences but are considerate of climate change and its detrimental effects, including protests against government policy decisions.
With these signals and trends, policymakers can utilise the transition of ideologies and values and propose novel measures that respond to sustainability, which are likely to gain public support and make a difference. However, policymakers should be discrete in understanding the groups of interests behind certain values, be considerate of the uneven impact of policies that can lead to resistance and increased use of tougher law and order.
4) Shaping our digital lives
Almost everyone now is on the Line application to chat, work, shop, or book a taxi. Technology has become part and parcel of our everyday life to the point where a WeChat user who was banned for talking about 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre had to write an apology letter to Tencent to lift the ban – for the user has to depend on the application in daily life. Now, people are interested in new applications such as ChatGPT that gained more than one million users within five days of its launch.
But every coin has two sides. The digital divide can leave so many behind. In Uganda, the elderly cannot access public health care because they do not have digital identification. Not to mention how people are worried about their private information being used to enhance algorithms. In India, Uber drivers have to find ways to take back control from algorithms to pick the orders on their own.
These signals reflect the progressive trends of technology and AI that permeate our everyday life along with concern about intrusion of privacy from AI’s increased collection of our online information and showing online our preferences rather than the entire array of information.
Policymakers’ next step is to think about how to bridge the digital divide and how to ease access to technology so that we do not leave anyone behind, including how to protect individual’s online privacy such as allowing people to choose whether they would like to disclose some of their information.
5) Will techno-optimism make us complacent?
New technologies are happening in front of our eyes. Artificial trees can absorb many times more carbon than actual trees. Microgrids can generate electricity to remote Indonesian islands. Technology can now clean the air, with the robo-fish we can even absorb microplastics in the ocean!
Those signals show us how far technology has progressed and the renewable power sources we have. But they come with unequal access to technology across locations and demographics.
Technology may offer certain solutions but they do not tackle the root causes. It is easy to be swept under the spell that technology solves it all, while it in fact does not. Policymakers should think about how technology has left people behind, or how it has replaced local wisdom. The important question is: instead of being dependent on technology, can technology progress together with the attempt to address root causes?