Ethos Issue 7, Jan 2010
Serving Beyond the Predictable
Jocelyne Bourgon
Transforming Old Ways: Policy Units
Most governments have a strong internal
policy capacity. Some have gained
much experience in intelligence-gathering,
scenario-planning or guiding
public policy debates about strategic
priorities. These are valuable assets for
improving their anticipative capacity. The
Netherlands, Singapore and the UK have
much to share in this regard.
The challenge is not so much to
gather more information or to build
more powerful analytical tools (although
more of both are needed); the challenge
is to focus on extracting meaning and
detecting probable patterns where none
were seen before. Interpretation is key.
Developing New Ways: Explorative Capacity
Irrespective of efforts to improve
anticipative capacity within government,
the best knowledge about emerging
patterns is in the minds of people, in the
networks of inter-relationships in their
community or in their global community
of interests, and may lie beyond its grasp.
In spite of a growing body of literature
on collective intelligence,13,14 not enough
is known about how governments can
best extract knowledge and meaning
on emerging patterns, how they can
channel the efforts of many minds
towards tackling complex public issues
or how they can leverage the power of networks to connect actors, problems
and solutions in new ways to achieve
public results.
The challenge will be to integrate
the findings of collective intelligence
research and network theory into
the intellectual framework of public
administration, to help government
anticipate, prevent and act to increase
the likelihood of positive results.
BUILDING RESILIENCE
Where shocks can be reasonably
foreseen, it is the role of government to
anticipate, initiate pre-emptive action
and mitigate key vulnerabilities.15,16
© J Bourgon 2009. Reproduced with permission.
However, where shocks cannot
be foreseen or prevented, the role of
government is to promote the resilience of society, ensure a more equitable
distribution of risks and reduce the
impact on its most vulnerable. This
means building the adaptive capacity of society.17
Individuals, organisations or government
working alone cannot achieve resilience.16
It requires an active citizenry with the
skills and confidence to act. It relies
on strong communities with the capacity
to mobilise resources and co-ordinate
action that leads to
common solutions.18
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