THE WORLD FUTURE COUNCIL
The World Future Council (WFC) works to pass on a healthy and sustainable planet with just and peaceful societies to our children and grandchildren. To achieve this, it focuses on identifying, developing, highlighting and spreading effective, future-just policies for current challenges humanity is facing and promote their implementation worldwide.
COUNCILLORS
The Council consists of 50 eminent global change-makers from governments, parliaments, civil societies, academia, the arts and the business world. They identify urgent themes and determine the agenda for how the WFC will work.
WORKING AREAS
The challenges of our time are very complex, the WFC use a holistic approach to thinking and work. Currently it is focused on the following working areas: The Rights of Children and Youth, Climate and Energy, Sustainable Ecosystems and Livelihoods, Peace and Disarmament. The annual Future Policy Award, the ‘Oscar on best policies’, celebrates policies that create better living conditions for current and future generations.
IMPACT
Good Policies are the power tool to achieve long-term, sustainable change.
“I very much appreciate the World Future Council’s work to identify and promote best policy solutions. Spreading good policies is essential to the efforts to protect our ecosystems and the livelihoods of current and future generations.”
IDENTIFY
In close collaboration with civil society groups, members of parliament, governments, businesses and international organisations the WFC research future-just policies and legislation.
ENGAGE
The WFC raise awareness of best policies and bring together policy-makers from different sectors and parts of the world to create comprehensive solutions to global challenges.
ENABLE
WFC advise decision-makers, offer them tried and tested courses of action and support them in the concrete implementation of new policies.
Examples of WFC Policy Initiatives:
GLOBAL RENEWABLES CONGRESS
The Global Renewables Congress (GRC) is a cross-country, cross-party platform facilitating peer-to-peer exchanges between and with legislators. The GRC focuses on solutions for a rapid and large-scale deployment of renewable energy through enabling legislative frameworks. Current and former legislators from national and regional parliaments can become members of the GRC. The GRC places at heart of RE action or policies an emphasis on the benefits to communities and local value creation. The Global Renewables Congress is a project of the World Future Council Foundation.
100% RENEWABLE ENERGY | POWER TO THE PEOPLE
WFC are a leading reference source for policies that have accelerated the deployment of renewable energy. So far, more than 140 countries have implemented renewable energy legislation worldwide. The WFC has contributed significantly to this achievement, working with policy-makers around the world on Feed-in Tariffs and setting 100% Renewable Energy Targets. In more than 100 parliamentary hearings and strategy workshops in countries such as the US, UAE, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, Morocco, UK, Denmark, Germany, Canada, Spain, Belgium, China, Poland, Bangladesh, and Costa Rica they have engaged decision makers to replicate existing policy solutions.
EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (ESD)
Empowering young people with the skills and knowledge of Education for Sustainable Development is fundamental to achieving sustainable societies. In 2016, the WFC hosted an international workshop in Annapolis (USA) for representatives of 16 education and environmental ministries from around the world to explore the positive impacts of Maryland’s Environmental Literacy (E-lit) Standards that won our Future Policy Award in 2015.
In 2018 a Chinese delegation visited Maryland and met with officials at Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) to exchange on better implementing environmental education and education for sustainable development in China.
PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM VIOLENCE | BEST PRACTICE
Realising every child’s right to freedom from violence is a fundamental element of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. With its specific target ( SDG 16.2) on ending all forms of violence against children, ensuring their safety and protection, the 2030 Agenda adds further strong international impetus to ending violence against children.
In 2017, the WFC organised an International Child Rights Conference with delegates from 12 countries to exchange best policy and practice on protecting children from violence.
In 2018, the WFC organised a technical workshop in Ho/Ghana to fully introduce the state agencies in the establishment and management of a one-stop-center model (OSC) in Ghana – an important element of a strong national child protection system, as implemented in Zanzibar. During the workshop the need for the OSC and to develop the roadmap for a pilot program were discussed. The multistakeholder participants met experts from Zanzibar. Their insights, expertise and practical experience were most welcome and helpful in drawing up the roadmap for Ghana’s first OSC.
EDUCATION FOR PEACE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (ESD)
Empowering people with skills and knowledge on peace and sustainable development is fundamental to achieving sustainable societies. At the Rio+20 conference in June 2012, we launched the Bread Tank, a life-sized tank covered with bread to underline the genuine possibility of eradicating hunger and extreme poverty by redirecting military spending towards sustainable development. And in October 2017 we launched the 3D Nuke Missile, a public interactive art installation that highlights the risk of nuclear weapons. The Bread Tank and 3D Nuke Missile have been social media and mainstream media hits. The Bread Tank action was also supported by an appeal signed by 22 Nobel Prize Laureates and many others.
In 2016, WFC launched the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money campaign, in cooperation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation, International Peace Bureau and Basel Peace Office. The campaign works to cut nuclear weapons budgets and reallocate these budgets and investments to support peace, climate protection and sustainable development. A major action took place in October 2019 to physically Count the Nuclear Weapons Money. Over seven days and seven nights campaign volunteers physically counted out over 500,000 mock notes of $1million each, totalling the nuclear weapons budget for the next five years, and symbolically reallocated these notes to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
The WFC has effectively established the concept of ‘regenerative cities‘ in the international urban development discourse. WFC experts advise urban change-makers, political decision-makers and international organizations, including the United Nations, on tools and best policies for regenerative urban development. It brought together international experts for our 7th ‘Future of Cities Forum’ in China.
The Future Just Lawmaking Methodology was developed by the WFC to provide a practical tool for policy-makers to assist with designing, evaluating and amending legislation. The Methodology is based on the 7 Principles for Sustainable Development Law which were presented by the International Law Association and adopted at the World Summit in 2002.
CREATION OF THE “OSCAR FOR BEST POLICIES”: FUTURE POLICY AWARD (FPA)
"Since 2009, we highlight the world’s best solutions to the most pressing global challenges with our Future Policy Award (FPA). We identify topics on which policy progress is particularly urgent and with the award, we encourage policymakers around the world to adapt and implement them. Past awards have been given for policies protecting biodiversity, forests, oceans, food security, for disarmament, children’s rights, ending violence against women and girls, combating desertification, and scaling up agroecology. Notably, in 2019, the Future Policy Award celebrated laws and policies that successfully empower youth. In 2020, the FPA will be identifying and celebrating policies protecting against dangerous chemicals."
Decisions taken by politicians today will have a major influence on the world of tomorrow. WFC seek to bring intergenerational justice and protection of long-term interests into the heart of policy-making in these ways:
“THERE IS NO NEED TO RE-INVENT THE WHEEL – POLITICAL SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS FOR THE KEY CHALLENGES OF OUR TIME ALREADY EXIST.”
To learn more about their POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS visit
To learn more about The World Futures Council visit their website at https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org
Or watch this video to learn more: https://youtu.be/l7JrGTNpmQc