Agenda 2063 - Managing the Vision

Agenda 2063 - Managing the Vision

The turn of the century brought about a refocusing of global and national vision. It moved the world from short term thinking to long term action. The global focus on SDGs, grounded on the accomplishments of MDGs, is much more than rhetoric. Countries around the world stepped into the 21^st century committing themselves to pursue national transformation beyond the traditional medium term development plans confined to the administrative tenure of elected governments. Perhaps the World has borrowed a leaf of thought from the East considering the rise and rise of those economies over three generations in China, Japan, and of course, the ASEAN Tiger technological hub. The adoption of “far-sight” rather than foresight as an instrument of national development is an indication that short term planning is weak on deliverables. But perhaps, more important, is the revelation that long term planning generates better results – even in the short term!

Africarecently launched a 50-year vision – Agenda 2063. The vision is seven yearsold. It is a most commendable initiative of political leaders to outline afuture for at least three generations to come. Nonetheless, in the same season, individual African governments have launched 20-30 year national visions, many of which are losing steam midstream. These economies are accruing rising (foreign) debt as they acquire infrastructure to grasp at the dream of a developed nation. The cost of this transition strategy stretches long into the foreseeable future and begs the question of the sustainability of these initiatives. Does development really mean doubling debt?

In response, one might ask, “just what is development?”. The very essence of development needs to be turned on its head in the word transformation. Transformation is the internal generation of substance. Development, on the other hand, is the simple acquisition of capacity. Development is a word focused on the exo-skeleton of advancement. For example, the expansion of roads provides room for more cars and transport vehicles. This is not short sighted if the country produces cars. However, if the country does not create roads nor produce cars, this can hardly be considered advancement. Transformation is based on empowerment for growth and generation of wealth through the creative, collaborative reorganization of the internal capacity of a country to advance its wealth position. It does so by creating new value through social engineering, transformative education and value creating enterprise. In short, there are two roads to national advancement; borrow the money-import capacity-pay the debt-export wealth. The second is, empower the people- nurture capacity- establish competence - import wealth. You will notice that the model from the East is designed on the latter, the model in Africa is predicated on the former. The former is an instant, exciting and fundamentally unsustainable. The latter takes time, effort and initiative.

In order to fulfill a vision there is a need to manage its realization. Developing a vision, like realizing a goal, requires a process of managing priorities and reorganization of one’s current reality to align with a sustainable future possibility. That requires the deployment of transformative thinking, critique, creating and doing things differently to sustainably realize a new future. Managing a vision is a generative process of transformation that cannot be managed by politicians. Transformation requires dedicated teams of citizens and social entrepreneurs committed to sacrificing for and serving the interests ofthe next generation. The difference between those who get things done and those who don’t, is that the former do and the later don’t.