The challenges we face are considerable: from rethinking our relationship with the environment, and the wide-reaching implications this has, to tackling the persistent inequalities and injustices that characterise our relationships with each other. The WFC has identified 24 key issues that it will seek to address. With each campaign the WFC will highlight the connections between these areas, and aim to integrate them into its policy recommendations.The global challenges can be roughly grouped into three categories:
Global Challenges
Environment
The key global challenges grouped together in this category concern our relationship with the planet that supports us. With limited natural resources, an increasingly urbanised and ever-growing population, and the looming threat of irreversible climate change, the need to reconsider the way we interact with our environment has never been more pressing. Paramount to this is the acknowledgement that we are a part of the global ecosystem and not its rulers.
Social Issues
The key global challenges grouped together in this category are concerned with ensuring that people across the world can lead healthy and fulfilled lives. This involves embracing the diversity of human traits and capabilities, and acknowledging that we are all equal and yet distinct.
Economics and Politics
The key global challenges grouped together in this category are concerned with the organisation of human societies and the relationships between them. This involves fair and peaceful exchange, and an equitable distribution of costs and benefits in the creation of global welfare.
Indigenous People and Bio-cultural Diversity
In the eyes of many, indigenous people are the 'keepers of the whole', holding on to ancient wisdom that can serve as a valuable guide in these confused times. Their cultures need to be protected and their knowledge preserved while respecting their desire to choose different life styles. Better ways need to be found to safeguard their rights to often sparsely populated areas against the pressures of their neighbours.
What legal reforms are needed to safeguard the rights of indigenous communities to public goods and the global commons? Are there countervailing indigenous responsibilities, e.g. for land use and preservation and the sharing of knowledge? Can shared community values be protected against individual consumer values? How can indigenous wisdom help global society to better understand its place in the world, and to gain spiritual maturity? Are there ways in which non-humans could be granted enforceable rights?