Cantor’s World

You play the role of the chief policymaker of a country. You first set objectives – in terms of three SDGs which you seek to achieve. Then you make investments in policies of your choice every year (each turn represents a year). You can see how your decisions have affected different indicators, GDP, HDI, and IWI, and look at the status of each of the capitals. Your goal is to achieve what you set out in the beginning of the game, and 7 per cent GDP growth.

In order to bring environment into the focus while planning for countries, in 2012, a trio of organizations under the UN umbrella released a report that spoke about an ‘Inclusive Wealth Index’ (IWI). The IWI is a way to acknowledge and articulate the interconnectedness of the economy, environment, and human well-being. It measures natural capital, human capital, and manufactured capital of a country. The question then is, how can planners, economists, and people interested in sustainability understand this indicator? How can the IWI be used as a complement to GDP and HDI? What are the trade-offs in using this indicator as a tool for planning? The game has been designed to address these questions.

There are many learning benefits to the game. First of all, players are taking policy decisions and understanding their impacts on the three capitals (IWI) and the SDGs – 4 (Quality education), 10 (Reduced inequalities) and 13 (Climate action). During the game, participants experience how policy decisions of different temporal scales impact sustainability. They realize the nature of the relationship between Produced capital and Human capital, and also conflict between individual country-wise objectives and global objectives for achieving SDGs, in particular, SDGs 4, 10 and 13.
Through their own actions in the game, players experience tradeoffs, resources, and constraints of policy operationalization and its impact on the productivity and sustainability

Read more about the ‘Inclusive Wealth Index’ (IWI) here.

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