Benin

Excellencies,

We, the undersigned institutions, experts, and stakeholders committed to systemic foresight, responsible innovation, and sustainable resilience governance, respectfully submit this appeal for the formal recognition and institutional support of the National Working Group for Benin (NWG–Benin) and the Nexus Ecosystem (NE), developed by the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Benin today faces profound and interconnected systemic risks:
Frequent flooding and droughts, accelerated coastal erosion, biodiversity degradation across wetlands and river basins, food and water insecurity challenges, and energy transition vulnerabilities.
These vulnerabilities align directly with the foresight imperatives outlined in the Pact for the Future, requiring sovereign, anticipatory, and innovation-centered resilience strategies.

Benin’s commitment to climate adaptation, sustainable development, and environmental stewardship provides a strategic foundation. However, the evolving complexity of systemic risks demands strengthened systemic foresight infrastructures, anticipatory governance frameworks, and sovereign digital public goods.

The National Working Group for Benin (NWG–Benin) addresses these systemic needs by:

• Embedding systemic foresight, disaster risk governance, and anticipatory policy innovation into Benin’s frameworks for climate resilience, food and water security, biodiversity conservation, coastal and land management, and sustainable development;

• Strengthening early warning systems, dynamic risk scenario simulation infrastructures, and systemic foresight platforms aligned with the operational mandates of the Emergency Platform;

• Mobilizing distributed expertise across ministries, scientific and technical institutions, environmental and agricultural bodies, renewable energy developers, private sector leaders, and civil society networks;

• Institutionalizing sustainability and systemic foresight governance frameworks aligned with the Declaration on Future Generations.

NWG–Benin’s operational foundation is the Nexus Ecosystem (NE) — a sovereign, cloud-agnostic, open-access digital public goods platform that:

• Provides disaster risk modeling, anticipatory policy simulation infrastructures, innovation ecosystem foresight mapping, and sustainable development governance monitoring systems;

• Embeds responsible digital governance standards, cybersecurity resilience protocols, sovereign data protections, and AI ethics aligned with the Global Digital Compact;

• Supports the development of holistic resilience, sustainability, and well-being indicators aligned with the Beyond GDP Initiative, reinforcing Benin’s leadership in systemic foresight and sustainable governance.

Together, NWG–Benin and the Nexus Ecosystem provide Benin with sovereign, scalable, and future-ready infrastructures to operationalize systemic foresight, sustainable innovation ecosystems, and resilient governance.

Accordingly, we respectfully request:

1. Formal Recognition of NWG–Benin as a national and international platform advancing systemic disaster risk foresight, anticipatory governance innovation, sovereign digital resilience, and sustainable development leadership under the Pact for the Future;

2. Institutional and Financial Support, enabling NWG–Benin’s full integration into multilateral resilience financing frameworks, anticipatory governance hubs, and sovereign digital public goods initiatives;

3. Recognition of the Nexus Ecosystem (NE) as a sovereign digital public good essential for Benin’s disaster risk intelligence infrastructures, anticipatory policy simulation platforms, innovation ecosystem monitoring, and sustainable governance frameworks;

4. Framework Integration, ensuring systematic inclusion of NWG–Benin and NE outputs into global disaster risk dashboards, anticipatory governance hubs, innovation ecosystems, and Pact for the Future foresight monitoring mechanisms.

The systemic resilience and sustainable development challenges facing Benin and the broader West African coastal region demand sovereign, anticipatory, and digitally sovereign infrastructures.
NWG–Benin and the Nexus Ecosystem offer a transformational, scalable, and future-ready pathway for systemic foresight, responsible innovation ecosystems, and resilient governance.

In full alignment with the Charter of the United Nations and the transformational ambitions articulated in the Pact for the Future, we submit this appeal and reaffirm our commitment to collaborative action, systemic foresight leadership, responsible innovation, and sustainable governance for Benin.

Respectfully submitted,