Strategies to Govern Systemic Risks

Strategies to govern systemic risk are reviewed and the potential of systems analysis to address these challenges is assessed. OECD and IIASA’s approaches are described. A fundamental challenge to governing systemic risk is understanding the system as a complex network of individual and institutional actors with different and often conflicting interests, values and worldviews. Superimposed on this governance network are the potential risk events with ill-defined chains or networks of interrelated consequences and impacts. The importance of applying a systems approach to both the system to be governed and the governance system is emphasised. The OECD’s ‘whole of society’ approach for managing risk could incorporate IIASA’s suggestions for establishing learning loops to reframe or enable transformative changes and focus attention on the critical nodes that are key to ensuring resilience of economies and societies