Gilberto Morishaw: Seeing Through the Scattered Pieces

Innovating and Future-Proofing Multilateral Institutions

From cataclysm to catastrophes, skirmishes and uncertainties, there is a high calling for global institutions, governments, and leaders to act upon the meta-crisis the world is living in. The response is scattered. Many people feel that institutions, both domestic and multilateral, are failing us. It is not a surprise that we see a rise in democratic decay, political extremism, humanitarian crises, and countless climate disasters. The future knocks at our door and we are fast asleep, even as we are witnesses to the unraveling of the status quo some had labeled as the “end of history.” What has brought us here cannot bring us there. Our siloed thinking and approach to justice, climate change, inequality, technology, and human rights has failed us. The Summit for the Future is an opportunity for us to pivot and move boldly by putting the pieces in place that lead us to a just, equitable, and regenerative future. Siloed approaches and our inability to connect the dots have led us to a stalemate, where we are unable to even imagine a world that works differently.

Facing Reality

Climate Collapse

Anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity collapse pose an existential threat, disproportionately impacting those who have historically suffered from colonization and contributed the least to the problem. They are also the ones who have contributed the least to extraction and overconsumption that drives ecological collapse and they have not been the historical beneficiaries of the blessings of the economic model which is the main driver of this change. Between 8 to 10 trillion USD of climate finance is needed yearly, yet barely a tenth of this number is even available now.¹

Small island development states and developing countries struggle to deal with the losses and damages they receive from extreme weather, fires, and sea-level rise, while adaptation, innovation, and mitigation funding lags behind.² The future requires us to prioritize and develop economic models that accurately value and incentivize that which is most important.

Erosion of Trust

Trust in institutions is at a concerning low. Democratic institutions are failing to deliver upon the promises of justice, equity, and prosperity for all. Cost of living crises, wealth and income inequality, greedflation, and more. The pandemic has accelerated the worst economic and political impulses and has laid bare a cynicism that threatens to destroy institutions that we see as important including the UN system itself. Citizens are giving into fascist, racist, and xenophobic political movements while politicians either fan the flame or fail to deliver. Human rights are being rolled back across the globe while democracies stand by and fail to self-correct. Restoring trust requires governments on all levels to actively and fundamentally address the economic struggles while also creating bold narratives that honestly engage with the visible weaknesses of the current system.

Technological Threats

New technologies have also risen as a challenge as we enter our future. Artificial intelligence (AI) has brought both great opportunity and great risk. The energy usage of AI threatens to ruin sustainability goals, while Generative AI is already threatening the livelihoods of the creative sector and the usage of AI images is already impacting our ability to verify truth. AI is a reflection of its datasets and also mirrors the racism, misogyny and bigotry that it has potentially been trained on. Similar challenges exist in the web3 space, where the energy usage of cryptomining and the free-for-all market have been seen as threatening for nation states. The challenges technology brings with it are not inherently technological. Rather, there is a structural lack of transparency, norms, and governance. The incentive structure rewards unethical usage. Technological innovation is widely leveraged for the purpose of advertisement, profit, and control while use-cases that enhance public good, informed citizen participation, and justice are underfunded, discontinued, or acquired. The future requires us to leverage technology and socio-technical frameworks as tools to build public and ecological good, and to do so in a way that incentivizes these endeavors and makes them sustainable.

Future Generations?

These wicked problems induce fear and fall heavy on the youth. Many of us are struggling with eco-anxiety, lack of opportunities, and fewer perspectives for the future. Young people think differently. By combining frameworks and lessons from these challenges we can collectively create solutions that shatter the status quo and provide a path forward.

Solving the Puzzle

Our obstacles sketch a picture of what it is that we need. New beginnings require us to start having conversations and designing approaches where climate restoration, public-good focused technology, regenerative economic frameworks, and empowering intergenerational future narratives are intertwined. All the puzzle pieces are present, but need to be put into place.

Web3 and Regenerative Finance for Democracy and the Goals

Seeing the current economic status quo, the harrowing ecological disaster, and the lack of access to finance and influence that many marginalized communities face, Regenerative Finance (ReFi) was born. ReFi is the name for a collection of web3-powered frameworks, applications, and digital tools used to create new circular economic models, regenerate nature, and address inequalities in the world³ by creating open, trustless, and ‘permissionless’ digital systems that interact with nature and community. Examples include crypto ecosystems like Celo and Cosmos, community currencies like Kolektivo and eco-data projects like the Sovereign Nature initiative. The purpose of ReFi is to reimagine the relationship between ecology, technology, and economies; this reinvention is a fundamental need if our society seeks to continue. In the world of multilateralism, ReFi is already showcasing its usage on a pilot level. From providing universal basic income, creating grants funding to managing the distribution of humanitarian aid, ReFi technology synthesizes regenerative frameworks while creating new sources of sustainable finance through the use of blockchain technologies like smart contracts. Smart contracts grant initiatives and communities the power to code values and incentivise behaviors into monetary systems and transactions, and provides individuals freedom over the resources that are granted to them, and, in doing so, stimulate active participation towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ReFi tools are open source, and their governance is democratic, using blockchain to authenticate, verify, and process both identity and transactions.

AI-Powered Multilateral Futures Scenario Building

AI is not intelligent in an independent sense; rather, it derives its intelligence from the datasets that it has been trained on. Nevertheless, the mass processing, logic, and mathematical ability of these systems can be a game changer for multilateral institutions. AI can help overcome the weaknesses of multilateral processes. Negotiation, consultations and textual revisions are the flesh and bones of any UN Summit. Haggling on the wording of documents, which references should go in, and which agreements take precedence take up the time of policymakers and diplomats. When negotiations are happening the goal should be to make sure the outcomes translate to a more just, equitable and regenerative world. Calculations on the impact of these changes often happen after the fact. Using AI, we can develop a tool that visualizes the potential consequences of a UN Resolution, textual edits, and Nationally Determined Contributions on the fly during UN Summits and Conference of Parties. Using the status quo as a starting point AI’s can use predictive analysis4 to create future scenarios based on verified, and transparent datasets using the latest science, facts and indicators tested and maintained by the UN Futures Lab in collaboration with international NGOs, experts, and lay-people. Furthermore, Generative AI can turn these predictive outcomes into primers/briefings for observers, participants, and experts. The goal is for it to make negotiations more connected to the potential outcomes and less self-interested or cognitively biased. AI cannot replace human imagination, but it can help decision-makers take note and think better about the futures they want to sketch, and this is precisely how tech can bring about more public good.

To Infinity and Beyond?

Ultimately, it is not about using the right technology or the right framework in and of itself. The big message is to think wickedly. Just as our problems are wicked, so too will our solutions be. When we know ourselves and our flaws we can design systems that strengthen our weaknesses and harness our strengths. The climate crisis requires us to rethink the economy, eroded institutions begs us to see the needs of the people, and our technology should be leveraged as an accelerator and a facilitator for good. Only then can there be prospects for the future generations. The two novel solutions offered in this essay exemplify the mindset, and systems approach needed to solve the challenges we face and equip our institutions with the right tools. Regenerative Finance uses blockchain technology to create inclusive, democratic, and cooperative economies that tackle the issues marginalized communities are struggling with. The AI-powered Multilateral Futures Scenario tool allows us to use technology in a way that counters our own cognitive biases and helps institutions to keep their members and parties focused on the end-game. The end-game is a just, equitable, and sustainable world. Let’s start putting the puzzle pieces together and sooner or later we will see the full-beautiful picture we all hope for.