Twitterchat follow-up: Why collaboration is crucial to our response to risks
As part of the launch of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2017 Global Risks Report, in early January I hosted a Twitter chat to answer your questions on risk outlook for the coming year. Thank you all for submitting your questions; I had a great time answering them! As ever, there is always more to say and greater depth to explore in the answers given, and so as I have done in the past, I thought a LinkedIn post would be a good opportunity to reflect on two questions in particular.
Social protection systems are increasingly under pressure from a number of factors. State funding shortages and changing employment models have meant that individual citizens have returned to shouldering a larger share of risk when it comes to their social protection. There is another focus shift from public to private sector funding of social protection, and as populations globally continue to age and personal risk exposure increases, the insurance industry is uniquely placed to offer advice, give counsel and share experience.
It is critical that policy makers and other stakeholders – including the insurance industry – collaborate to create more agile and adaptive forms of local, national and global governance. By doing this, we can successfully seize the opportunities offered to us by the technological innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The goal must ultimately be the strengthening of social protection systems that are inclusive, compatible, ethical, safe, and secure.
In my original answer I talked about Zurich’s global flood resilience program, an initiative launched in 2013 alongside the IFRC, Practical Action, IIASA, and Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Centre. I believe this is still one of the strongest examples of ensuring that pre-emptive action taken to combat flooding threat delivers benefits to those in most need, those most affected.
We believe that the effectiveness of action against climate change can be seen in the strength of collaboration with our partners, each of whom deliver a different set of qualities. To deliver successful flood resilience benefits to at-risk communities, we must harness innovation and technology underpinned by research and risk assessment. Once we have identified realistic but inventive solutions to today’s challenges, response must have global scope as well as local presence. We believe that with our partnerships, we are able to ensure that benefits are felt by those that need them most.
The flood resilience program represents a template for successful delivery of risk resilience in all sectors. The core tenets remain the same: innovative solutions delivered with global scope and through local execution, underpinned by comprehensive research and experience. This approach is one that I believe benefits those most vulnerable to risk in the world, and one which we will continue to promote.
Once again, thank you to all who submitted questions to my most recent Twitter chat – and also to those in 2016. As far as global risks are concerned, there are myriad challenges facing us for the coming year, ranging from political and economic to social and geographical, and our responses will be founded on collaboration. For more on all these topics, do read the findings of the 2017 Global Risks Report here.