Principles for Systemic Risk
Assessment and Response
Principles are fundamental guides that help shape decision-making and facilitate collaboration among diverse individuals and entities. They act as a focal point around which people can find synergies and common ground, while also providing a vision toward which action can be taken and progress can be built, step-by-step.
Many governments and communities around the world are increasingly aware of the need for a better approach to risk analysis and decision-making — and yet the mainstream tools, methods, and even mindsets that leaders and decision-makers rely on to assess and respond to risks are insufficient to effectively grapple with the reality of a world in polycrisis.
ASRA has co-developed a set of Principles for Systemic Risk Assessment and Response to accelerate awareness of systemic risks and to guide collective, transformative action. To mark its one-year anniversary, ASRA is making the set and a practical guide to implementation available to other risk practitioners.
The principles—from a commitment to universal responsibility to the inherent value of non-human life, or compassion to complexity—can act as a powerful diagnostic tool. They can be used to identify where a current practice or approach to risk analysis falls short and how it should be improved.