January 23, 2023
Government leaders increasingly indicate that what were previously viewed as Black Swan events are now becoming more frequent — and more destabilizing — shocks. The past three years saw acceleration toward a connected world where physical goods and digital services are increasingly interdependent. The vulnerability of social and economic well-being is laid bare by reliance on connectivity and distributed value chains subject to disruption on multiple fronts.
Risks have grown due to complex variables such as geopolitical conflicts, multiple public health emergencies, energy crises, climate-related natural disasters (wildfires, hurricanes, drought), the breakdown of longstanding trade relationships, economic displacement, and economic inequality. The combination of these factors renders current planning models obsolete.
Citizens, non-governmental organizations, and commercial enterprises continue to rely on governments to help manage these uncertainties. However, traditional incident response frameworks may no longer be sufficient, as events occur across multiple domains, jurisdictions, and decision-making authorities. Rather, collaborative action to address anticipated threats requires focus and cooperation across a broad ecosystem of partners and stakeholders. Governments must prepare for “future shocks” by supporting stakeholders with insights, resources, innovation, and adaptation that characterizes a successful response to any high-impact event.
IBM, working through the IBM Center for The Business of Government and the IBM Institute for Business Value, and in partnership with the National Academy of Public Administration (the Academy), has launched an initiative to help government identify core capabilities critical to building such resilience, and make progress toward addressing major national and international priorities including the Grand Challenges in Public Administration put forth by the Academy.
Through this initiative, we are convening a series of international roundtable discussions with global leaders from across the public, private, academic, and non-profit sectors to capture lessons across six key domain areas: Emergency Preparedness and Response, Cybersecurity, Supply Chain, Sustainability, Workforce Skills, and International Cooperation. In each domain, we will harvest insights from the roundtables to identify strategies and solutions for governments to act. Previous roundtables convened leaders in emergency management, cybersecurity, supply chains, and sustainability for insightful discussions of actionable and practical steps to build resilience by preparing for future shocks. Learn more about the initiative by reading the blog, ‘Preparing Governments for Future Shocks’ or listening to the podcast interview with Michael J. Keegan, IBM Center for The Business of Government.