Trends Identified
Asymmetric demographic change.
The worldwide ageing populations will cause major challenges for some economies and government budgets. Gender inequality will further destabilize demographic change. However, the population in countries with a high fertility rate will remain relatively young, as seen in Africa, thus creating a youth bulge and potential for migration.
2017
Strategic foresight analysis
NATO
Climate change is causing more extreme weather events and escalating losses
The world’s top ten hottest years on record have occurred since 1998, and the top five since 2010125. Since pre-industrial times, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by 40%; the Arctic sea ice extent shrunk on average between 3.5 and 4.1% per decade in the 1979–2002 period; sea level rose at an average annual rate of 3.2 mm/year from 1993 to 2010, and since 1961 the average annual temperature of oceans has been increasing and the warming effect has reached a depth of at least 3000m.
2017
Surfing the digital tsunami
Australia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Ageing nations
The world’s population is getting older, with the population over 60 growing fastest.
2013
Now for the long term - The Report of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations
Oxford Martin School
City Limits
The world’s political geography is being transformed by surging migration from rural to urban areas, straining the web of connections between the two. Divergences are widening on numerous dimensions, such as values, age, education, power and prosperity. What if a tipping point is reached at which the urban-rural divide becomes so sharp that the unity of states begins to erode? Domestically, divergent values between urban and rural areas are already fuelling polarization and electoral volatility in many countries. Greater bitterness and rivalry could lead to localized nativism and even violent clashes. Separatist movements might break through in wealthy city-regions that resent diverting revenues to poorer rural areas with which they feel diminishing affinity. Leading cities might look to bypass national structures and play an international role directly. Economically, accelerating urban migration could lead to rural depopulation and the decline of local economies, with potential food security implications in some countries. Better long-term planning—for both expanding cities and rural areas at risk of decline—might help to mitigate these dangers. Stronger transport and communications links could help to soften the urban-rural divide. Resources will be needed, which might require more fiscal creativity, such as finding ways to decentralize revenue-raising powers or more widely redistribute the productivity gains that urbanization generates.
2019
The Global Risks Report 2019 14th Edition
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Resources (un)limited?
The world’s natural-resource equation is changing as technology boosts resource productivity, new bottlenecks emerge, and fresh questions arise about “resources (un)limited?”.
2017
The global forces inspiring a new narrative of progress
McKinsey
The end of scarcity
The world said humans were not meant to fly. Hundreds of years of human invention had been unable to make it work. But in a small bicycle-repair shop, two brothers with no government funding and only a basic education had a vision, and a will to invent. And in 1903, thanks to the determination of these two unsuspecting inventors, humans flew. The distance of the first human flight was 120 ft. Years later, one of the inventors of that breakthrough would marvel that the wingspan of modern airplanes was longer than the entire distance his first plane had flown. The potential of technology is limited only by our imagination, and our will. Abundance of water, food, clean air … peace: the end of scarcity in the supply of our basic needs is possible. Perhaps not by 2020, but it starts with the dream, the determination to turn dreams into reality, and the understanding of this truth, so well embodied in the invention and rapid evolution of human flight: that all things are possible.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Demography
The world population will continue to grow in the 21st century and is expected to nudge the 10 billion mark by mid-century. Africa will account for more than half of this growth, which will generate significant youth bulges. Elsewhere, including in many developing countries, populations will significantly age, and those over 80 will account for around 10% of the world’s population by 2050, up from 4% in 2010. With a declining share of the population in work, ageing countries will face an uphill battle to maintain their living standards. International migration from countries with younger populations could offset this decline. At the same time, technologies that enhance physical and cognitive capacities could allow older people to work longer, while growing automation could reduce the demand for labour.
2016
OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2016
OECD
Demographic change
The world population is expected to increase in the coming years with a demographic shift seen with number of seniors increasing as they have longer life expectancy and declining birth rates. The ageing population phenomenon is triggering one of the most significant social transformations
of the twenty- first century.
2017
Science & Technology Foresight Malaysia
Malaysia, Academy of Sciences Malaysia
The Future of Work
The world of work is changing rapidly. Several ongoing mega-trends – including globalisation, digitalisation and demographic changes – coupled with rapid change in values and preferences regarding work, have the potential of significantly affecting the quantity and types of jobs in our economies, as well as how and by whom they will be carried out.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Fewer fancy phones, more fulfilment
The world many of us live in is changing at an exciting pace. Innovations are generating new gadgets, more convenient services and greater opportunities. But many of these changes target a small percentage of the globe’s population. In the villages I’ve worked in, nobody has seen an iPhone or can download an app. However, there is tremendous room for entrepreneurs to adapt innovations intended for the wealthy to serve the world’s poor. Solar panels and LED lights, designed for sale in rich nations, are stimulating growth in commercial off-grid electrification in India and Africa. Mobile telecommunication is being used to facilitate financial inclusion in developing countries across the world. Once-expensive medical procedures can be done amazingly cheaply. Even the financial sector is innovating in order to reach the world’s poor; as well as investors looking for opportunities that not only help them increase their net worth but also improve the world. Better financing opportunities are opening up for social entrepreneurs who build businesses to serve the poor profitably. I see a slight but significant shift in innovation, that instead of producing fancier phones, we will create more fulfilling lives for people who have been mostly ignored to date.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)