The Global Opportunity Report 2016: turning five global risks into opportunities for action

Read the full report here

The United Nations Global Compact, DNV GL and the Monday Morning Global Institute published yesterday the Global Opportunity Report 2016, based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015, which will drive new markets for the next 15 years. The objective of the report is to highlight a certain number of actions that must be seriously regarded as opportunities to put into practice gradually by the international, national, regional and, more precisely, local authorities. The mission of the world leaders on this matter is to introduce this topics in the political agenda and to push forward the adoption of more sustainable practices which should become the current understanding on how things must be done.

The report mentions five global risks that can turn into opportunities for actions:

1. Loss of ocean biodiversity

2. Resistant to life-saving medicine

3. Accelerating transport emissions

4. A generation wasted

5. Global food crisis

Through the report, the analysis of these five global risks present us with 15 opportunities:

The preparation of the report began with the Global Opportunity Network, eight workshops attended by the civil society, companies and governments around the world which play a leading part in the identification and description of opportunities for the annual Global Opportunity Report.

The idea is to have businesses working along with civil society (with the slogan 'Businesses are the new activists') in order to achieve the same sustainable goals and to strengthen the social bottom line on the sustainability agenda.

Before going through the risk and opportunities that caught my attention on this report, a curious aspect on the actors, that have answered to the survey to prepare the report, are the answers given by the governments on how they perceive the intervention of public sector to apply the opportunities: ''(...) it paints a picture of a public sector that sees opportunities, feels affected by them, but does not have the capacity to act on them'' (p. 12). Is this gap between private and public sector linked to the bureaucratic machine that the public sector is constantly trapped on? On this sense, the contribution given by the public sector should be mostly the preparation of legal framework to adapt to new technologies and innovative practices, instead of financing (either private, public or with new solutions, such as public-private partnerships). More clearly, the reductions made on public spending have left to the businesses the necessity to make most of the investments which could, perhaps, endanger the idea of having new services to the public good.

• The Global Opportunity Report addresses, first of all, our oceans, on how they are polluted, affecting the biodiversity and the opportunities that can be taken from it through the use of technologies - smart ocean.

• The second risk is related to how antibiotics are no longer as effective as they were before and to the need for opportunities to decrease overuse in medicine and deliver novel antibiotics to the market. Besides, the use of antibiotics on food endangers human health and creates risks to the food market.

• The third risk is a topic which I follow closely: urban mobility and the decrease of urban pollution with sustainable solutions. Public transports are crowded as well as our cities. A more considerate urban planning policy to the users could be simply applied without even mentioning the benefits of investing in new and simple technologies which make a huge difference in our daily lifes - smart cities.

• The fifth risk mentions the rising opportunities for the global food system which leaves in hunger millions of people while in other parts of the world, there is overconsumption and food waste. Technology is understood by the authors of the report as a driver for all the opportunities to innovate diets, to make smart farming and to make food last longer.

• Lastly, I would like now on the risk of a wasted generation. 

The generation currently in their 20s/30s went to universities either right before or during the economic crisis, and they are still paying for the consequences. Youth unemployment and weak labour opportunities may leave the world with the lost of an entire generation of taxpayers (as the work stability starts much later than before), unsure consumers and doubtful citizen on their politics and democracy. There is why the opportunities for job creation are urgently needed.

A jobless youth represents a new concept of people that are neither working nor studying. This is a global reality for the next generation. The report begins this chapter by saying ''The worst career choice is to enter the labour market during a recession'' (p. 92). But where there any other options?

Youths between 15 and 24 are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults.

Consequences of youth unemployment:

- slower economic growth

- lower tax receipts

- social instability

The causes mentioned on the report are related to constant uncertainty on the job market, the rise of robots, rapid job switching and temporary contracts, self-employment firms with fewer workers, mobile work and the use of electronic means of communication.

The Internet is making competition over assignments globally, with outsourcing of work online instead of hiring in-house.

At the same time as the job market is asking for more entrepreneurs and an entrepreneurial spirit, this reality endangers job stability. There is a significant different between the definition of job and work. The first represents a set of clear responsibilities towards an employer, while the second can be any kind of activity developed by a person which may or may not result on an economic revenue.

