UNICEF and Pardee collaborate on child well-being discussion paper: Navigating the Future: Four Scenarios Assessing Child Well-Being in the Twenty-First Century

UNICEF and the Pardee Institute have released a report, Navigating the future: Four scenarios assessing child well-being in the twenty-first century. Authors Jonathan Moyer, director of the Pardee Institute, and Deva Sahadevan, research associate at Pardee, found that increased global cooperation, in tandem with high technological advancements and resource availability, promise the most sustainable future for younger generations worldwide.

These findings are useful, if not surprising. The authors arrived at this conclusion through simulating different future pathways along various points of intersection among those key domains of technology and cooperation. This methodology offers a proactive framework that can help policymakers promotes current and future well-being while mitigating the perverse effects of economic growth.

The authors apply a 2x2 scenario framework featuring scenarios grounded in combinations of high or low levels of technological innovation, resource availability, and international cooperation. These factors determine how future challenges such as climate change, resource distribution, and geopolitical tensions might affect children’s well-being. The scenarios are designed to evaluate long-term trends and their implications for children, with particular emphasis on regions most vulnerable to changes in development.

The resulting scenarios include possible futures of:

• Divided prosperity (our current path: high technology/resource availability; low cooperation);

• Global synergy (a better world: high technology/resource availability; high cooperation);

• Struggling together (not the best/not the worst scenario; low technology/resource availability; high cooperation); and

• Fragmented world (least ideal future: low technology/resource availability; low cooperation).

Using the Pardee Institute’s International Futures platform (IFs), the authors apply quantitative data from various sources, including economic indicators, health statistics, and environmental data, to define these scenarios and to project future well-being outcomes that are measured by economic output, extreme poverty, malnutrition, hunger, carbon emissions.

The global synergy scenario, the most ideal scenario, envisions a future where technological progress aligns with robust international cooperation, unlocking advancements in health, education, and environmental sustainability. Under this scenario, global GDP increases by 10.7%, while per capita GDP rises by 9.8%, accompanied by a dramatic reduction in global poverty—from 8.7% to just 0.4% by 2050. The scenario highlights clean energy infrastructure and lower carbon emissions, demonstrating how unified global efforts can foster a sustainable and prosperous world. However, its feasibility is questioned, given the current concentration of political power and the suspected depletion of Earth's resources.

The other three scenarios present fewer promising paths. The divided prosperity scenario, reflecting current trends, demonstrates significant GDP growth and reduced poverty, with 265 million fewer people living in extreme conditions and malnutrition halving by 2050. Yet, these gains come at the cost of escalating carbon emissions, worsened pollution, and rising global temperatures. The fragmented world scenario predicts slow technological and economic growth, with persistently high poverty levels and unaddressed critical issues like child malnutrition and mortality. Meanwhile, the struggling together scenario highlights the potential benefits of enhanced global collaboration, which lowers poverty and malnutrition rates. However, the lack of technological progress limits its ability to effectively address broader developmental challenges, like child development and technology.

The report concludes with broad policy suggestions based on the results of the 2x2 framework. The authors encourage the strengthening of international institutions to address global environmental issues while promoting economic equality, investing in children’s health and education, and fostering greater cooperation among governments and international communities. Read more about the scenarios, their results, and the authors’ recommendations here.

IFs is the only open-source integrated assessment platform and forecasting tool that employs a hybrid approach, combining systems dynamics, econometrics, and other quantitative techniques to forecast a range of interconnected, macro-level variables across human, social, and natural systems for 188 countries in one-year time steps, extending as far as the year 2100. These multifaceted dimensions of modeling are integral to forecasting potential outcomes for future generations on a global scale, considering both actual and hypothetical drivers of change. 

UNICEF - an international organization dedicated to advancing children’s well-being around the globe - and Pardee’s collaboration bridges the gap between global decision-makers and academic researchers, using data tools and policy knowledge to encourage and assist in creating a more sustainable and equitable world for children.