This is a world of change. Today is the age of fast change.
Change is driven by myriad forces originating from various sources. Some are coordinated and work in parallel; others are contrasting. But change is percolating down to each and everyone one of us.
It is no longer a question of whether to accept change. It is now a question of how to manage change.

Solutions
The best way to manage change is to consider it as a challenge. A challenge to be understood, handled and overcome. We are destined to keep passing from one challenge to the next, hopefully improving ourselves in the process.
It is wrong therefore to interpret a challenge as a consequence of failure in the past. A forward-looking approach is vital if we have to succeed in managing challenges properly. We have to learn from the past. Analysing the way a particular issue started and the setting at the time. We have to assess the experiences learnt from the way that these issues were handled and then map out a strategy on how to transform a challenge into an opportunity.
Our country is facing many such challenges. Many are issues that are being thrust upon us from abroad, others are of our own making.

Commodities
We constantly hear about the challenges emanating from the ever-increasing price of oil and from the current high price of cereals. These challenges will require each and every one of us to adjust to new realities as the pricing regime that we have been used to will change. We will have to reset out priorities, nationally and individually. We will have to accept that pushing for more income to offset increasing costs is not always the right solution, but that realigning ourselves to the realities and living within freshly defined means is the correct way forward.
On the other hand these challenges are opening new opportunities in the fields of research. Alternative energy is becoming more feasible as the price of fossil fuels rises. This is good news for the environment and for our REAL quality of life. We can also project that as alternative energy solutions become more marketable, then more money will be put into research and their efficiency will increase pushing down the cost curve of energy to within acceptable areas. The same applies to food supply as necessity will push the cultivation of arid land, deforestation and the development and implementation of systems that increase crop yield. Handled in the right way this can be an opening for many countries whose economy is dependant on agriculture and who have not had the chance to develop in the past.

Culture Change
Closer the home, we are still grappling with the challenge of changing cultures.
I perceive the biggest challenge here is the mentality of each of us being responsible to the rest in the community. Over the past decades we have implanted a system whereby we expect to be totally free to act, cash in the gain, and pass the pain over to someone else.
We are very quick to demand all types of support from the community. Some think it is their right to behave in most egocentric and irresponsible way and then let the community to pick up the bill.
We, as trustees of the community, will strive to continue to give the best to all the members of the community and to guarantee full accessibility to all services that will improve quality of life. To this effect we will embark on renovating our facilities and systems to ensure that we improve the quality and the delivery of the services that we provide.
I hope that in future contributions I will have the opportunity to discuss the trust in the various areas that I am managing on your behalf.

John Dalli is minister for social policy