DEVELOPMENT

4 The Afd2025 scenarios
BABEL 3.0
A world of otherness
In 2025, globalization continues to be propelled by a hyper-mobility of goods and persons. (5)
It is organized around continental blocs more or less culturally homogenous and more or
less economically and politically integrated.
The Western model has been eroded in a world where tensions are rife and confidence
in traditional institutions has waned. The propensity towards individualism is heightened
by the prevalence of a market economy, to the detriment of culture and citizenship.
Moreover, the main mission of education is no longer to promote civilization but rather
to respond to the rationale of training experts able to interact in a heterogeneous and
hyper-technical world. However, new global causes advocating alternative development
paths are transcending borders and gathering together very diverse actors. Different ways
of thinking on how to manage key societal challenges exist side by side as best they can,
and new frontiers appear that are not just geographical but also virtual. Digital technology
and hyper-connectivity have spread massively across the planet, reinforcing the idea
of coexisting multifaceted spaces and cultures dominated by the principle of otherness
rather than inclusiveness. This reign of otherness is characterized by extremely varied
reactions to the challenges of globalization and the world’s increasing complexity.
Technology, however, has not helped find answers to the energy equation or to the
asymmetry between the mounting tensions over natural resources and the ongoing
pursuit of the capitalist development model. Temperatures continue their inexorable
rise. Too few territories have managed to implement more sustainable patterns of
consumption and production. Nonetheless, several countries and regions in both the
Global North and Global South are endeavoring to move onto a sustainable, inclusive
and collaborative growth pathway, grounded in better-informed consumption patterns.
These new models manage to coexist but, in the countries implementing them, they
are accompanied by tensions over the role of technology and its mastery, and over
the place that should be reserved for humans. This generates new power relations
and sometimes fragile balances between the State, the private sector and civil society.
“Technology will be the future X factor. More than all other human factors, its spread,
appropriation, and innovation will be the main game changers of the 2025 horizon.”
Homi Kharas
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“Globalization is not an economic concept, but above all a technological one. It relates
to three systemic points: inclusiveness, interdependence, mobility.” Bertrand Badie
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Foresighting for Development
Development agencies, steering through future worlds. Afd2025
I
5/ The combination of modes of transport and digital technologies allowing the massive movement of goods and persons,
the dissemination of knowledge, and information flows that defy borders.
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