Alliance Online - September 2006

Getting serious: tackling global challenges in an interdependent world

Marcello Palazzi and Bo Ekman

EVENT 2006 Tällberg Forum: How on earth can we live together? Getting serious
Date 28 June-1 July
Venue Lake Siljan, Sweden
Organizer Tällberg Foundation

For 26 years, at midsummer, the Tällberg Foundation has invited political and business leaders, and increasingly civil society leaders, to annual workshops to explore and exchange new ideas and practices in economics, business management and politics. But the growing interrelation of problems means that their solutions will increasingly fall outside the province of any one sector. In 2005 the traditional Tällberg Workshop of 50-60 participants morphed into the Tällberg Forum of 400-500 participants, including many more representatives from foundations, global NGOs, the citizens’ sector, as well as academics and representatives of the arts. The aim: to join forces in a common endeavour to unstop bottlenecks and find solutions to the Forum’ main question, ‘How on earth can we live together?’

This year they included Bill Drayton of Ashoka, Jed Emerson of the Generation Foundation, Gerry Salole of the European Foundation Centre, Kumi Naidoo of CIVICUS, Dirk Elsen of the Netherlands Development Organization, Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia, President Mikhail Sakhasvili of Georgia, Moumita Sensarma of ABN AMRO Bank, and Max Martin of UBS, among many other leaders from every sector and region.

The ‘third sector’ as the kernel of global society

In the view of the Tällberg Foundation, the cluster of foundations, non-profits, NGOs, socially progressive and social enterprises, and other ‘blended value’ entities constitute the core constellation of interests which can reconcile local needs with global realities. Around this core lie governments, mainstream businesses and other single-interest organizations. While these are crucial to progress in an interdependent world, the main leadership, innovation and anticipatory response to people’s needs will emerge from the third sector. Jed Emerson remarked in his concluding comments at the Forum: ‘Tällberg is where the establishment of business and government meets the innovators and mavericks of civil society, philanthropy and enterprise.’

Systemic change, humanistic leadership and principled pragmatism: three necessary conditions

As the first of the Tällberg Foundation’s trio of necessary conditions, systemic change refers to holistic, integrated and ‘joined-up’ change, as distinct from disjointed and single-focus change. This is exemplified by the majority of policies implemented to date, such as the Iraq War (where a socio/economic/religious issue was mistaken for a military issue); many development aid projects (where environmental, educational, social and economic issues are mistaken for a purely economic challenge), and so forth.

Alone, however, without the ethos and values associated with the best of our humanity, systemic change too easily converts into a mechanical engineering endeavour run by top-down administrators. Humanistic leadership is first and foremost an attitude of respect and engagement with people and their needs, acting in service to humanity. The third of the trio, principled pragmatism, is the capacity to integrate principles with the pragmatism of getting things done effectively and efficiently.

Resolving the Triple-E equation within governance–sustainability parameters

In a series of ten Design Workshops, participants looked in detail at the energy, economic and environmental challenges (what the Forum refers to as the Triple-E Equation) of ten locations around the world, in both developed and developing countries: Lima, Peru; East London, UK; High North, Norway, Russia, Greenland; Dalarna, Sweden; Sofia, Bulgaria; Kasese District, Uganda; Bundelkhand District, India; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Lake Tonle Sap, Cambodia; and Guandong, China).

In Kasese, Uganda, for example land fragmentation, deforestation and land degradation are threatening agricultural production, while dependence on external funding makes any improvement unsustainable in the long term. In East London, the challenges of globalization are posed in the starkest terms. High levels of affluence and poverty exist side by side, and in an ethnically mixed population the far right has been gaining ground. In a city which has an ecological footprint 293 times its size, East London is also traditionally the most polluted part of Greater London.

The Forum focused on deepening our understanding of these challenges, and on the development of strategies and policies to combat them. The ten Design Workshops, which ran over three days, aimed at developing ideas for workable solutions that, on the one hand, meet the challenges posed by the Triple-E Equation, and, on the other, serve to further the development of democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

The three-day format was felt to be particularly useful, as it allowed participants to consider the issues in depth and with time for reflection. As a result of these workshops, follow-up work is already beginning in a number of the ten locations, with Forum participants reconvening to discuss some of the issues raised in the Forum.

The Design Workshops were interspersed with thematic seminars. These addressed issues such as climate change and corporate strategy: is work losing its dignity and value in the age of globalization; and the power and evolution of philanthropy.

Marcello Palazzi is Founder of the Progressio Foundation and a member of the board of the Tällberg Foundation. Email magp@progressiofoundation.org
Bo Ekman is founder of the Tällberg Foundation. Email Bo.ekman@tallbergfoundation.org

For more information visit www.tallbergfoundation.org or email info@tallbergfoundation.org

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