Transforming Systems in the Decade of Action

COVID-19 has changed the development landscape. Progress toward the SDGs has been reversed. The tectonic shifts and blind spots surfaced by our current moment have underscored the need for new capabilities to navigate the Decade of Action and seize emergent opportunities for systems transformation. Integrated solutions must go beyond optimizing the status quo. Deep systems change starts with fostering collective capacities to situate the ‘self’ in systems, to operate from a place of connectedness between our minds, hearts, and hands and between each other, and to move from ego-system to eco-system awareness. 

Since June 2020, UNDP is partnering with Presencing Institute to build and sustain architectures of learning and connection for the cultivation of transformation literacy and action confidence within the UN system and beyond! In June-September 2020, we co-hosted a series of Summer Dialogues aimed at building such capabilities for awareness-based collective action.

Drawing on the energy and insights from the initial dialogues, it continued with a global Transformation Dialogue Series in the first half of 2021. These virtual gatherings and learning spaces invited UN staff into a unique space to understand and apply approaches from Theory U to the complex challenges at the core of our work. The sessions took the core questions of the 2020 Human Development Report on Human Development and the Anthropocene as a point of focus for co-inquiry into mechanisms for systems transformation.

If you missed the dialogues, watch the recordings and engage in the discussions:

For an even deeper-dive into this process, a 4-month Action Learning Lab for UN practitioners provided an opportunity for staff to hone their action confidence by applying transformation literacy approaches to problems of their choice.