The growth in the quantity and quality of evidence-based policy that governments will need to have access to and which is also more deeply anchored in high-quality data and assisted by strong skills in data analytics.This shift features in virtually every assessment of what governments will need more of in a future state.
While many governments already have access to experienced and high-quality policy makers and professionals, future governments will need to marshal and develop added skills that require greater breadth of policy domain thinking and increased focus on the long-term versus the short- termism and political expediency that currently dominate the decision-making process.
This shift is also driven by the long-term nature of the megatrend challenges which requires governments to take a more deeply considered and well-evidenced path in order to find optimal solutions and best comprise pathways. Fortunately, governments have already started to move in this direction. For example, there has been a concerted effort to collect data on the issue of intergenerational aging, from country-specific intergenerational reports to comparative studies from the IMF and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).Today, governments are using the available data to implement well-considered policy, regulatory and program shifts and monitor the downstream impacts of an aging population.