Attachments
Executive summary
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caught the world unprepared, revealing society’s vulnerabilities, systemic fragility and lack of resilience. In 2020, the Data, Strategy and Innovation (DSI) group at the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Western Pacific adopted a Health Futures Strategic Dialogue (HFSD) approach to systematically assess life during the pandemic and anticipate how a world with COVID-19 might look in 2022. Building on tried-and-tested foresight methodologies, DSI convened five thematic think tanks, tapping experts across various fields. In addition, DSI implemented three Special Projects to help ensure the strategic conversation incorporated diverse perspectives, including those not often heard, thereby creating a more comprehensive description of the future of health in the Region.
The SenseMaker Project, the first Special Project, leveraged the voices of young futurists by asking them to imagine how the future of the world and the future of health might look in 2032, how those futures might emerge, and what could be done to create more positive futures. A total of 117 young people aged 18–30 years, with the majority coming from Asia, participated in the Project. The result is a collection of micro-narratives on the future as seen through their eyes. The SenseMaker Project highlighted the issues that young people deem critical, including technology, geopolitics, inequality and community/collective action. The young futurists acknowledged the limitless potential of technology to shape a better future, while also being acutely aware of the perils of technologyrelated issues surrounding data protection, surveillance, fake news and automation. The impacts of geopolitics came up repeatedly. The participants expressed hope and positivity about their increasing awareness of climate change. At the same time, they voiced anxiety over the lack of social mobility, greater inequality (particularly given the impact of COVID-19) and a deficit of trust in leadership. For these young people, the path to a better future requires a rethink of the social contract and how society must strive to ensure equality and social justice.
Crowdsourcing for Social Health Innovations, the second Special Project, tapped into the vision and imagination of young people (aged 15–30) in Malaysia and the Philippines to identify challenges affecting the future of health in 2050 and design innovative solutions to build a better world. Through their submissions, the young participants reminded us that health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, that we must keep this comprehensive definition of health in the discourse and as part of any solution to strengthen health systems, and that health and well-being are intricately linked. Education and learning were front and centre in the minds of young people, as reflected in the submitted project proposals. Students in Malaysia and the Philippines have had first-hand experience with prolonged school closures. Not surprisingly, many of them imagined a future with equal access to education, where learning is no longer a privilege but a right that can be accessed by every child, where the quality of learning is no longer determined primarily by parents’ incomes, and where every child can receive the support they need to learn effectively. Young people’s ideas on shaping the future were also heavily influenced by their reliance on technology, which will likely grow over time. Technological innovations require ethical considerations, checks and balances, sound governance, regulatory frameworks, digital literacy and supporting infrastructure. Lastly, young people also place high importance on the issue of climate change. They no longer need convincing that climate change is a fundamental threat to our civilization. To build a better post-pandemic world, mitigating and adapting to climate change are critical.
The third Special Project, WHO Futures Art Exhibition: Envisioning the Future of Health in 2050, was designed as a platform for individuals and communities to express their experiences, hopes and fears through visual art. The Futures Art Exhibition showcased 63 submissions from 28 artists worldwide. Artists are witnesses to today’s lived experiences. They help us make sense of collective traumas by archiving, expressing and interpreting the beauty and wreckage of cataclysmic events (sometimes simultaneously) in their works. At the same time, artists are essential architects of imagined futures. Going beyond words, their works help us reimagine future possibilities, reminding us that the future is not predetermined.
The outputs from these three Special Projects all point to the following themes:
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Health is viewed as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”.
Holistic health must be incorporated into the discourse and as part of any solutions to strengthen health systems. -
Concerns of social justice, inclusivity and equality are central in terms of the visions of the future and the paths to that future.
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Climate change is perceived as a challenge without precedent, with farreaching consequences that need to be aptly managed.
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Technology is seen as a source of innovations and disruptions with spillover effects on essential issues such as privacy, automation and decentralization.