Presentation on Strategic Foresight

Speaker: Mathew Burrows, Director, Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initiative, Atlantic Council

Main takeaways

• Title of the presentation: An Unequal and De-globalizing
• The pandemic surprised the It’s a crisis and we don’t know the endpoint.
• China, South Korea, and the US have had a positive economic trajectory during the pandemic (GDP growth).
• EU as a whole, France, Germany, Italy have a negative economic trajectory (GDP loss).
• The real loser is the developing world (the middle and upper-middle class here is contracting – a total decrease of 134 million people).
• More booster jabs have been administered in Turkey, Israel and Chile than all the doses in half dozen African countries
• Big negatives: younger generation are effected, as we see in the unemployment rate in OECD countries – aged 15-24 and women have been hit hard by jobs crisis during the
• Globally, younger generations (Generation X – 1965-1980 and Millennials – 1981-1996) have become increasingly dissatisfied with democracy – younger cohorts have become more dissatisfied as they have
• This trend started before the pandemic: US becoming a lot more closed when looking at the openness to trade

Policy recommendations

• Vaccinate the
• Figure out how to help the developing countries.
• Opening up to the world in trade (especially US).