Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential
Project Overview
Context: This is the description of a long-term
project, initiated in 1972 by Mankind
2000 in
collaboration with the Union
of International Associations,
resulting in a succession of four hardcopy
editions of the "Encyclopedia", the last in 1995 (the first
being titled Yearbook of World Problems and Human
Potential). Subsequently
the databases of the component projects (listed below) have been variously
integrated into a succession of project initiatives (described in the Projects
Overview). The most significant of these, on the initiative
of a consortium of organizations, funded by the European Commission
(DG XIII: Info2000) from 1997-2000 was the Ecolynx
- Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation designed to provide
a multi-media context for online information on biological conservation
issues. Access is available to the online
archive version. A comprehensive overview is also available in a Wikipedia entry on the Encyclopedia initiative
| The Encyclopedia of World
Problems and Human Potential was the
result of an ambitious effort to collect and present information on
the problems with which humanity perceives itself to be confronted.
It aims to clarify the challenges such problems represent to concepts,
values and development strategies. The Encyclopedia encourages the
discovery of a new conceptual dynamic for understanding and action,
sufficiently complex to encompass the factions, conflicts and paradigms
by which people are separated -- both from each other and from a promising
future.
The Encyclopedia (in its online
archival version) consists of a number of extensive data sets.
These are hyperlinked within
each other and to
each other, as well as to compatible data sets --
notably those which makes up the Yearbook
of International Organizations. This volume profiles the 50,000
international bodies from which the data for the Encyclopedia is largely
derived.
Further general information is available on this page. There is also
a set of general
comments on the project as a whole, as well
sets of explanatory comments on its sub-projects. |
 |
| Sub-Projects (and
Comments) |
Databases
(and Maps) |
| Profiles |
Links |
| World
problems (C) |
56,564 |
276,791 |
| Strategies
- Actions - Solutions (C) |
32,547 |
284,382 |
| Human
development and potential (C) |
4,817 |
19,757 |
| Human
values and wisdom (C) |
3,257 |
119,255 |
| Integrative
/ unitary knowledge (C) |
633 |
- |
| Potential questions |
1,058,278 |
- |
| Governance
through metaphor |
. |
. |
| Metaphors
and patterns (C) |
experiment |
. |
| Transformative approaches |
. |
. |
| Visualization (virtual
reality) |
. |
. |
| Sound (music)
|
. |
. |
| Compatible projects |
|
|
| International
organizations / NGOs (C) |
61,398 |
896,750 |
| Biographical
profiles (C) |
20,847 |
26,383 |
| International
meetings (C) |
241,392 |
267,445 |
| Bibliographies (C) |
20,237 |
1,089 |
|
Subproject
database relationships in 1976
(click on image below for enlarged version) |
 |
| Shifting the focus from isolated
issues and strategies to cycles of issues and strategies |
| Organizational strategies and
programmes that focus on only one problem in the chain tend to fail because
the cycle has the capacity to regenerate itself. Worse still is that
such cycles tend to interlock, creating the complex
of global problems which causes so many to despair. The good news
is that identifying vicious cycles is a first step towards designing
cycles of strategies to reverse or break them. Better still some
problems are linked by serendipitous cycles in which each problem alleviates
the next -- and, even better, some strategies function in serendipitous
cycles to reinforce each other and break vicious problem cycles. Detecting
them is a future focus of the Encyclopedia project. |
In the past, much effort has gone into the focus on seemingly isolated
world problems, such as unemployment, boredom, endangered species,
desertification or corruption. Work on the newly published Encyclopedia
of World Problems and Human Potential has now shifted its focus
to the hunt for complex networks and
even vicious cycles of problems. A cycle is a chain of problems,
with each aggravating the next -- with the last looping back to aggravate
the first in the chain. The more obvious loops may be composed of only
3 or 4 problems. Far less obvious are those composed of 7 or
more.
|
An exampleof a vicious cycle is: Alienation
-> Youth gangs -> Neighbourhood
control by criminals -> Psychological stress of urban environment
-> Substance abuse -> Family breakdown -> Alienation. Such cycles
are vicious because they are self-sustaining. Identifying them is
also no easy matter. Like the search for strange particles in physics,
much computer time is required to track through the aggravating chains
linking problems. A preliminary search along 9 million such pathways
has so far identified 19,000 cycles composed of up to 7 problems
-- of which 2,873 are specifically identified on the CD-ROM. |
| Scope and challenge |
|
Although it is still possible to gather and configure so much detail
into book form (or onto the CD-ROM version of the Encyclopedia and
Yearbook), the editors are much concerned with new ways of visualizing
complex networks of relationships. The challenge is to find meaningful
ways to navigate through such complexity and to evoke imaginative insights
in response to it. In a section on transformative approaches, the editors
explore the implications for computer graphics, transformative conferencing
and the design of policy cycles capable of responding to vicious problem
cycles.
