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Scenarios for the future

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EBRD President Jean Lemierre speaking at the special Business Forum 'Scenarios for the future'.

Participants voting.

The Forum set out several possible outcomes for the region.

A recurring theme at this year’s EBRD Business Forum has been the extraordinary changes witnessed by the region since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But what about the future? What will the EBRD’s countries of operations look like in another 18 years?

That was the subject of a special Business Forum event on Monday 21 May entitled Scenarios for the future. Although it did not attempt to forecast what will happen in 2025, it did set out several possible outcomes for the region, focussing on four related issues: population and demographics; the environment; technology; and the emergence of China.

“We are not going to predict the future,” said Richard O’Brien, from future-planning experts Outsights, who organized the event. “Our objective is to anticipate better many of the things we need to be thinking about.”

Regarding demographics, the presentation highlighted the challenges that falling birth rates and high mortality levels pose to many countries in the EBRD region. Possible consequences include labour shortages and population migration, not to mention the human suffering caused by unhealthy lifestyles and poor health provision. But, as the Outsights team pointed out, the region faces alternative futures according to different population projections.

Pollution and climate change are also major problems for the EBRD’s countries of operations, so how will their economies be affected? Will unchecked global warming harm agriculture and threaten water supplies, or will the region seek solutions in closer cross-border cooperation and better technology?

As for technology itself, the event considered alternative scenarios depending on whether the region seized the benefits of innovation or lagged behind countries with better educated workers and bigger research budgets. One such nation could be China, whose swift development throws up questions about resource availability and environmental management.

Between the two extremes of a “virtuous upward cycle of progress” and a “spiral of decline”, the EBRD region clearly faces a variety of outcomes. The audience at the Business Forum event was, however, globally optimistic about the future: a vote yielded an average score of 6.4 when participants were asked how successful they believed the region would be in 2025 (with 1= unsuccessful and 10 = extremely successful).

Other votes showed that a big majority of audience members felt that meeting technological challenges was key for the region (average score of 7.9, with 10 = critically important); and that many doubted the preparedness of governments to meet their responsibilities (average score of 3.9 with 1 = not ready and 10 = fully prepared).

After the voting, three panellists held a discussion about their hopes and fears for the region. Liqun Jin, Vice President of the Asian Development Bank, suggested that relations with his home country, China, could be “very positive if both sides cooperate”.

Yuri Dzibladze, President of the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, turned the spotlight on rights issues. “There is a very worrying trend in democratic backsliding in the eastern part of the region,” Mr Dzibladze said, mentioning Uzbekistan, Belarus and Russia in particular. “People matter, and without people enjoying fundamental rights and freedoms and dignity, we will be unable to bridge the divides within societies.” Fellow panellist Arkady Dvorkovich, Head of the Russian Presidential Experts Directorate, agreed that the development of civil society was “critical” to the region’s future.

EBRD President Jean Lemierre concluded the session by noting that the region enjoys “huge potential” while also facing “massive risks”, in part due to its recent incorporation into the global economy. He expressed particular concern about education. “Education is needed to cope with increased competition,” President Lemierre said. “Governments, the private sector and public institutions all share this responsibility.”

Background material  (0.2Mb)

Voting results  (1.1Mb)

By Mike McDonough, Communications Adviser
21 May 2007