In a nutshell, we need to spend more effort speaking and listening to the citizens we serve. Diversifying our engagement improves our capacity to make better policy decisions and enhances our legitimacy as public institutions. That is more important now than ever as we grapple with COVID 19 and its harsh economic consequences, which affect everyone.
And it will be critical in the future as we tackle the impact of structural changes to our economies arising from the legacy of COVID 19 and those it is amplifying, including digitalization, debt and inequality. While the SARS pandemic didn’t have lasting economic impacts in 2005, the 2008 US sub-prime mortgage crisis certainly did. Our economies eventually recovered, but societal scars remain.