Much emphasis is placed on the potential of new metaphors for governance
as a major unexplored resource to enable paradim shifts. The suggestion
is made that many institutions and policies are trapped in inadequate
policy metaphors. In this spirit the Encyclopedia even contains an
extensive exploration of the relevance to governance of fruitful
cross-fertilization between poetry-making and policy-making -- seen
as equivalent to the mythical challenge of arranging a marriage between
Beauty and the Beast.
The Encyclopedia offers radically different perspectives to policy-makers,
social researchers and those concerned with development strategy.
It is also fascinating reading for any individual with concern for
human affairs and wary of the risks of "tunnel vision" in conventional
approaches to crises and opportunities.
Most encyclopedias focus only on positive, sanitized aspects of
society, presenting an idealized worldview that denies the shadow
of humanity. This is one of the few even to mention the existence
of such phenomena as corruption (96 entries), torture and many others
that do not appear on the agendas of international conferences. It
attempts to present the world as many experience it, whether negatively
or positively.
Users of the Encyclopedia are encouraged to discover new approaches
to understanding and action through the deliberate juxtaposition,
within the same context, of contradictory perceptions and fundamentally
incompatible viewpoints. By juxtaposing different, but complementary,
perspectives, the Encyclopedia is deliberately designed to challenge
unquestioned patterns of response to the crises of the times and
to evoke new insights in the reader. In this sense it is full of
shocks and creative surprises.
This unique 3-volume reference book is a comprehensive sourcebook
of information on recognized world problems, their interconnections
and the human resources available to analyze and ultimately respond
to them. Many are seldom, if ever, described elsewhere in specific
or precise terms. Much of the information derives from the United
Nations and other intergovernmental agencies, as well as from the
many international nongovernmental bodies documented in the companion
3-volume Yearbook
of International Organizations. |
| Juxtaposing conflicting perceptions and priorities
-- identifying the dynamic reality of world society |
|
The Encyclopedia is innovative in that considerable effort has been devoted
to identifying and juxtaposing the many conflicting perceptions and priorities
which constitute the dynamic reality of world society. Such information
is usually difficult to extract from research literature stressing theories,
administrative documents justifying programs, political manifestos defending
ideological positions, or from news commentaries on current events.
No other publication identifies such a complete range of problems
transcending national boundaries. The world problems in Volume 1 are
complemented by a group of sections in Volume 2 indicating ways in
which appropriate responses may be conceived. What emerges are patterns,
relationships and configurations uncharacteristic of the usual fragmented
and specialized perceptions, or of the policies and institutions that
have themselves become barriers to understanding and meaningful change.
The phenomena identified in this publication are those which inspire
both hopes and fears, whether real or imaginary, about the world's
future. They constitute a challenge to creative remedial action, functioning
as a powerful stimulus to the development of society. The Encyclopedia
deliberately presents fundamental contradictions -- of cultures, ideologies,
beliefs and even "facts" -- in an effort to explore the complex, dynamic
middle ground of possible solutions to the problems of the global village. |
Cross-references and (hyper) links
There are cross-references between entries in the principal sections.
If present, these are listed at the end of each entry. In some cases
there are also cross-references between entries in different sections.
Generally there are two main groups of cross-references: |
Logical relationship between entries in a section:
- Broader, or more general, entries
- Narrower, or more specific, entries
- Related entries
|
Functional relationship between entries in a section:
- Causally preceding entries: Other entries that may be considered
to precede the entry in any causal chain or process
- Causally following entries: Other entries that may be considered
to follow from this entry in any causal chain
- A further distinction may be made between a constructive and
a destructive causal chain.
|
| Vicious problem cycles and sustainable strategic loops: The
functional relationships between problems have been searched to locate
vicious
loops, shifting the level of analysis from isolated problems
to problem cycles (examples).
This approach also permits detection of serendipitous
loop
relationships between strategies. See detailed comment and visualizations |
| Project development |
For a statistical overview of
the development of the Encyclopedia databases, see:
|
Specific descriptions, see:
|
|
