"If I only looked at the budgets, we might as well close the municipality"

INVI's panel of policy entrepreneurs has reached 500 participants, our first major milestone, and it's worth celebrating. Here you can meet three participants who are working on wild problems in different contexts - in one of Denmark's most challenged municipalities, in the world's largest humanitarian organization and in an art museum.

Thomas of Richelieu

Director,
Lolland Municipality

Thomas de Richelieu is the director of Lolland Municipality. He has big ambitions and is working to create a transformation on Lolland that can benefit all of Denmark and the rest of the world. But how do you find the energy and resources in one of the poorest municipalities in the country? And why is a CEO from Lolland joining INVI's panel of policy entrepreneurs?

I am the director of the municipality with the biggest problems in the country, and if I only looked at the budgets, we might as well close the municipality. However, I see plenty of opportunities - also in the areas where we are most challenged. Overall, we need to look at the structures that are creating increasing inequality in Denmark and ask ourselves if this is what we want. Ultimately, it's a political choice. I think it's important to find solutions that don't create polarization, but where rural and urban areas are seen as mutually dependent. I see great potential in the green transition, and Lolland Municipality already contributes greatly to the production of renewable energy.

Another wild problem that I am very concerned about is inequality in access to healthcare, which is just growing and growing. There is a large dimension of geographic inequality, and we have many citizens who travel between hospitals on Zealand, and who have to look far and wide for a general practitioner. And this is in the part of the country where people are most ill. This can give us an incentive to test technological solutions that citizens can use at home, but then we are challenged by the fact that we are already facing a shortage of healthcare professionals because the proportion of citizens who need help is growing.

No one has ever saved money or made a sensible transition before. We are in a pressured situation and have to make some decisions because we have to work in a different way. Pressure can actually make it easier to see alternatives. In Lolland, we are already in the process of recruiting international labor, and I believe that in several areas we can be a laboratory for development that can inspire the rest of the country and other parts of the world. 

I have read The Entrepreneurial State and heard Sigge give various presentations. He makes some important points about basing policy on solid knowledge and the need for partnerships. As I said, I see a lot of potential to solve the wild problems, but we need to work together with someone and we need some outside investment. If that doesn't happen, Lolland Municipality will become a dusty museum that no one wants to visit.

Asger Toft Johannsen

Development Consultant,
Red Cross

Asger Toft Johannsen is a development consultant at the Red Cross, where he is affiliated with the Good Start in Life program, which offers support to vulnerable families with young children. Asger has previously worked with ethnic minority fathers and has experience of collaboration between citizens, professionals and volunteers. According to Asger, our society calls for new approaches to wild problems and there is a need for greater involvement of civil society as we move from a welfare state to a welfare society.

I work with early childhood interventions because I can see that problems grow bigger if we don't do something about them in time. Research shows that the first 1000 days of a child's life are crucial for their development and well-being for the rest of their life. Loneliness and unhappiness is a rampant problem that affects young and old alike, and there are many reasons for this. In Good Start in Life, we try, among other things, to tell parents that screen use can stand in the way of contact with the child and thus also the child's later ability to form relationships.

Another wild problem that characterizes the entire work of the Red Cross is that Denmark is moving from being a welfare state to a welfare society. We see a break-up and a growing need for us to solve some new tasks. It's complex and requires even better interaction between the public sector and civil society. Municipalities are organized differently, so it's not one size fits all, and there is also a need for collaboration across municipalities.

It gives me hope that there is a consensus that we need to do something about the wild problems and that there are so many who want to cooperate. I never meet anyone who says that we should stay out of it, and I also note that the foundations are contributing. Fortunately, when it comes to technology use, it also seems that we have learned from our uncritical use of mobile phones and social media, and that we are being more cautious with AI and ChatGPT.

Christina Toft

Public Engagement Designer,
ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art

Christina Toft is Public Engagement Designer at ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art. She is a trained designer and is responsible for the museum's public engagement activities. Christina works both strategically and with tangible elements because she sees it as a necessity for a sustainable future-oriented strategy. Here she explains how art and new communities give her hope in solving some of the wild problems she encounters on a daily basis.

I'm currently most concerned with climate as a wildlife problem. It's not that I go out and say that we should plant trees, but we deal with it strategically at the museum and it is part of our activities. I see sustainability as a necessary approach to many things in life, including how people behave together and how we organize our society. We need to act completely differently in relation to the climate and with a lot of courage in order not to literally disappear.

Specifically, I'm currently working on an architecture workshop where we are rethinking how to use materials and how to live and build in the future. When something becomes a ruin, we have to deal with it. We're talking about a kind of collapse, without it being gloomy. I'm very concerned with maintaining joy, hope and vigor in our reality. Among other things, we have a joint construction project where the audience builds on what others have done. In this way, the individual becomes part of the community.

Of course, well-being is also a wild issue we deal with. Here at ARKEN, we try to create space for new forms of community across boundaries such as gender, ethnicity and age. We create new active communities where people have the opportunity to use their voice in other ways than just in writing, and we use art as a starting point to open up and collaborate. It gives me hope when I see both children and adults participating in new communities and using their hands in new ways. When they light up, want to seek out new knowledge and have the courage to act.

Want to join? Read more about the panel and apply to join. LINK