One year of contribution, inspiration and excellence by Thanos Kalamidas

Celebrating one year of
Global Academy for Future Governance (GAFG)

Governance has acquired a curious habit; it talks incessantly about the future while preparing remarkably badly for it. Governments issue strategies, companies publish transformation plans, universities produce forecasts and consultants manufacture acronyms at an industrial scale. Yet the machinery for deciding what matters, what can wait and what may become disastrously expensive remains surprisingly weak.

That is where the Global Academy for Future Governance (GAFG) makes a persuasive proposition. Its central idea, that better governance depends on improving methods, means and mindsets (the '3Ms'), sounds almost disarmingly simple. Its importance lies precisely there. Modern problems are rarely caused by a shortage of information; they are caused by institutions that cannot connect information to judgement.

GAFG’s first virtue is its refusal to respect the fashionable boundaries between disciplines. Climate change is not merely an environmental question; artificial intelligence is not merely a technology question; migration is not merely a border question; and development is not merely an economic one. Each is an unruly mixture of economics, politics, science, ethics, security and human behaviour. Policymakers who insist on putting such problems into tidy boxes are not being rigorous, they are being convenient.

GAFG’s five-dimensional view - land, sea, airspace, near outer space and cyberspace - is similarly useful. The modern world does not operate in compartments. A satellite disruption can affect a port; a cyberattack can interrupt electricity; a drought can alter food prices, migration and political stability thousands of kilometres away. The serious task of governance is therefore less about predicting isolated events than understanding connections.

There is also something refreshing in GAFG’s scepticism about technological hype. The world does not need another institution shouting that every new algorithm will revolutionise everything. Markets are perfectly capable of doing that without assistance. What decision-makers need today is someone prepared to ask the unfashionable questions: Does this technology solve a real problem? Who pays for its unintended consequences? What happens to workers, institutions, ecosystems and public trust? And who benefits when the promised revolution turns out to be mostly a press release?

That emphasis matters especially in the Global South. Development cannot sensibly be measured by the number of digital platforms deployed, data centres constructed or glossy innovation districts opened. Economic progress that leaves societies more unequal, ecosystems more damaged or institutions less capable is not progress with a footnote, it is progress on credit.

GAFG’s claim that it is a partner rather than an expenditure is therefore more than positioning. Good foresight is cheap compared with bad decisions. A government that avoids one failed programme, a company that detects one strategic risk early, or an institution that prevents one costly ethical or environmental mistake - before the bill for unintended consequences eventually arrives - may recover its investment many times over.

The real test, however, will be whether GAFG can remain as independent in practice as it is ambitious in principle. Neutrality is valuable only when it survives pressure from clients, politics, fashionable technologies and commercial interests.

After one year, the strongest case for the Global Academy for Future Governance is not that it possesses a crystal ball, but that it recognises the future’s most dangerous feature: everything is connected. Better methods, adequate means and wiser mindsets may not guarantee excellent governance, but without them, excellence is mostly branding and the future is too expensive to leave to slogans.