This world-changing digital consultation gathered 523 proposals from over 1,750 thought-leaders from more than 140 countries, and the best solutions were presented to the UN General Assembly.

Background

In April 2021, we announced (see more here) a strategic partnership with the Brazil-based Igarapé Institute and the United Nations Secretary-General where Swae was deployed to canvass the voices of thought leaders in civil society, including leading private sector companies, philanthropic organizations, metropolitan authorities, parliamentarians, labor organizations, humanitarian and development agencies, and think tanks around the world, to source bold and actionable solutions to some of the world’s most monumental threats.

“The crisis of multilateralism arises because the global debate is decoupled with the real needs and immediate issues that affect We The Peoples”

Think tank, Argentina

A key priority of our partnership and the consultation exercise was to identify action-oriented recommendations to help the international community confront and adapt to new and emerging challenges, as well as bold actionable strategies to bolster the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement.

Action

Between April and May 2021, the public consultation powered by Swae generated 523 proposals from 1,759 thought leaders from 147 countries.

Marking the United Nations 75th anniversary, the UN Member States called on the Secretary-General to organize a digital public consultation to collect ideas and recommendations from civil society to advance our common agenda. The UN Secretary-General used this process to gather actionable ideas across 12 areas crucial to protecting and enshrining humanity’s collective future.

The consultation process began with outreach to the global public and a wide range of influential stakeholders across different sectors to gather views on the world’s most pressing challenges and priorities for building a better future. These groups included companies, philanthropic groups, non-governmental organizations, universities, unions, minority, disability rights activists, and others.

The proposals received were potential solutions to some of world’s most monumental threats that range from deepening inequality, nuclear conflict, climate change, and more. Many touched on improving existing multilateral cooperation to build a safer, fairer and more sustainable world.

Results – What Swae Delivered

The We the Peoples consultation exceeded expectations in terms of the diversity of engagement and geographic reach of participants activating 30 civil society partners across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Input was received from leading NGOs, impact investors, philanthropists, parliamentarians, city leaders, academic institutions and under-represented groups such as minorities, migrants and conflict-affected communities, on solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing the world and how we might adapt the UN and other multilateral organizations to problem-solve better.

The proposals collected helped elaborate new ways to rapidly accelerate delivery of the commitments made by governments in the UN75 Declaration adopted by the General Assembly in 2020. 

The digital consultation received a very strong and healthy gender parity and participation rates amongst users, recording a 48% Female vs 50% Male participation rate.  

The highest sub-group of under-represented minorities participating on the platform and consultation were “Women and Girls.” 

What participants and Swae users had to say about our platform…

Impact – What the Consultation Resulted in

The cumulative results from the digital consultation and other tracks of consultations were aggregated into a final report – Accelerating Inclusive Global Cooperation (Summary of the We The Peoples Digital Consultation) – which was released by the UN on September 10th, 2021.

The Igarapé Institute, in consultation with a group of experts, helped narrow down a subset of top proposals for deeper consideration by the UN Secretary-General and presentation to the UN General Assembly.

Factors such as the specificity, possible impact, actionability, innovation, and transformative potential, as well as the level of engagement elicited from other participants, were some of the criteria used to shortlist submissions for deeper diligence and consideration.

8/10   

said Swae made it easy for them to share their concerns as a global citizen into the future of global cooperation. 

…and increased their engagement, motivation and buy-in to the consultation process by sharing ideas through the platform.

See more stats in the full case study →

Top proposals by votes all seek to make the UN more inclusive, through: a world citizens’ initiative, UN parliamentary assembly and UN civil society champion.

If you want to get started with Swae, learn more here

More to explore...

We’re helping solve the challenges that organizations face today by simplifying how ideas are managed.

Introducing Swae’s most recent product update that addresses the complexity of how organizations manage the many challenges and campaigns necessary to make progress (even if the world continues to get more complicated).

Would having an abundance of brilliant ideas organized by challenges or campaigns help stop the feelings of overwhelm around all the things that you have to find solutions for today?

We’re sure you’re curious and maybe a little skeptical. Let us break down this latest feature as to how Swae helps create solutions to challenges, manages ideas, and drives innovation.

