Adaptive Policies: flexible policies, structures, budgeting and planning to adapt to global changes
In order to Evaluate, Iterate and Adapt, we need to create adaptive policies, structures, and plans that respond to global changes. From now to the year 2030, a lot will change in the world, and there should be policies that allow us to quickly respond to those changes. This means that the results of learning and evaluation, from the other Initiatives of this Recommendation, should be directly taken into account in the decision-making, planning, and budgeting process of the Wikimedia communities, affiliates, and the Foundation. External conditions, such as wars or climate change, should be considered as far in advance as possible and integrated into the decisions of the Wikimedia movement.
Adapt to meet new and altered situations and challenges by adopting policies and procedures based upon evaluations of the changing Movement and the changing world. This requires us to:
Increase the flexibility and adaptability of the structures and approaches we employ to implement each recommendation.
Incorporate evaluation results into decision-making at all institutional levels.
Use evaluation results to inform planning and budgeting of Movement stakeholders with fiscal and programmatic responsibilities.
Evaluate external conditions (socio-political, legal, environmental, etc.) to anticipate them, act on them if we can, and adapt to changes.
um. actually I disagree with this item somewhat. hmm, perhaps some might argue that this item is so simple, and so intuitive, and so self-evident, that there is no objective reason to disagree with it… right?
well, actually, that’s precisely why I disagree with this specific item somewhat. is it really necessary for the Movement Strategy team to issue such highly abstract, highly non-specific items such as this one? just a thought. how does this help the development process for Movement Strategy, or the development of the Wikimedia movement, or the development of Wikipedia as a resource, or the overall community? just wanted to express that thought. thanks.
Hi! Thank you for the thought. As we have discussed in other spaces, this is part of a Movement Strategy recommendation finalized in May 2020. That’s why it would be best to look at it as part of a whole strategy/set of recommendations, for which implementation it would be probably advisable to have an evaluation and iteration process. It’s, indeed, a bit abstract, because it’s something meant to prepare the movement to adapt to unpredictable situations (a good example would be COVID-19 - it would have been difficult to ask in a strategy for “adaptive policies to address global pandemics”, right?). As it stands, this initiative asks us to be flexible in such situations. That being said, I do both understand and also share your sentiments about the abstractness and difficulty of grasping the impact of this initiative in a practical situation, but I do see the value in having it in mind when designing our movement policies.
