Should the World See Something like Pension Public Diplomacy Soon?

Should the World See Something like Pension Public Diplomacy Soon?

The accelerated demographic changes, that are so evident in social and economic domains, have begun to put big pressure on governments and pension authorities at least during the last two decades to introduce reforms on retirement benefits and conditions, which in almost all cases have been met with strong popular rejection. The social unrests and public shocks witnessed in tens of European, Latin America, African, Asian and Arab countries are a good case in point.

What should we do? Stop and cancel the reforms that are so necessary for delivering sustainable pension systems, or proceed with them and endure the consequences, which could well be disastrous politically and socially?!

Between these two tough choices, and if it’s OK to borrow certain notions from political science and diplomacy, it may work better if we frame the inevitable pension reform work into a strategic “pension public diplomacy”. As such, leaders and executives of public pension systems should master this new set of skills and plan and move exactly the way politicians and diplomats would do for great missions in open, participative societies. That’s to artfully master the skills of stakeholder and issue analysis using the right strategies and messaging, to successfully engage their ecosystems, sell the reforms, and gain the support of influential circles behind them.

This’s a new topic that we at Fintech Robos believe is worth exploring and evolving at our coming regional pension events, because it helps a lot in launching pension reform projects, and also enhances the chances of their success institutionally and socially.