While some world economies are slowly growing and recovering from the economic crisis, young professionals are required to adapt quickly to the technological changes and develop a new set of skills, such as digital skills. These involve more a self-education than anything you may learn in the universities.

On this sense, the report highlights how digital technology can be, on one hand, a tool to help create jobs, and on the other hand, a heist to some. As so, the development of new practices to reduce youth employment require a change on the current mind-set in terms of education and lifelong learning, job and work, physical and remote workplaces.

The basis for the Global Opportunity Report are the SDGs which address work conditions and unemployment through the formulation of 4 goals:
- n.º 4 Quality education
- n.º 8 Decent work and economic growth
- n.º 10 Reduced inequalities
- n.º 17 Partnerships for the goals

These four goals put together can lead us to three strong opportunities: Futurepreneurs, digitial labour market and closing the skills gap.

ACT

Entrepreneurship is seen today as an alternative to unemployment as a model of creation of your own job while stepping away from the box of safe employment. Governments and practitioners are promoting alternatives for the job market, which could instead be seen also as a complementary skill to your actual job.
We can no longer expect a job-for-life, as well as the generation right before us does not expect it either. Besides, big companies and industries are reducing the number of their staff with more robots and freelance workers for a high number of activities.
Today's youth must seek for other opportunities, new forms of seeing the job market in order to potentially find and adjust to certain activities that they did not expect to make at the time they started their studies. This aspect is also relevant once we think about forms of funding and receiving a salary. There are now new forms of financing that do not require only a bank loan, such as crowd-funding, inter-generational social futurentrepreneurial funds or venture philanthropy.

Bringing entrepreneurship and conventional corporate world is an opportunity to create jobs, new organisations and new ideas.

The concept of corporate incubators allow entrepreneurs to share a place where they are able to share resources and ideas to better improve the quality and the longevity of their projects. However, ''without an established credit history, assets and business experience required by traditional investment models, young entrepreneurs face challenges securing the necessary funding to accomplish their goals'' (p. 96).

CONNECT

Digital labour market is today an opportunity to bring young professionals together in a virtual economic world, that should also involve professionals in the need of new tools on their workplace, in order to have a more connected work environment and good communication between employees.

Opportunities for employment are not evenly distributed but digital platforms can connect talent with jobs across geographic and sectorial borders.

In fact, companies are looking to train young professionals, actions which can create a greater social impact on low-income areas around the world. Up-skilling benefits on three ways: the human capital of a country is strengthened, the business gets a qualified employee and the youth is offered a way out of poverty.

Another trend is micro-work meaning small tasks to be solved by youths on a smartphone or a computer in exchange of money. This can constitute a supplement to another job with weak conditions or, when very successful, be a full-time work opportunity. It leads to new digital skills and new job opportunities, besides creating a wide network of professionals around the world. At the same time, this can be applied in particular in rural areas (of course, where there are enough infrastructures that would allow a village to have access to the internet) by bringing digital jobs to rural areas and help agricultural economies. This aspect could also have an impact on urban migration in search for employment in cities.

EDUCATE

There is a gap between the demand and the supply of skills in the job market. The educational institutions are no longer up-to-date with the skills that are required once you conclude your education. This applies more to universities than to lifelong programmes or more practical degrees which tend to prepare better their students to the required skills. Universities have remained traditional (with some exceptions) and their graduates have to quickly learn a set of tools on their own, in order to be considered a good asset by the employer. Both aspect on ACT and CONNECT lead us here to education. This is related to the acquisition of digital tools and the search of new ways of education for our youth. It can be provided through a more modern educational system and online tools, which nonetheless require a formal recognition by the job market.

As we have seen, global opportunities have a high importance on how we educate our generation and on how well we are prepared for the future trends on the job market. Only with qualified and stable human capital it is possible to guarantee economic and social growth. There is why, taking into consideration all the risks and opportunities mentioned in the Global Opportunity Report 2016, the implementation of these best practices should be seen as a must and not a could.