The statistics on global poverty surpass our imaginal abilities. Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day. Thirty thousand children die each day due to poverty; that is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under the age of 5 each year. The Gross Domestic Product of the poorest 48 nations (a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s 3 richest people combined. And the poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money. Indeed, the developing world now spends about $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants. What combination of policy change, technology transfer, practical development, and skills training will change the future for the poorest of the poor? What new paradigms and approaches can be applied to the many ongoing efforts to end severe poverty and ensure that the day comes when every person has access to basic needs for survival?  

In the effort to advance quality of life, human beings have slowly been destroying the planet’s soil, water, air, and biodiversity, with disastrous human and environmental consequences. Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares per year. If current rates of extinction continue, one-third to two-thirds of all species of plants, animals, and other organisms will be lost during the second half of the 21st century. Chemical pollutants and toxins continue to be produced by major industries and everyday human activities. The increasing human population puts ever more pressure on ecosystems, as people search for ways to increase food production. And one startling consequence of this environmental degradation – climate change – has brought life as we know it into question. Given this scenario, how can quality of life and environmental sustainability be brought in sync, so that achieving one goal does not exclude the other? In what ways can attempts to solve environmental problems be taken out of isolation? What new forms of cooperation would best address both social and environmental challenges?

Seventy percent of the world’s poor are women and girls. Unlike men, women throughout the world face cultural norms that block access to social and economic mobility, thereby perpetuating this deep imbalance. Women also continue to face brutal violence and severe violations of their sexual and reproductive rights, with little recourse. Without a source of income, secure land tenure, or control over their own bodies, it is most often women and girls who suffer extreme poverty and disenfranchisement. Yet women cannot be left on the sidelines if development progress is to be achieved in any arena. Women make up more than 50% of the world’s population, and must be empowered to participate actively and directly in all aspects of development planning and implementation, in order to achieve results that address the holistic needs of a society.

In recognition of this imperative, gender imbalance and inequity is now widely recognized as a cross-cutting challenge, blocking progress in overcoming all of our development challenges. A number of major international organizations and government agencies focus exclusively on gender equality, while others have made gender a central organizing component of their work in recognition of its catalytic potential. How do we ensure that gender balance and equity are incorporated into every development process, in order to greatly increase the probability of success? At the same time, what new approaches will accelerate progress in overcoming deeply-embedded gender discrimination itself – from the imbalance in income earnings for the same work between men and women to institutional practices and cultural norms that condone subjugation and violence against women?

Among the many enablers of violent conflict, perhaps none is so profound as the arms race. Military expenditure and arms trade remains the largest category of annual spending in the world, at about $1 trillion. Ostensibly aimed at protecting national security, in many countries this expenditure surpasses the amounts spent on social development, communications, infrastructure, and health combined. The arms race continues in new forms, resulting in an overall decrease in security. Arms sales to human rights violators, military dictatorships, and corrupt governments proceed to fuel horrific violent conflicts in some of the poorest corners of the world. What new human networks can counteract the military-industrial complexes that perpetuate this cycle? Which approaches and mechanisms can halt the sale of arms to the world’s worst human rights violators? How can balance be restored to national spending priorities? What are the practical alternatives to military intervention in conflict areas? What new social forms can be developed to support coexistence among diverse religious and ethnic groups, so that violent conflict is rarer to begin with?

Despite considerable advances in global healthcare, one billion people still lack access to any healthcare system. Millions die each year of preventable or curable infectious diseases – including, in 2005, approximately 3.5 million of AIDS, 1.75 million of tuberculosis, and 1 million of malaria. Millions more are now living with these and other diseases. In many cases, drugs are available but not accessible because of high costs. In developing and transitional countries, for example, 6.8 million people are currently in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 1.65 million are receiving the drugs. Economic policies imposed on developing countries have played a major role in contracting government spending on health and other social services. And access to healthcare is not only a challenge of the developing world. How can new strategies prevent the continued spread of the most malicious diseases? What new alliances can be built and approaches implemented to make preventative medicine and treatment for illnesses realized as basic rights everywhere?

Education and literacy are the foundations of participation in society. Yet about 800 million adults are illiterate and 100 million children currently do not attend school. In developing countries, non-formal education constitutes the learning environment for the vast majority of children, youth, and adults. In the developed world, deep inequalities in education systems perpetuate long-standing social injustices. In other cases, reliance on a centralized, formal, standardized educational systems produce long-term, negative social consequences. How can the right to education be more fully realized? What are the standards that best assess educational processes and performance? How can emerging trends in education worldwide be harnessed to strengthen self-respect, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, teamwork, and personal achievement?

Throughout history, peoples have created and purchased consumer goods with the aim to improve quality-of-life. Too often, these advancements are made without regard for their social and environmental side effects. Yet quality of life and social and environmental sustainability are not mutually exclusive. How societies consume, and for what purposes, drives how resources are extracted – and often produces pollution and waste. Businesses and advertising promote the consumption of products, driving up the psychological desire to consume. These material values inevitably take a toll on society as a whole. Issues relating to consumption affect environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, personal debt, and even the rise in obesity. What are the root causes of excessive consumerism and who is responsible for them? How new approaches can be applied to reduce over-consumption? While working toward this goal, which measures can be taken to diminish the pressures – social, environmental, economic – imposed by excessive consumerism?

Increasingly the individual and the community each operate primarily for their own respective interests; the individual rarely sees himself as responsible for the community and the community does not represent all its individuals. The related decline in citizen participation in civic life worldwide has been attributed to a number of factors, from the rise of television and the internet, to the digital divide in the developing world. This social disconnectedness makes it ever more challenging for communities to address their most urgent problems together, in ways that incorporate communal needs. For many, this disconnectedness constitutes a major barrier to social engagement in any form, particularly for those already on the margins of society. What underlying factors account for this fragmentation, which appears to come with social complexity? What has been the role of this trend in exacerbating other social challenges? How can new networks and systems be created to support and advance communal efforts when they arise, as well as encourage a more lasting human interdependency?