Providing a decision focus for global systems analysis

With the globalization of the world’s economic, transportation and communication systems, many problems that were once considered local or national have become globalized. Examples are the recent financial crises, energy and food security, global warming, and terrorism. There are two challenges with studying these global problems. First, most research institutions studying global problems have a sectorial focus (e.g., health, energy, food, or water) and, therefore, they are likely to ignore interconnections between sectors. Second, there is a tendency of researchers to emphasize the scientific aspects of their studies and to pay less attention to the policy or decision relevance of the results. Systems analysis has been developed and practiced by several global institutions to overcome the first problem. Decision analysis has been developed to address the second problem and it has been applied in different contexts by many institutions worldwide. This paper advocates a merger of systems analysis and decision analysis to make systems analysis of global problems more relevant for decision making. It begins by identifying some of the most urgent global problems and outlines how systems and decision analysis have been used to address these problems. It then examines three specific global problems and illustrates how a merger decision analysis can provide a decision focus for systems analysis. Throughout the paper, obstacles to the implementation of this approach are discussed. The paper concludes by arguing that global research institutions should identify and prioritize global problems and find solutions by combining concepts of systems and decision analysis.