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The Agile Governance: Reimagining Policy-making in the Fourth Industrial Revolution white paper, published by the World Economic forum, tries to investigate the ways in which forth industrial revolution affect policy-making cycles. Given that emerging technologies scale up much quicker than in previous industrial revolutions, irrespective of whether we develop new governance systems to manage them, it is essential to act towards shaping the impact of technologically driven systems for a shared vision.
This paper tries to define agile governance as adaptive, human-centred, inclusive and sustainable policy-making, which acknowledges that policy development is no longer limited to governments but rather is an increasingly multi-stakeholder effort. It is the continual readiness to rapidly navigate change, proactively or reactively embrace change and learn from change, while contributing to actual or perceived end-user value.
This paper fist defines agile governance and tries to explore methodological frameworks that can fit this concept. To this end, systems and design thinking are two methods that have demonstrated their capacity to tackle complexity, prioritization issues, integrate human-centric views and insights from early prototyping of policies. Moreover, tools for agile governance are also being investigated, including policy labs and regulatory sandboxes. Other methods to reinforce agility refer to the use of technology, promoting governance innovation, collaboration between regulators and innovators etc.
It is only through collective and collaborative action, responsible and responsive leadership, and acceptance by policy-makers that public governance, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is something that should be a shared endeavour, can we forge a positive way forward.
You can read the full white paper here.