ISS and EUISS Joint Workshop, BY INVITATION ONLY: The Future of Africa and Europe
Date: 2011-07-05
Venue: ,
ISS Seminar Room,
ISS Pretoria Office
A joint workshop hosted by the ISS and the EUISS in the framework of the European Strategy and Analysis Pilot Study, ESPAS 2011
The European Union has recently launched a pilot research project called European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) - an EU inter-institutional research study that aims to identify long- term global trends on a range set of issues across different world regions and how these could influence EU policy. This task has been given in its initial phases to the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) based in Paris*.
The EUISS was tasked with producing, within one year, a pilot study identifying future core trends consisting of two separate reports:
- A report assessing the long-term, international and domestic, political and economic environment facing the European Union over the next 20 years;
- A report identifying the main policy challenges and choices likely to confront EU institutions and instruments during the 2014-19 institutional cycle.
ESPAS is intended as a pilot-project. Its long-term aim largely transcends the production of the two- pronged study, to cover setting up an inter-institutional and international network on the basis of which a permanent EU forecasting and trend assessing capacity, with an associated interactive web space, can be made operational from 2012 onwards.
Within the framework of the ESPAS project, the EUISS is organizing in Pretoria, in partnership with its African counterpart, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) a one-day workshop with the aim to foster a brainstorming discussion among Africa foresight experts on major socio-political, economic and strategic trends that will shape Africa in the coming two decades. The workshop will be included as a part of the ISS Africa week on global and African futures
The workshop will use the International Futures software from the University of Denver (www.ifs.du.edu) as a tool through which to view the future. For the ISS and IFs with Pardee, this workshop therefore forms part of their work on African Futures 2050 that have included a recent publication on the long-term future of Africa.
IFs is a long-term global integrated assessment model that, based on historical data, trends and dynamic relationships, forecasts thousands of variables stemming from distinct global systems for 183 countries from 2005 to 2100. IFs has proven to be a useful tool for a variety of purposes, including policy projects by the United Nations, the US government and the European Union. It has also been used for thinking critically and analytically about issues surrounding human development and sustainability. Key scenarios have been published in the associated Potential Patterns of Human Progress (PPHP) volumes. The integrated assessment platform allows for the exploration of systemic trends, analysis of dynamics and interactions within and across the systems and simulates alternate paths to desired futures, taking into consideration the system as an integrated whole.
The workshop will address three sets of questions that will, among others, be developed in the ESPAS draft report to be circulated late June:
- Demographics, human development and the power of non state networks: Urbanisation in Africa is a continuing trend and is likely to reflect and affect economic growth. In particular, the relationship between migration and development may change as a consequence of urbanisation. How will intra-African migration evolve and what consequences to expect out of this phenomenon? Will migration between Africa and Europe increase and how will it be managed? Will urbanisation increase the differences between the wealthy and the poor? Will rural-urban income divides within African countries increase? What are the expected trends relating to education, health and poverty reduction in Africa?
- African medium powers: What new “medium powers†(if any) will emerge in Africa by 2030? How will their wealth and power be structured? Which countries other than the established pivotal powers in Africa are likely to seek a role in shaping the international order, and succeed in playing a trans-regional role? What are the chances that this affects existing regional ties? Will tensions in the Africa rise as a result or are loser and broader, and perhaps less ‘institutional’ equilibriums to be expected as a result?
- Resources scarcity, climate change and governance: African is a resource-rich continent which will attract global investors from the West and increasingly from the Far East. The urbanisation process together with climate change also increases environmental stress and raises tensions on control of resources (water, energy, logistics, etc.). There will be greater vulnerability to secure supplies, potentially from abroad. Urbanisation is correlated to people’s expectations for improved quality of life. This leads to further demands on the polity. Empowered by information technology, networks of governmental and non-governmental actors, as well as those bringing both together, are likely to play a bigger role from the local to the international level. What will be the real influence of these networks in Africa?
The workshop will be divided into four thematic sessions and work with a future time-horizon of 2030, although IFs can readily project across a much longer period. The ISS will publish a short policy brief on the outcomes of the workshop shortly thereafter.
* The European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) is an agency
of the European Union, operating under the Common Foreign and Security
Policy (CFSP). Its goals are to find a common security culture for the
EU, to help develop and project the CFSP, and to enrich Europe’s
strategic debate
