Charting new directions: - Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft

14Charting new directions: Brazil’s role in a multi-polar worldpoints out. This will require greater investment inhuman capital and institutional infrastructure toguide and sustain its pursuit of greater autonomy and“sovereign international insertion”.Brazil in a multipolar worldWith the international and domestic legacy that itinherits, Brazil has before it a range of unprecedentedopportunities. At the international level, as the globalbalance of power shifts, there is greater room formanoeuvre for Brazil and other emerging economies.Free of the geopolitical conflicts and enmities thatconstrain other emerging powers, Brazil can makethe most of this changing international landscape.With the declining hegemony of the Americanmodel, there is now a plurality of choices about thepaths that Brazil and other countries can follow. Atthe domestic level, Brazil has successfully achievedmacroeconomic stabilisation and widespread povertyreduction. Its discovery of oil and gas, as well as itsvast agricultural and mineral resources, offer it anenvironment of abundance and plenty rather than theconcerns about scarcity that many other emergingpowers face.If Brazil is to further and consolidate its successes,and make the most of these vast opportunities, it willneed to complement its innovative mix of policies witha more strategic and coordinated approach. As thearticles in this volume point out, there are often linksbetween different policy areas from oil explorationto education. Keeping in mind these linkages andensuring that different measures work together willbe key in the years ahead. And, in an interdependentand rapidly changing world, the decisions Brazilmakes will also have important implications for otherparts of the world. As such, there is a mutual interestfor countries to learn from each other, a process thatthe Foresight initiative and this publication aim tofacilitate.Alfredo Cabral is strategic planning and policy researcherat Policy Network.Elena Jurado is head of research at Policy NetworkPriya Shankar is senior project manager and researcher atPolicy NetworkIntroduction: Reclaiming the future | Alfredo Cabral, Elena Jurado and Priya Shankar