Draft report by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI): “Japan has been aiming at the realization of “Society 5.0,” a policy for building a human-centric society which realizes both economic development and solutions to social challenges by taking advantage of a system in which cyberspaces, including AI, IoT and big data, and physical spaces are integrated in a sophisticated manner (CPSs: cyber-physical systems). In advancing social implementation of innovative technologies toward the realization of the Society 5.0, it is considered necessary to fundamentally reform governance models in view of changes in social structures which new technologies may bring about.
Triggered by this problem awareness, at the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Trade and Digital Economy, which Japan hosted in June 2019, the ministers declared in the ministerial statement the need for “governance innovation” tailored to social changes which will be brought about by digital technologies and social implementation thereof.
In light of this, METI inaugurated its Study Group on a New Governance Model in Society 5.0 (hereinafter referred to as the “study group”) and in July 2020, the study group published a report titled “GOVERNANCE INNOVATION: Redesigning Law and Architecture for Society 5.0” (hereinafter referred to as the “first report”). The first report explains ideal approaches to cross-sectoral governance by multi-stakeholders, including goal-based regulations, importance for businesses to fulfill their accountability, and enforcement of laws with an emphasis on incentives.
Against this backdrop, the study group, while taking into consideration the outcomes of the first report, presented approaches to “agile governance” as an underlying idea of the governance shown in the Society 5.0 policy, and then prepared the draft report titled “Governance Innovation ver.2: A Guide to Designing and Implementing Agile Governance” as a compilation presenting a variety of ideal approaches to governance mechanisms based on agile governance, including corporate governance, regulations, infrastructures, markets and social norms.
In response, METI opened a call for public comments on this draft report in order to receive opinions from a variety of people. As the subjects shown in the draft report are common challenges seen across the world and many parts of the subjects require international cooperation, METI wishes to receive wide-ranging, frank opinions not only from people in Japan but also from those in overseas countries….(More)”.