Foresight Framework
Foresight offers an approach to support transformational change for a more equitable and sustainable global food system. It uses futures thinking and scenario analysis to help diverse food system actors (e.g., rural farmers, food manufacturers, small agri-food businesses, governments) imagine, together, how the future might unfold. Considering future scenarios enables possible risks and vulnerabilities to be understood and mitigated. It also allows for the recognition of opportunities for positive food systems transformation.
The Foresight4Food Initiative has developed a framework and process to guide foresight and scenario analysis for food systems change. The framework, illustrated below, articulates the different dimensions and approaches in foresight and how they relate to each other. It links a participatory process of stakeholder engagement with a strong scientific evidence base and the use of computer-based modelling and visualisation. The approach starts by understanding how food system actors “see” the food system – their actions, values and interests – and their motivation for engaging in foresight. It maps out and examines how social, technical, economic, environmental and political (STEEP) factors interact within food systems, and how food systems are influenced by the power dynamics between actors.
Please click on each part of the framework to learn more about each element.
STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION
Engage all relevant stakeholders to generate shared understanding and commitment for change
- Gaining multiple perspectives
- Recognizing foresight as a cognitive, social and political process
- Using participatory tools and methods
1. Scope the process
Understand stakeholders’ interests and concerns, identify key questions, and outline the process
2. Map the system
Map key elements and relationships of food systems and collect and visualize key information
3. Assess trends & uncertainties
Identify and assess key drivers, trends and critical uncertainties of food systems change
4. Construct scenarios
Use scenarios to identify plausible food systems futures given different uncertainties
5. Assess implications
Assess the implications of different scenarios on food systems and for stakeholders’ interests
6. Explore system changes
Explore directions to improve food systems given stakeholders’ visions and scenario implications
7. Generate pathways of change
Develop and adaptively deploy strategies for change that are desirable and feasible
Cycles iteration and adaptation
EVIDENCE BASE
Utilize science and evidence to ensure well-informed analysis and stakeholder dialogue:
- Stakeholder analysis
- Systems analysis
- Empirical evidence
- Data sets
- Qualitative analysis and insight from actors
- Game theory
Scope the Process
The process starts with a scoping exercise, asking participants questions to understand their interests. This step involves identifying key stakeholder groups and their current and future concerns. Common interests and possible tensions between stakeholders can be identified at this stage.
Map the System
A food systems model is critical to identify and assess key drivers, trends and uncertainties, to develop alternative future scenarios. This step of the process involves mapping out rich pictures of the food system being assessed, creating shared visuals of key elements and relationships in the food system.
Assess Trends and Uncertainties
Analysis of the data and stakeholder views from the mapping exercise lay the groundwork for assessing trends and uncertainties. Keeping the food systems model in mind, the foresight process creates dialogue between stakeholders about their assumptions on how the future food system may unfold and what this implies for their visions and aspirations.
Construct Scenarios
Central to this approach is the development and analysis of future food system scenarios, based on data about key trends and critical uncertainties. This is often the most challenging yet insightful part of the process. It takes various actors ‘outside the box’ to imagine how the future of food systems could be fundamentally different, with what implications.
Assess Implications
The implications of future scenarios provide a foundation for exploring what directions for food systems change would be in the collective interest and how trade-offs or synergies between the specific interests of different groups can be best managed.
Explore System Changes
Once participants have assessed the implications of possible future scenarios, they can better explore possibilities for change. Diverse food system stakeholders work together to explore changes based on their interests and visions, as well as the implications from the scenario development.
Generate Pathways for Change
The final step in the foresight process is to develop practical and realistic pathways for change. Using the desirable future scenarios as goals, participants work together to develop strategies that lead their food system in positive directions.
Stakeholder Participation
Effective foresight must inclusively engage the right stakeholders in setting the foresight questions/demands and in considering the outcomes’ implications. It needs to be a multi-stakeholder process that recognises the different values and diversity of interests of groups and enables debate about trade-offs, such as those between socioeconomic and environmental aspects of various agri-food development pathways. The critical issue is to be clear on the foresight exercise purpose and the motivations of those involved. This will shape who is involved, the way the work is undertaken, the methodologies used and how the boundaries are set for what will be assessed.
Evidence Base
A strong information and knowledge base is at the heart of the foresight process, as we need decisions to be evidence-based. Using a diversity of methods to produce a rich set of resources and information to be used in the systems mapping and foresight process is important. The information must be presented in a way that is easily approachable by the various stakeholders involved.
The food systems model and this foresight approach are then used with the foresight process framework. The foresight process integrates and puts into practice the food systems model and foresight framework.