The resolve is high at the beginning of 2021, the first year of the third decade of the first century of the third millennium (1-3-1-3). It’s odd and leapfrogs 2. Can this mean that we are indeed going to do different things and do things differently? Will we have a sense of adventure, particularly in Africa and the developing world, leapfrogging the conventional development steps of the North? If we are going to get anywhere close to our aspirations of a universally serviced world and the end of poverty in a low-carbon near future, we’ll have to.
A pivotal post-Covid-19 paralysis moment emerged at the beginning of this year that in many ways, if embraced, could be the beginning of an accelerated pathway to exactly that future. The virtual World Economic Forum began on 26 January 2021 with the central message, “The Great Reset”.