Sophie Howe is a public servant with a particularly tricky constituency. The people she represents are remote and unresponsive and they never show up to voice an opinion or tell her if she’s doing a good job.

They don’t even vote. That’s because they haven’t yet been born. Howe is the world’s first – and only – future generations commissioner with statutory powers. She’s there to represent the unborn citizens of Wales.

There is no shortage of issues to champion. So many of today’s crises – climate, insects, water, population growth – threaten calamity not for the people currently on the planet but for their descendants. The political trope about “our children and our children’s children” has never felt so urgent.

Other countries have also toyed with novel governance mechanisms that allow for the voice of future generations to be heard, with Israel, Hungary and Canada notable examples.



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Yet none have gone as far as Wales to enshrine in law the principle that future generations deserve a fair hearing in present political debates.

“We have put it in statute … which means we have to ask how to translate it into the decisions that are made every day throughout government,” said Howe, 41, a former deputy police and crime commissioner who has five children.



In the job since its creation in 2016, her mandate – on paper at least – is clear: to ensure that political decisions taken today don’t compromise the interests of Welsh citizens tomorrow.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sophie Howe with pupils from Millbrook Primary School, Newport Photograph: Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

As commissioner, it is Howe’s job to advise the Welsh government and the wider public sector of what their statutory obligations entail.



Much of her initial period in office has been spent helping the country’s principal public bodies put together formal action plans for meeting their new responsibilities.



But the job is not all about hand-holding. Howe has shown she can play tough too. In recent months, for instance, her attention has been focused on a proposed £1.1bn relief road around Newport.



The project’s supporters maintain the investment will boost economic growth. Howe, in contrast, argues it will destroy local biodiversity and saddle Wales’s unborn with a huge debt. Mark Drakeford, the country’s first minister, is due to give his verdict imminently.

“It was almost a done deal before my intervention, but now there are serious considerations as to whether it’s in the interests of future generations,” she said.

Quick guide 5 issues for future generations Show Hide 1. Climate change The UN says we have 12 years to stop the rot. Climate modelling has all but priced in a 3 degree rise by century's end, meaning our grandchildren could pay a very heavy price for our decades of cheap carbon and oil-fuelled living standards.

2. Biodiversity Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970. The chances of a child of the 2060s seeing a spider monkey or great otter are shrinking by the day 3. Jobs To avoid the scourge of youth unemployment repeating itself, education and vocational training has to be geared towards the job skills of the future. 4. Wellness If future generations are to enjoy “wellbeing” in its fullest sense, it requires policymakers to find a more holistic set of decision-making metrics than Gross Domestic Product. 5. Youth voice Despite having more to lose than anyone, children are more or less locked out of the political decision-making process. More initiatives like the Welsh Youth Parliament are needed. Photograph: David Goldman/AP

Another major project has been Wales’s new-look planning policy, which makes a big play of the idea of holistic wellbeing – a key concept within the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act of 2015, which established her office.



Howe’s formal powers are limited, however. The commissioner’s role is more that of watchdog than judge. She can force policymakers to justify their decisions, for example but she can’t prevent those decisions from being made.



Yet the mere act of asking difficult questions makes a difference, she insists. “Just having an institution that is there challenging the status quo is making people sit up and take notice.”



Such notice extends beyond Wales, too. Lord Bird, founder of The Big Issue magazine, is reportedly considering a private member’s bill calling for a similar commissioner role for the UK as a whole.



Further afield the New Zealand government recently sent a delegation to Cardiff bay to learn more about the innovative Welsh model. Later this month, Howe will be in Dubai sharing her experience with global policymakers at the World Government Summit.



To all who ask, her overarching message is the same: talk is welcome, but cheap; to genuinely protect our future generations, concrete actions are needed now.



It is not a popular argument, she concedes. The needs of today are numerous and competition for government resources is fierce all over the world. And much as politicians acknowledge future generations, they also know that the unborn don’t vote.



Howe’s response is characteristically direct. “There’s no point in having these lofty ambitions for future generations if we’re not prepared to take difficult decisions,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The future generation speaks

She isn’t naive. Wales still has a long way to go to fulfil the aspirations of its landmark legislation, she admits. Some policymakers struggle to conceptualise how to account for future needs in the present, while an old-school minority simply reject the whole idea.



It is this battle to win the hearts and mind of those at all ranks of the policymaking process that Howe considers her biggest challenge.



To aid this struggle, her office is advancing a new approach to policymaking. Instead of top-down managerialism, government decisions need to be guided by principles such as public involvement, preventative action and cross-government collaboration.



“For me, this is the biggest cultural change programme that Wales has ever seen,” she said. “We need to really invest in how we go about changing that culture [so] people will start thinking more about the long term.”

This article is part of a series on possible solutions to some of the world’s most stubborn problems. What else should we cover? Email us at theupside@theguardian.com

