Complex Global Schoks and the New Challenges for civil society

Summary

Events surrounding the global financial crash of 2008 have crystallised a view that the speed with which economic shocks are transmitted around the world has accelerated and that the shocks are increasingly complex in nature.

Drawing on grounded accounts of what it means for people living in poverty to be part of a global economy at this time, this paper sets out four challenges for civil society: the need to a) breach its own boundaries, to address cross-cutting issues at their source; b) amplify the voice of those directly affected; c) influence a fairer policy response at local, national and global levels; and d) fertilise debate, to grow new understandings of how the global economy should work, and for whom.