Coming together to manage uncertainty

Uncertainty was on the agenda when I was fortunate to digitally sit down with Octavi de la Varga, secretary general of Metropolis, recently. The organisation’s Cities for Global Health Project is serving as an online bulletin board for cities to share what they are doing to assist their citizens amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s a relatively straightforward project but one that is nonetheless effective. Coronavirus presents all of us with the unprecedented and one advantage of our digital age is the ability to look further afield for advice. De la Varga says one of his mantras is how people need to work with uncertainty and manage it. He is definitely on the pessimistic side of the spectrum (as am I); countries will be forced to deal with fresh waves of the virus until a vaccine is found. Their challenge will be how to balance an economy with protecting lives.

This is where the Metropolis project comes in by helping cities to deal with uncertainty by giving them the opportunity to learn from others. My interview includes the much-used phrase the global village, but I feel the current crisis shows where digital technology can be a boon. A digital bulletin board may sound simple but a crisis like coronavirus shows how we should take advantage of each other’s expertise.

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