How is your work harming future generations?
March 8 is International Women’s Day. It’s also my daughter’s birthday. This year, she turns 7. About two weeks ago, my partner and I asked her if she wanted to host a birthday party with a few of her classmates. To no one’s surprise, she jumped at the idea. The past two birthdays were over Zoom and she’s at a point now (aren’t we all?) where even if I utter the word zoom, she’ll scream.
She said she wanted the party theme to be space. I was imagining pictures of planets, galaxies and satellites on the walls, a photo gallery of women astronauts past and present. Maybe I’d even build a mock lunar base that the kids could add to and play in. This would be fun.
I asked my daughter, “Why space?” This is where I thought she’d say something like, “Because I want to go to Mars!” or, “I want to be an astronaut!” or, “I want to fly in a rocket.”
Nope. None of that. It’s something that almost knocked me off my chair. “Because there’s a lot of garbage there and we need to clean it up,” she said. Then our three-year-old son jumped in to say, “Yes, yes and I will bring my garbage truck to help you.” My partner and I looked at each other with confusion and sadness. But we smiled and agreed. So, now our house will be littered with space garbage. My partner will have fun baking a cake that resembles a space garbage clean up machine.
My daughter’s response has been swirling around in my head ever since. I can’t stop thinking about it. This International Women’s Day, I’m reflecting on the intergenerational troubles and burdens that we, as future ancestors, are passing along; the risks that we are freely dumping on future people. What will my kids’ generation be burdened with? Why should they be burdened with anything? Why have we set up society that one generation’s prosperity and progress is another generation’s problem? What if we all saw the future as our collective responsibility?
Imagine if tomorrow’s generations could have their voices heard in today’s political and civil society debates. If there was a way to represent their interests and ensure that their futures were not trampled on by the short-termism that rules today’s political, corporate and civil society institutions. Imagine if we had legal mechanisms to guarantee the rights and well-being of future generations. My curiosity led me down multiple rabbit holes and while this isn’t covered by mainstream media, it turns out, there is a quiet revolution for intergenerational justice that is gaining momentum. From what I can tell, it doesn’t quite have a name and appears to be fragmented, but nevertheless is picking up steam around the world.
To start, there is a whole academic peer-reviewed journal on this nascent field called Intergenerational Justice Review. It publishes research on critical intergenerational topics such as the housing crisis, wealth transfers, and ways to legally implement intergenerational justice. And in case you’re wondering which countries can justifiably claim to be acting with regard to future generations, there is the Intergenerational Solidarity Index, created by the interdisciplinary scientist Jamie McQuilkin. It offers a comprehensive set of indicators that are coherent and methodologically rigorous.
Where does Canada stand in the most recent index? We’re not in the top 10. Not even in the top 20 or 30 or 40. We’re ranked 55th. Yikes.
Countries like Jamaica, Peru, Malaysia and Albania are ahead of us. France is in the top 10. And Nepal is ranked 3rd. Clearly, being a country with decent GDP growth and job creation has little to do with scoring high on intergenerational justice. It’s things like wealth equality, annual forest cover change, and teacher-to-pupil ratios that are part of this indicator set.
In my quest, I also found some governments around the world actively putting intergenerational justice into practice. The UK has a Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, a role that was established under the Well-Being for Future Generations Act in 2015. Sophie Howe, a renowned intergenerational justice leader and her team are charged with assessing policies ranging from housing to transport to meet the needs of and analyze the effects on future generations. Tunisia’s 2014 constitution instituted a Commission for the Rights of Future Generations. For a short period, Hungary had an Ombudsman for Future Generations with influence on policy. Meanwhile, Japan’s citizen assemblies called Future Design act as “intergenerational juries” and would take a long-term lens to the debates of the day. What’s intriguing is that these citizen assemblies have the power to delay or veto policies that negatively impact future people.
And then there’s the whole world of intergenerational rights. Legal activists around the world are looking for ways to embed the rights of future generations in the legal system, particularly in constitutional law. Law matters to both protect the interests of future generations and safeguard them from the short-termism that envelopes policy-making today. Although we are still a ways away from securing full recognition of rights for future generations in most countries, including Canada, we should grasp every opportunity to take legal systems in that direction.
All of this sounds promising, but how do civil society organizations fare when it comes to centring intergenerational justice? For all the talk and work on building legacies, and taking care of people and the planet, I perhaps have the most hope in civil society institutions to act on this, but don’t get excited as there isn’t a whole lot of extraordinary right now.
The paradox is that the ways of governing, delivering programs, fundraising, and operating in so many civil society organizations could be harming future generations — with the quick wins, low-hanging fruit, pilot projects, band-aid solutions, one-year funding programs, and five-year strategic plans.
Endowments and legacy do not necessarily mean being accountable to the interests of the long-term. And that’s a problem. The social impact world has outdated institutional and governance designs, little capacity to take the long view, the power of vested interests, all eyes on addressing immediate needs, and an insufficient understanding of the cascading effects of our actions.
Few civil society organizations have the mindset, methods and the practice to centre intergenerational justice in their governance, strategic plans, programs and services, fundraising, and grantmaking. And currently, there are no easy ways to assess the intergenerational effects of an organization’s work. It’s increasingly an area of intense interest for me and I hope that this changes very soon in the social impact world. One organization worth watching is the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations, a think tank and activist group founded in 1997 by five youth in Germany, and is studying the role of civil society organizations in centring intergenerational justice. But we need more, and now.
The theme for International Women’s Day this year is #BreakTheBias. I’m looking forward to celebrating women’s achievements, and continuing to challenge gender discrimination, stereotypes and bias. I’m also looking forward to cleaning up space garbage with my daughter. While we’re raising awareness against bias this International Women’s Day, let’s also move beyond our bias for the short-term.
Vinod Rajasekaran
Publisher & CEO
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