Meeting of minds: Sultan Nazrin greeting former Nasa astronaut Dr Catherine Cady Coleman when he arrived to deliver his royal address and officiate the Pangkor Dialogue 2017 in Ipoh. — Bernama

IPOH: Major trends occurring in the world today are forcing people to re-evaluate their thoughts on development, said Sultan of Perak Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah.

“There is need to re-examine the indicators currently used to measure development and human progress, as well as the future of employment and the Government’s ability to access funding to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” he said.

Noting that it was not a covert conclusion that a fast-growing economy alone would make for a greater social well-being and stable economy, Sultan Nazrin added: “National economy performance has traditionally been measured in gross domestic product and other macro economy indicators.

“However, a range of separate indicators are required to capture the different elements of well-being with GDP still used to measure economy activity.

Citing Bhutan as an example, the Sultan of Perak said the country had four decades ago rejected the GDP as a measure for progress and instead, championed gross national happiness, which was measured through the spiritual, physical and social well-being of its people.

He added that the First World Happiness report published by the United Nations in 2012 had indeed found a strong correlation between economy and happiness.

“On the future of employment, many of today’s jobs will not exist in the future.

“There are many predictions of the coming waves of technological change in employment and one study suggests that at least 50% of 700 different current jobs may be fully automated in the coming years.

“The transformation of the workplace will affect the whole range of jobs from blue to white collar,” he said when officiating the Pangkor Dialogue 2017 here yesterday.

Sultan Nazrin said in middle-income countries, it was not simply a question of the demand and supply of jobs in the market but rather, the issue of disinterest in the types of jobs available.

“Profound jobs displacements particularly in parts of Asia and Africa are predicated.

“We are also seeing a falling of ratio of employment to population and many of the underlined trends in technology are likely to accelerate the disruption in the jobs and service sectors,” he added.

On the third point, Sultan Nazrin said government ability to strategically mobilise various sources of financing for development purposes would be difficult for many countries in the future, adding that the United Nations estimated that developed countries would require more than US$2.5 trillion (RM10.4 trillion) a year to achieve SDGs.

“The same is true for humanitarian crisis, climate change, unpredictable natural disasters, poverty and new diseases that are likely to occur.

“The need for new financing models are, thus, required to mobilise adequate resources,” he said, adding that the role of Islamic financing in managing humanitarian crises could be considered, as 90% of such crises occurred in Organisation of Islamic Cooperation member countries.