84% of executives say that innovation is important to their growth strategy, yet do not have the processes and systems in place to execute.  [Source: McKinsey Global Innovation Survey]

Swae’s AI-based technology platform is designed to create a more inclusive and collaborative environment allowing leaders to get an abundance of highly organized ideas coming their way to make more informed decisions.

Bottom line, we help leaders discern the brilliant ideas from the bad in a more efficient and streamlined manner, which makes innovation happen all the faster.

Since organizations are complex, the decisions that must be made daily are too. In today’s economic environment, we don’t know what will come our way, so leaders across the globe, regardless of the size of an organization, must be prepared to make the best decisions, under every new circumstance, fast. And, more importantly, you’ve got to translate vision into operations through the management of ideas to get there.

Some decisions require broad input, many iterations, and longer lead times to make those decisions, while others require a more targeted audience with shorter lead time and very few iterations. Some challenges need to be solved in a few days or a week (like a rapid response plan to the latest COVID-19 phenomenon). Others can remain open for longer durations, depending on the decision-type, and urgency (for example, an annual strategic planning exercise or an open innovation competition).

Our team realized that Swae needed to allow for much more nuance, complexity, and reconfigurability with the platform in order to match the subtlety, complexity, and urgency of how fast organizations (and even local or state governments) operate and make decisions.

So we redesigned Swae to mirror these needs and used the feedback from our more than 20,000+ users and years of research that we’ve conducted.

Welcome to Swae’s new Challenges feature.

Helping you make more informed decisions 

Good decision-making is the most important management activity in an organization, driving 95% of performance and 50% of employee engagement.

Under current circumstances, most leaders are making decisions with levels of uncertainty around topics that they’ve never faced previously.

While it is tempting to centralize decision-making to a group of leaders and experts right at the top who operate behind closed doors and coordinate the best possible responses, suspending consultative procedures and processes, or opportunities for inclusion is deeply shortsighted.

Given our technological, social, and cultural evolutions we’re experiencing, gone are the days where leaders make isolated decisions alone in an office, or with a select few who sit “at the top” and continuously push a top-down agenda.

All of the latest research in organizational theory and decision-science illuminates that small, closed, non-diverse teams have more groupthink and make more biased decisions than gender, age, and geographically diverse teams. Unchecked biases limit the quality of choices available, derail good decisions, and cost companies time, money, reputation, and morale.

It’s time that we change how things are done. This is the lesson that comes from 2020 and it isn’t going to change, it’s time to create new and improved systems that are based on the latest science in order to evolve. 

We’re just learning that organizations thrive when decisions are made more inclusively. Creative, innovative, and high-quality arguments can lead to more informed decisions, leading to better choices that impact the bottom-line. Swae can accelerate this as it increases the diversity of input, helping remove bias while improving the bottom line.

Here’s what else we know:

• Business Insider reported a study that stated, on average, teams make better business decisions than individuals 66% of the time [Source: Business Insider]  
• A survey with team leaders by Grover Critical Thinking found that:
  • 70% agreed or strongly agreed that “Bad decisions cost my organization time and money”
  • 82% agreed or strongly agreed that “Bad decisions harm my organization’s reputation in the marketplace” [Source: Grover Critical Thinking]  
• On the flip side, a study conducted by Towers Perrin found that the top three workplace attributes and interventions that result in employee engagement are 1) Senior management’s interest in employees’ well-being, 2) Challenging work, and, 3) Decision-making authority. The research concludes that having the opportunity to voice ideas freely, feeding views and opinions upwards, and involvement in decision-making are the most successful drivers of employee engagement. [Source: Towers Perrin Talent Report]

Decision-making in the 21st Century is about building a more collaborative environment because employees need to feel engaged, that they’re of value, and that they’re truly involved.

Swae’s new Challenges feature can now empower your organization to garner brilliant ideas across many teams to help you manage all of the major decisions that you need to make every single day. Swae will help you unlock the brilliance and potential of your people so you can pull through the best of the best ideas and make progress all the faster.

In uncertain economic times, you need to know that you’re making the best decisions possible as fast as possible.

To get started, click here to send us an email and we’ll set up your free demo to show you Swae in action.