Report on Activities of WAAS and Club of Rome

Get Full Text in PDF

Employment is one of the crucial problems of the contemporary world. The World Academy’s Global Employment Challenge Project (launched in 2009 and on-going) and the Club of Rome’s International Conference on Concerted Strategies for International Development in the 21st Century, Bern, November 17-18, 2010 have both concluded that a fundamental paradigm change is required in economic theory, policy and practice. The need and significance of this paradigm change was reinforced in meetings with European Commission President J.M. Barroso (Brussels, January 2011), the Director and Head of the Analysis Team of the EC’s Bureau of European Policy Advisers, Mr. J.C. Thébault and Mr. P. Lagrain (Brussels, February 2011), and with the Executive Director for Employment at ILO, Mr. J.M. Salazar-Xirinachs, and his associates (Geneva, March 2011). The paradigm change calls for a new economic theory outlined in the first issue of Cadmus by O. Giarini and collaborators. The South East European Division of WAAS and the national associations of the Club of Rome have organized workshops aimed at increasing employment rates in SEE countries (Zagreb, March 2011). The new framework emphasizes the central role of human capital and has as its primary objective enhancing human security.

Human security is at the foundation of the Pugwash Movement, WAAS and the Club of Rome, encompassing the entire spectrum of human needs from full employment and social stability to total disarmament and abolition of nuclear weapons. The WAAS workshop on “Abolition of Nuclear Weapons” organized in cooperation with CAPS (New Delhi, February 2011) explored one end of the equation. A companion WAAS-CAPS workshop on “Revolution in Human Affairs” explored the interconnectedness between economic and security issues, with focus on the linkage between unemployment and social unrest, marking the launch of the WAAS project on this theme.

Development and human security should be sustainable. An article “Human Capital and Sustainability” was published in the journal Sustainability (November 2010). WAAS co-sponsored the Global Round Table “Limits to Sustainability: sustainability, values and responsibility” (Budapest, November 2010). The national associations of the Club of Rome in Slovenia, Austria and Croatia together with the European Support Centre of the Club of Rome organized a workshop “Space Exploration and Sustainability” (Ljubljana, November 2010).