Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Application of Foresight for remote and freelance work opportunities in Bhutan
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
EXPLORATORY
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is that a lot of the young peoples preference in terms of employment is shifting towards digital and creative sector, so we will use foresight as an approach to understand the opportunities for remote and freelance work in Bhutan.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
The dynamism of the youth unemployment challenge is showcased through the sudden outbound migration of young people to developed countries in large numbers over the last one year. in addition the aspirations of the young people are changing from just working 9-5 jobs to doing work that provides them the freedom to work as per their choices. the changing preferences of young people to digital jobs is also evident through the different skilling, upskilling and reskilling programs being provided by different agencies in the ecosystem. the exposure of young people to emerging tech and the potential it provides seems to be driving this change. the undesired effect is in terms of Bhutan losing its human resources and not being able to tap onto the opportunities presented by the demographic dividend window which is for a short period of time until 2040.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
https://kuenselonline.com/getting-australia-visa-becoming-easier-and-faster/
https://kuenselonline.com/what-alternatives-to-australia/
https://kuenselonline.com/destination-australia/
While there are no formal study or assessment conducted by the government, however data showed that are are currently 32258 Bhutanese living abroad and majority of them have left in hope of better opportunities. while some have left to study, majority have left seeking jobs and with increasing numbers by the day, it will be challenging for the government and the country at large if this trend continues not just at present but also in the future.
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
The biggest weak signal is the increasing number of people leaving the country but remittances are slowly declining.
https://businessbhutan.bt/inward-remittances-drop-by-almost-38-in-november/
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
The value proposition from the ALab is to use foresight to not only explore current trends and situational analysis but also explore weak signals and potential futures that could help devise strategies and recommendations to support the government in creating that enabling conditions for the young people in the country to explore digital jobs. UNDP Bhutan CO is the only resident UN agency that has expertise on foresight and also been working extensively on youth challenges. this challenge is worth investing as this will bear return in terms of the upstream influence on policy change and digital job creation for youths.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
Scanning into the horizon to explore future scenarios for remote and freelance work in Bhutan
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
1. GovTech: they are the key implementing partner
2. Young people
3. Private sectors
4. CSOs
5. diaspora
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
the collaboration will be providing technical support as well as jointly working on this project to also build their capacity in the process of implementation
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
Would foresight help better understand the current ecosystem of freelance and remote working situation in Bhutan?
To work on this challenge statement, it is critical that we have expertise in conducting foresight.
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense, Explore
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Sensemaking and participatory design tools will be used with the different stakeholders in the ecosystem to better understand the current situation. horizon scanning and foresight tools will be the broader approach that will be adopted for this project and the recommendations out of this project will adopt a human centred design for solutions. taking the jobs to where the youths are and not otherwise
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Currently any kind of data on remote and freelancing work in Bhutan is completely missing so using these data sources, we will be able to generate the baseline data in this specific topic.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
The Young people themselves. our earlier experience working with youths demonstrated their capabilities to provide strong insights into the process, hence similar approach would be applied in this project too
END OF ACTION LEARNING PLAN: Thank you! The form saves automatically and your submission has been recorded. You may now exit this window.
8Decent work and economic growth
9Industry, innovation and infrastructure
17Partnerships for the goals
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