The More Things Change: Resilience, Complexity, and Diplomacy Are Still Top Priorities in 2018

Jan 5, 2018 | Roger-Mark De Souza
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This new year brings new projects—and some sad goodbyes. Today, I’m excited to begin my leadership of Sister Cities International, the world’s largest and oldest network of citizen diplomats. And I’m sorry to leave the Wilson Center, which has been my home for the last five years. But it’s not a long goodbye: I will continue to work with the Global Sustainability and Resilience team as a Global Fellow and as an advisor to the New Security Beat. In all of these roles, my New Year’s resolution is to renew our commitment to making a real difference in global well-being and sustainability. And while this year promises great changes, three key priorities will continue to inspire me and guide our collective efforts: resilience, complexity, and diplomacy. 

Resilience Matters: Moving From Analysis to Action

 When I joined the Wilson Center in 2013, the Global Sustainability and Resilience Program was still seeking a way to contribute to the dialogue on resilience. As the only think tank program on global resilience, there aren’t other models or best practices to guide us—or even critical consensus on what resilience means for foreign policy. But as a member of the UN’s Resilience Academy, I was able to connect with an emerging network of global resilience experts that informed our audience about what it means to be truly resilient. At its heart, resilience means leveraging the mechanisms and processes that strengthen the most vulnerable sectors of our society and that can persist in times of crisis and disruption. To build resilience, we must first identify the vulnerabilities we face—such as economic policies that do not protect the poor, the old, and the young; failing infrastructure that endangers urban residents; or ecosystems stretched so thin by ever-increasing resource demands and climate change that they threaten human well-being.