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Initiatives of Mankind 2000 / Humanité 2000

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Conference initiatives

  • Futures research conferences: In September 1967 Mankind 2000 was responsible for convening the International Futures Research Inaugural Conference in the vicinity of Oslo. In addition to the subsequent publication of a book containing a selection of the papers contributed to the conference (edited by Johan Galtung and Robert Jungk : Mankind 2000. London, Allen and Unwin, 1969).

    This meeting proved to be the forerunner of further international futures conferences held in Kyoto (1970), Bucharest (1972), Rome (Frascati 1973) and Dubrovnik (1976). Mankind 2000 continued to play a seminal role in the initiation of both the conferences of Kyoto and Rome (in support of the organizing group IRADES: Istituto Ricerche Applicate Documentazione e Studi), and with the early development of the international futures research movement, notably the World Futures Studies Federation.

  • World Forum for Social Innovation: As described below, proposals were developed for a World Forum for Social Innovation in 1975 wherein innovative, experimental initiatives in the social field may be brought to the attention of a wider public. An alternative title of World Forum on Social Transmutation was also envisaged. The event was to be organized by Société Internationale des Conseillers de Synthèse (SICS) under the auspices of Mankind 2000.

    On behalf of Mankind 2000, introductory reports were prepared for the Journées d'Etudes (Paris, 1977) of the International Foundation for Social Innovation that it helped to create

Yearbook of World Problems and  Human  Potential

Mankind 2000 collaborated from 1972 on a joint project with the Union of International Associations and other organizations in the production of the above 1200-page publication (titled as the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential in its subsequent hardcopy, CD-ROM and online editions). Through the framework provided by the periodic publication of this computer-assisted volume it is hoped to initiate a process of continuing dialogue with a wide range of interested groups, leading to improvement and clarification of the information and interrelationships recorded in the interlinked sections of the Yearbook, namely : world problems, international associations and agencies, human values, multilateral treaties, human development concepts, intellectual disciplines, occupations and jobs, multinational corporations, integrative and transdisciplinary concepts, international periodicals, etc.
Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential

The first edition, published in 1976, contained some 12,000 entries (including descriptions of 2,600 world problems) interlinked by a network of 58,000 cross-references. Various innovative approaches to presenting this information as "relationship maps" or interactive audiovisual displays are envisaged (including the publication of a "problem atlas").

The publication was designed as a companion volume to the Yearbook of International Organizations of the Union of International Associations with which it is integrated at the computer level.

Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential

Subsequent editions of the Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential, within the framework of collaboration with the Union of Internations Associations took the form of an Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. As an experiment in knowledge management, this collaborative strategic initiative was itself subsequrently named as the Union of Intelligible Associations. The following editions within this initiative were:

  • 2nd edition: initiated in 1983, completed in 1986, as a single volume
  • 3rd edition: initiated in 1988, completed in 1990, as two volumes.
  • 4th edition: initiated in 1992, completed in 1995, as three volumes, with the third on global strategies and solutions, for which essential seed funding was provided on behalf of Mankind 2000. A CD-Rom version was also prepared

With the advent of the world wide web, funding was provided on behalf of Mankind 2000 to enable the UIA to set up and participate in a cooperative providing internet services to international associations from 1995. This became the key for the very early development of the UIA's large website and the Encyclopedia databases it makes freely available thereon. This proven knowledge management capacity enabled the UIA to successfully head a consortium that obtained funding from the European Union for what amounted to a fifth web-based edition of the Encyclopedia -- a project started in 1997 and completed in 2000 on the initiative of Nadia McLaren. This achievement further enabled the UIA to successfully lead another consortium proposal that was accepted for World Bank funding (although the funds unfortunately had to be reallocated to the crisis in Yugoslavia).

International Foundation for Social Innovation

Mankind 2000 collaborated with the Centre d'étude des Conséquences générales des grandes Techniques Nouvelles (C.T.N., Paris) to establish the above Foundation (titled in French: Fondation Internationale de l'Innovation Sociale) as a means of stimulating and facilitating interest in innovative approaches to social problems.

Activities of the Foundation were envisaged as including an information clearing house and it will also function as the continuing committee for the planned World Forum for Social Innovation wherein innovative, experimental initiatives in the social field may be brought to the attention of a wider public.

Envisaged activities

Projects envisaged may be concerned with any of the following :

  • Concepts and Ideas : namely concern for the generation, formulation and development of timely concepts relevant to the current social condition, prior to their embodiment in whatever societal forms are appropriate to their dissemination and utilization (e.g. consideration is being given to the creation of a "social change ideas clearing house").

  • Relationships : namely concern for the network of relationships which constrain, determine or provide a scaffolding or context for the forms and reforms of humankind and against which, actions, reactions and proposals for change must be viewed if they are to amount to anything more than the pursuit of the new or expedient, or to achieve more than a momentary faddish impact upon the future course of human events (e.g. the production of the network-oriented Yearbook of World Problems is an attempt to collect and interrelate key social change information).

  • Comprehension : namely concern for the manner in which key insights can be made comprehensible and more widely understood, whether through (a) relevant visualization or publication, or (b) new settings for interactive meetings (e.g. the forum for social innovation).

  • Facilitative Environments : the identification of health and development processes and the location of facilitative environments for such processes, particularly at peak transitional periods in the individual human life-cycle or in the development of groups (e.g. work already undertaken on facilitative environments for personal development and investigation of the possibility of establishing recreation centres).

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