Jerome C. Glenn co-founded and directs the Millennium Project, a leading global participatory think tank supported by international organizations, governments, corporations, and NGOs, which produces the internationally recognized State of the Future annual reports for the past 14 years.
State of the Future Executive Summary
A review of the trends of the 28 variables used in The Millennium Project’s global State of the Future Index provides a score card on humanity’s performance in addressing the most important challenges. (See Box 1.)
An international Delphi panel selected over a hundred indicators of progress or regress for the 15 Global Challenges in Chapter 1. Variables were then chosen that had at least 20 years of reliable historical data. The resulting 28 variables were submitted to an international panel selected by The Millennium Project Nodes to forecast the best and worst value for each variable in 10 years. The results were integrated into the State of the Future Index’s 10-year projection. Chapter 2 presents a summary of this research. SOFIs can also be created for countries or sectors.
Where are we winning?
· Access to water
· Literacy rate
· Life expectancy at birth
· Poverty $1.25 a day
· Infant mortality
· Wars
· HIVprevalence
· Internetusers
· GDP/capita
· Women in parliaments
· School enrollment, secondary
· Energy efficiency
· Population growth
· Undernourishment prevalence
· Nuclear proliferation
Where are we losing?
· Total debt
· Unemployment
· Income inequality
· Ecological footprint / biocapacity ratio
· GHG emissions
· Terrorist attacks
· Voter turnout
Where there is no significant change or change is not clear?
· Corruption
· Freedom rights
· Electricity from renewables
· Forest lands
· R&D expenditures
· Physicians per capita
