2021-10-30
The WEF (World Economic Forum) has published a paper entitled
Here's how agile governance could help manage global uncertainty
As always with the WEF it's long on fine-sounding phrases and short on anything that it perceives may be in any way disadvantageous to businesses, especially big businesses.
"Almost a year after signing the 'Agile Nations Charter', a group of nations have adopted a new method of policy making, known as agile governance"
"The question for governments is: how can policy-making become faster, more effective, and more agile?"
One answer to this last question would of course be to remove the normal checks and balances that are supposed to ensure that policy implications are thought through before implementation. UK Government policy has a long and distinguished history of spectacular failure (promotion of diesel-fuelled vehicles, common fisheries policy, middle-eastern wars, NHS pandemic preparedness, test and trace, lock-downs, name-your-favourite ... ), so we may agree that UK policy-making is clearly in need of significant overhaul to make it more effective, but is signing up to the Agile Nations Charter the appropriate way to do it?
"The 'Agile Nations' are an intergovernmental regulatory cooperation network made up of seven founding nations – Canada, Denmark, Italy, Singapore, Japan, United Arab Emirates and the UK. The UK is currently chairing the network, while the World Economic Forum and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development participate as observers and supporters"
"The transition from traditional to agile governance is not straightforward. It requires substantial change in leadership, culture and process, not only from government but also from businesses and citizens"
Are you filled with confidence yet?
Are you wondering why we have never heard of such a far-reaching initiative?
To be sure, I searched on the BBC web-site:
"Sorry, there are no results for agile nations charter"
Here's a young lady who makes some pertinent points:
