The featured foresight resources give quick access to a diversity of approaches and guides being used by a range of organizations. They help to give an overview of the world of foresight. The featured works will change over time. Being presented here does not imply any endorsement of the resource or methodology by Foresight4Food or the Foresight4Food community members.
Abstract Motivation Being able to anticipate (foresight) and thus identify development pathways and make long-term plans is crucial for the transformation of Africa. However, long-term planning was abandoned as many African countries went into crisis, being mostly forced to adopt structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s. Although long-term planning began to make a comeback in the 1990s, the resulting visions have tended to remain that? visions?not fully reflected in policy implementation. Purpose The article explores the many cycles of foresight in Africa to gain insight into how foresight can become an opportunity to generate new development options and strategies for Africa. Various examples of foresight in Africa are examined to tease out the imperatives for African policy-makers to embed foresight into development management. Approach and Methods We review foresight in Africa, starting by mapping foresight exercises in the continent since independence. We identify three categories of foresight exercises: development partner-led, government-led, and civil society-led. Given the involvement of the authors in some of the exercises, assessments are largely derived from personal communications, recollections, and reflections. Findings Four insights emerge. First, foresight exercises have had little impact on leaders and decision-makers, in large part because they have not been intimately engaged in the exercises. Two, foresight narratives tend to be challenging, raising difficult issues that may require substantial and difficult reforms. Faced with everyday challenges of government, leaders have usually chosen to ignore and disbelieve foresight exercises. Three, foresight analysts have not been sufficiently empathetic to the highly constrained systems of public governance and the ministers and civil servants that operate them. Four, futures initiatives can present the factors that may shape the future as overwhelming; and thereby discounting and undervaluing individual and collective agency. Policy implications Exploring the future is not new in Africa. In traditional African societies, the need to explore the future has been recognized, as captured in proverbs and mythologies. The challenge facing African countries today is how to domesticate and democratize ?modern? foresight so it becomes a way of life for decision-makers and institutions.
Abstract Motivation Foresight is increasingly being institutionalized and used in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy processes around the world. Foresight is a toolbox to help decision-makers generate intelligence about future scientific and technological advances and to frame long-term STI policy goals and rationales. Foresight can be used to inform policy to steer research and innovation (R&I) towards attaining sustainable development goals. Yet, foresight is not institutionalized and used in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) at a time when many governments are formulating new STI policies and some of their science granting councils (SGCs) are setting R&I priorities. Purpose This exploratory study is about challenges and opportunities of institutionalizing STI foresight in SSA. It identifies ways of institutionalizing and using STI foresight. Methods and approach A literature review, bibliometric analysis, interviews, an online survey, and focus group discussions were conducted to identify challenges to, and lessons for, institutionalizing STI foresight in SSA. The literature identified good practices for institutionalizing STI foresight in selected developed countries, to draw lessons for SSA. Findings While academic research on STI foresight and related topics is increasing, there is very limited foresight practice in STI policy processes in SSA. This is mainly owing to low awareness of STI foresight, weak technical capacity, and generally a lack of foresight culture in STI policy-making in the region. Policy implications Building capacity within governments and establishing a community of practice in STI foresight may help improve the quality and effectiveness of STI policy in SSA. It may enable institutions such as science granting councils (SGCs) to make informed funding decisions, targeting scarce resources at priority research and innovation. Overall, building STI foresight literacy and skills, as well as establishing designated offices for STI foresight, supported by the knowledge to select and adapt foresight tools, will result in improved STI policy-making in SSA.
Abstract Motivation Recurring urban flooding in Bengaluru, India, has brought multiple intersecting development challenges to the forefront. While climate change is a catalyst for flooding, rapid urbanisation has aggravated the problem by neglecting its ecological history. Repeated floods have particularly affected migrants living in the slums, further worsening their already vulnerable conditions. Currently, only about 40% of slums are formally recognized by city authorities, leaving most slum dwellers with limited access to public benefits and basic infrastructure. Although the city offers piecemeal solutions, it currently lacks foresight for long-term planning that includes marginalized voices. Purpose We explore the multiple and intertwined development challenges faced by Bengaluru city, attempting to frame them from the perspective of migrant slum dwellers experiencing flooding. We try to bring to the forefront the everyday risks and vulnerabilities of the marginalized populations in Indian cities, which have received limited attention both in research and policy. The results of this exercise are intended to create sustainable collaborative processes to inform future decisions, particularly addressing the problem of urban flooding. Methods and approach Our proposed methodology integrates climate risk assessment?urban flood modelling and exposure mapping of slums across the city?with vulnerability assessments at the household level including analysis of life histories to capture the relative vulnerabilities of slum dwellers and the slums in which they live. Findings We deconstruct urban flooding, particularly from the perspective of migrant slum dwellers to identify some critical challenges, especially that of recognition, to foresight thinking. By incorporating marginalized voices, our methods aim to be inclusive and contextually relevant, while considering intersectional variations among those marginalized. A mixed-methods approach allows climate risk assessment to be augmented by life histories of vulnerable slum populations to collaboratively reimagine a more inclusive future. Policy implications To make policy more inclusive, more participatory processes are needed. The proposed methods will contextualize everyday vulnerabilities and risks of migrant slum dwellers to bring these perspectives into conventional climate risk assessment. Thus, a more inclusive future with lower impacts from urban floods can be envisaged.
Abstract Motivation In the three years before 2023, we have seen multiple parallel crises?from climate emergencies to economic instability, dramatic increases in costs of living, and political insecurities. Looming larger than the risks is the resultant uncertainty. Development agents, including governments, are historically unprepared for managing converging crisis. When risks are analysed and governed in narrow ways, the historically oppressed and excluded continue to carry the brunt of impact. Purpose This article reflects on the question: How can institutions, including governments, become more anticipatory against this backdrop, to ensure that their policy and investment choices do not leave anyone behind due to lack of preparedness? Approach and methods It draws insights from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Asia and the Pacific's efforts since 2020 to apply more future-fit planning and programming, recognizing that foresight is not an end in itself, but a mechanism for shaping more anticipatory institutions. It is based on qualitative learning synthesized from over three years of work to establish new systems, capabilities and processes for UNDP and its partners to engage in anticipatory risk and planning. Findings Practices rooted in strategic foresight and anticipation can support institutions to incorporate long-term thinking in planning and analysis, but their translation into development decisions and investments requires shifts in perspectives and risk appetite. Historically, strategic foresight has not been mainstreamed within international organizations and governments owing to: failing to embed anticipation into core systems and processes; giving more attention to tools and building skills than to the demand for alternative decision-making models and to risk tolerance; relying overly on external support and static models; insufficiently attending to organizational culture and relational drivers of thinking and action. Policy implications We suggest four interconnected levers to help sustain impact and equity when bringing anticipatory approaches into policy processes: ensure design elasticity to encourage local, context-specific models of anticipatory decision-making; build anticipatory systems as a base to understand future risks, harms, and correlating impacts; interrogate what counts as legitimate and relevant evidence for policy decisions; cultivate imagination as an act of inquiry.
Abstract Motivation Strategic foresight is gaining traction for anticipating changes in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world?one which will require different mindsets and approaches. Yet international development co-operation practitioners have been slow to adopt foresight. Purpose What promises and pitfalls should development practitioners consider in order to integrate strategic foresight into their work? Methods and approach We review the literature on strategic foresight applied to development. We draw on reflections from the articles included in this special issue. We incorporate the International Development Research Centre's experiences and early insights on the use of foresight for development. Findings Strategic foresight provides tools to anticipate long-term and potentially disruptive change. To apply the approach effectively, organizations need to understand the debates about foresight. But no one size fits all: organizations must identify where and how foresight can best be used; be clear on its purpose, use, and end-users; be sensitive to how foresight intersects with broader calls for decolonizing development and the future; and should adapt methods to different sociocultural contexts. Connecting foresight practitioners and international development actors to explore potential synergies between these two worlds offers opportunities to innovate. Policy implications Traditional, short-term strategic planning, and reactive responses to emerging crises, are increasingly ill-suited to a VUCA world. To be fit for the future, international development actors must consider adding proactive longer-term anticipatory planning?that accommodates more systematic understanding and appreciation of plausible futures?to reactive responses.
Abstract Motivation Close to a third of the world's population and more than 80% of people living in extreme poverty live in contexts of fragility. With agencies such as the OECD and UNDP conceiving of such places in terms of multiple and serious risks, the framing has come to be one of pathology: fragile contexts are defined by deficits with respect to idealized governance and sustainable development goals. In consequence, development options are locked into managing risks?confining opportunities to develop potential. Purpose Can strategic foresight unlock the development potential of fragile societies? Approach and methods Because there is still little documentation of foresight initiatives in contexts of fragility, the approach here is theoretical and conceptual. We draw on literature from the fields of fragility, foresight, and cognition, as well as insights from expert exchanges and roundtables. Findings It is uncertainty, not risk, that lies at the heart of fragility?an insight that challenges standard decision-making. With the latter being based on analogical reasoning, it cannot be logically applied under conditions of uncertainty. If, instead, we adopt an heuristic for decision-making that acknowledges uncertainty to not only entail risk but also opportunity, strategic foresight is well-placed to help revive development. Policy Implications First, fragility has to be reframed to acknowledge the centrality of uncertainty, not risk, in approaching fragility. Whilst evidence from the past is important, scrutinizing past paradigms and envisioning different futures is crucial. Second, strategic foresight can help uncover fragile societies? capacities and potential. It can help shift from analyses dominated by a concern with lacks and deficits, to analyses which seek relative strengths and opportunities. Just as strong states are not strong in every respect, fragile states may have more to offer than meets the eye. Third, debates need to be more open, less ideologically laden. Dominant thinking on fragility is rife with seemingly imperturbable underpinnings: for example, the mantra that ?without peace there can be no development, and without development there can be no peace.? While such propositions contain some truth, treating them as absolute and universally applicable, limits both thinking and policy options. Strategic foresight is well placed to provide a fresh view on fragility.
Garry Peterson, Julia van Velden, Karina Benessaiah, Keziah Mayer, Laura Pereira, Nyasha Magadzire, Reinette Biggs, Rika Preiser, Tanja Hichert
Abstract
Abstract Motivation Foresight methods are increasingly recognized as essential for decision-making in complex environments, particularly within development and research settings. As foresight methods continue to gain prominence for decision-making, their application in these settings grows. Funders and policy-makers can benefit from the experience of transformative foresight practitioners and researchers who are skilled in designing novel ways to envision alternative and diverse development futures. Purpose The Seeds of Good Anthropocenes (SoGA) initiative has experimented with transformative foresight since its inception in 2016. We position SoGA within the framework of Minkkinen et al. (2019); we present its transformative capacity through participatory visioning; and we explore how foresight methods can shape strategic development options. Approach and methods We draw lessons from how SoGA, used extensively in various contexts around the world, has introduced experimental transformative foresight to deal with diversity and complexity. We describe the transformative foresight processes in detail. Findings SoGA exemplifies how transformative foresight can support policy and change initiatives by providing participants, planners, and decision-makers with opportunities to reinforce the collaborative and transformative objectives of their policy and convening practices. Such engagement not only deepens the strategic impact of policies, it also encourages a more inclusive and participatory approach to policy development, aligning with broader goals for sustainable and impactful change.
As a particular subfield of futures studies, foresight evaluation has not yet been thoroughly studied. This paper investigates research on foresight evaluation, reviewing authors, articles, journals, topics, evaluative elements, and foresight frames. We analyzed 186 academic papers published over the past 30 years. The analysis shows that foresight evaluation, which originated in Europe and partly diffused to North America and Asia, is still an emerging discipline. Research on the evaluation of foresight has covered four topics: 1) Project for Policy, 2) Future Methodology, 3) Technology, and 4) Future Impact; studies in these areas show that there is currently no active research on topics other than technology. Each of these four topics encompasses traditional evaluative elements, such as impact and quality, but few studies reflect the hopeful element of learning. Also, the results of our analysis show that the predictive and planning frames are in high demand, while less predictable frames are not. This study elucidates the reasons behind the inactive state of foresight evaluation research. This paper argues that both researchers and decision-makers have an important role in overcoming this inertia and finding new paths for continuing the development of foresight evaluation.
Andrew Challinor, Carmody Grey, Charlie Spillane, Jon Hellin, Lucas Rutting, Marieke Veeger, Peter Mckeown, Stephen Whitfield, Steve Taylor, Vanessa Meadu
Ebenezer M. Kwofie, Mariana Moncada de la Fuente, Raphael Aidoo, Vincent Abe-Inge
Abstract
Background
Plant-based foods in recent times have received attention from environmentalists due to their lower impacts on the environment. Additionally, they are found to improve health better than animal-based foods. Despite the benefits associated with plant-based diets, their full adoption faces several interconnected barriers.
Scope and approach
The review aimed to comprehensively highlight the barriers against plant-based food adoption. It also aimed to outline the progress, trends and supporting factors in plant-based food manufacturing and plant-based food consumption. The review finally discusses strategies to overcome the identified barriers against the adoption of plant-based foods.
Key findings
It was found that aside from social, economic, nutritional, legal, religious, and cultural barriers, most of the raw materials used in manufacturing plant-based foods are sources of major food allergens. Regardless, plant-based alternative food manufacturing is spreading worldwide, and research activities focused on plant-based foods have tripled in the last three years. In conclusion, despite the existing barriers, the plant-based and alternative protein industry appears to thrive, and measures to address the identified barriers have emerged and are yielding a positive impact.
Ebenezer M. Kwofie, Mariana Moncada de la Fuente, Raphael Aidoo, Vincent Abe-Inge
Abstract
Background
Plant-based foods in recent times have received attention from environmentalists due to their lower impacts on the environment. Additionally, they are found to improve health better than animal-based foods. Despite the benefits associated with plant-based diets, their full adoption faces several interconnected barriers.
Scope and approach
The review aimed to comprehensively highlight the barriers against plant-based food adoption. It also aimed to outline the progress, trends and supporting factors in plant-based food manufacturing and plant-based food consumption. The review finally discusses strategies to overcome the identified barriers against the adoption of plant-based foods.
Key findings
It was found that aside from social, economic, nutritional, legal, religious, and cultural barriers, most of the raw materials used in manufacturing plant-based foods are sources of major food allergens. Regardless, plant-based alternative food manufacturing is spreading worldwide, and research activities focused on plant-based foods have tripled in the last three years. In conclusion, despite the existing barriers, the plant-based and alternative protein industry appears to thrive, and measures to address the identified barriers have emerged and are yielding a positive impact.
Andrzej Tabeau, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, John Magrath, Joost Mattheus Vervoort, Maliha Muzammil, Monika Zurek, Saeed Moghayer, Thom Achterbosch
Abstract
Feeding and nourishing a growing global population in Bangladesh is a major challenge in a changing climate. A multi-level participatory scenario approach with corresponding modeling and decision support tools is developed and applied to support decision-makers in developing scenario-guided enabling policy for food security in the future under climate change. The results presented in this paper show how, under different scenarios, the agri-food system may transform in the next decade as a result of the interaction of intertwined institutional, technological, and market drivers in Bangladesh. For scenario building, the food and agriculture community was brought together with the climate and energy community. We also experimented with different ways to bring voices that are often less included in policymaking, such as poor rural communities and youth. The scenario quantification is performed by MAGNET, a GTAP-based multi-sector and multi-region computable general equilibrium model. The simulation results depict a comprehensive picture of corresponding and varied pressures on agricultural resources and opportunities for economic development and trade in Bangladesh. Finally, we did an ex-ante assessment of the trade-offs and synergies between zero-hunger- and zero-emission-related targets within the Bangladesh Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the developed scenarios.
This guide is a basic reference on systems thinking and practice tailored to the context and needs of the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). It is an output of the FCDO Knowledge for Development Programme (K4D), which facilitated a Learning Journey on Systems Thinking and Practice with FCDO staff during 2021 and 2022. The guide offers a common language and shared framing of systems thinking for FCDO and its partners. It explores what this implies for working practices, business processes and leadership. It also offers links to additional resources and tools on systems thinking. We hope it can support systems thinking to become more commonplace within the culture and practices of FCDO and working relations with partner organisations.
Camille Jahel, Christophe Le Page, Etienne Delay, Jérémy Bourgoin, Marc Piraux, Marie De Lattre-Gasquet, Patrice Dumas, Robin Bourgeois, Rémi Prudhomme, William's Daré
Abstract
Urgent calls to transform societies toward more sustainability make the practice of anticipation more and more necessary. The progressive development of computational technologies has opened room for a growing use of quantitative methods to explore the future of social-ecological systems, in addition to qualitative methods. This warrants investigating issues of power relationships and discontinuities and unknowns that arise when mingling quantitative and qualitative anticipatory methods. We first reflected on the semantics attached to these methods. We then conducted a comparative analysis on the way the articulation of quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted, based on an in-depth analysis of a set of eleven anticipatory projects completed by several external case studies. We propose insights to classify projects according to the timing (successive, iterative or convergent) and the purpose of the articulation (imagination, refinement, assessment and awareness raising). We use these insights to explore methodological implications and power relationships and then discuss the ways to inform or frame anticipatory projects that seek to combine these methods.
Barbara Bok, Carina Wyborn, Carla Alexandra, Elena M. Bennett, Erin Bohensky, Garry Peterson, Jan J. Kuiper, Jorge G. Alvarez-Romero, Kasper Kok, Laura Pereira, Magnus Moglia, Marta Berbés-Blázquez, Rebecca Weeks, Robert Costanza, Rosemary Hill, Shizuka Hashimoto, Sohail Inayatullah, Steven Cork
Abstract
Many challenges posed by the current Anthropocene epoch require fundamental transformations to humanity's relationships with the rest of the planet. Achieving such transformations requires that humanity improve its understanding of the current situation and enhance its ability to imagine pathways toward alternative, preferable futures. We review advances in addressing these challenges that employ systematic and structured thinking about multiple possible futures (futures-thinking). Over seven decades, especially the past two, approaches to futures-thinking have helped people from diverse backgrounds reach a common understanding of important issues, underlying causes, and pathways toward optimistic futures. A recent focus has been the stimulation of imagination to produce new options. The roles of futures-thinking in breaking unhelpful social addictions and in conflict resolution are key emerging topics. We summarize cognitive, cultural, and institutional constraints on the societal uptake of futures-thinking, concluding that none are insurmountable once understood. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 48 is October 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Camille Jahel, Christophe Le Page, Etienne Delay, Jérémy Bourgoin, Marc Piraux, Marie De Lattre-Gasquet, Patrice Dumas, Robin Bourgeois, Rémi Prudhomme, William's Daré
Abstract
Urgent calls to transform societies toward more sustainability make the practice of anticipation more and more necessary. The progressive development of computational technologies has opened room for a growing use of quantitative methods to explore the future of social-ecological systems, in addition to qualitative methods. This warrants investigating issues of power relationships and discontinuities and unknowns that arise when mingling quantitative and qualitative anticipatory methods. We first reflected on the semantics attached to these methods. We then conducted a comparative analysis on the way the articulation of quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted, based on an in-depth analysis of a set of eleven anticipatory projects completed by several external case studies. We propose insights to classify projects according to the timing (successive, iterative or convergent) and the purpose of the articulation (imagination, refinement, assessment and awareness raising). We use these insights to explore methodological implications and power relationships and then discuss the ways to inform or frame anticipatory projects that seek to combine these methods.
Jyrki Aakkula, Kalle Aro, Karoliina Rimhanen, Pasi Rikkonen
Abstract
Food systems are increasingly exposed to disruptions and shocks, and they are projected to increase in the future. Most recently, the war in Ukraine and Covid-19 pandemic has increased concerns about the ability to secure the availability of food at stable prices. This article presents a food system resilience framework to promote a national foresight system to better prepare for shocks and disruptions. Our study identified four key elements of resilience: system thinking through science and communication; redundancy of activities and networks; diversity of production and partners; and buffering strategies. Three national means to enhance resilience in the Finnish food system included domestic protein crop production, renewable energy production, and job creation measures. Primary production was perceived as the cornerstone for food system resilience, and the shocks and disruptions that it confronts therefore call for a sufficient and diverse domestic production volume, supported by the available domestic renewable energy. A dialogue between different actors in the food system was highlighted to format a situational picture and enable a rapid response. Our study suggests that to a certain point, concentration and interdependence in the food system increase dialogue and cooperation. For critical resources, sufficient reserve stocks buffer disruptions over a short period in the event of unexpected production or market disruptions. Introducing and strengthening the identified resilience elements and means to the food system call for the preparation of a more holistic and coherent food system policy that acknowledges and emphasises resilience alongside efficiency.
Angel Medina-Vaya, Fiona A. Lickorish, Joao Delgado, Kenisha Garnett, Leon A. Terry, Naresh Magan, Paul Leinster, Simon J. T. Pollard
Abstract
Scenarios are used to examine systemic change in food systems so policy makers can craft opportunities to improve the management of uncertainty and shape food policy. We present a number of alternative scenarios of the food system for 2035, developed with the Food Standards Agency, the independent government department working to protect public health and consumers’ interest in relation to food for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. To build scenarios we employed morphological analysis; a non-quantified method for modelling multiple scenario variables (food system drivers, projections), simulating their interactions and all possible scenario combinations. A cross-consistency analysis compared all possible scenario combinations to identify which set of driver projections formed a logical (internally consistent) scenario. Recently, we augmented the scenarios to consider the potential impacts and consequences of Brexit and the pandemic on consumer food safety. Outputs illustrate the consequences of extreme impacts emerging from an optimistic (Global Trading) and pessimistic (Resource Tensions) future for the food system. The scenarios establish a context for foresight in decision-making and a framework for evaluating the robustness of policies considering the opportunities and challenges arising from Brexit and a global pandemic.
•Morphological scenarios examine systemic change in food systems to address uncertainty.•Scenario outputs reveal risks and opportunities related to change in food systems.•Building capacity in scenario development helps to future-proof policy approaches.•Scenarios establish links between foresight and the policy process.
Alejandro Guarin, Amos Laar, Andrea Cattaneo, Anna Herforth, Brent Loken, Carlo Cafiero, Carlos Gonzalez Fischer, Carola Fabi, Christine Campeau, Christophe Béné, Christopher Golden, Danielle Resnick, Destan Aytekin, Deviana Dewi, Diana Suhardiman, Fabrice DeClerck, Francesco N. Tubiello, Gina Kennedy, Hernán Muñoz, Ismahane Elouafi, Jane Battersby, Jessica Fanzo, Jessica Gephart, Jikun Huang, Jose Rosero Moncayo, Jose-Luis Vivero-Pol, Kate R. Schneider, Keith Wiebe, Kerstin Damerau, Lais Miachon, Lawrence Haddad, Maddalena Honorati, Mario Herrero, Maximo Torero Cullen, Michael Di Girolamo, Michaela Saisana, Naina Qayyum, Namukolo Covic, Nancy Aburto, Pat Foley, Patrick Caron, Patrick Webb, Paulina Bizzoto Molina, Piero Conforti, Preetmoninder Lidder, Quinn Marshall, Ramya Ambikapathi, Rattan Lal, Rebecca McLaren, Roseline Remans, Sheryl Hendriks, Simon Barquera, Stella Nordhagen, Ty Beal, Tyler J. Frazier, U. Rashid Sumaila, Yuta J. Masuda
Abstract
This Analysis presents a recently developed food system indicator framework and holistic monitoring architecture to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience. Each theme is divided into three to five indicator domains, and indicators were selected to reflect each domain through a consultative process. In total, 50 indicators were selected, with at least one indicator available for every domain. Harmonized data of these 50 indicators provide a baseline assessment of the world’s food systems. We show that every country can claim positive outcomes in some parts of food systems, but none are among the highest ranked across all domains. Furthermore, some indicators are independent of national income, and each highlights a specific aspiration for healthy, sustainable and just food systems. The Food Systems Countdown Initiative will track food systems annually to 2030, amending the framework as new indicators or better data emerge.
The ability of food systems to feed the world’s population will continue to be constrained in the face of global warming and other global challenges. Often missing from the literature on future food security are different scenarios of population growth. Also, most climate models use given population projections and consider neither major increases in mortality nor rapid declines in fertility. In this paper, we present the current global food system challenge and consider both relatively high and relatively low fertility trajectories and their impacts for food policy and systems. Two futures are proposed. The first is a “stormy future” which is an extension of the “business as usual” scenario. The population would be hit hard by conflict, global warming, and/or other calamities and shocks (e.g., potentially another pandemic). These factors would strain food production and wreak havoc on both human and planetary health. Potential increases in mortality (from war, famine, and/or infectious diseases) cannot be easily modeled because the time, location, and magnitude of such events are unknowable, but a challenged future is foreseen for food security. The second trajectory considered is the “brighter future,” in which there would be increased access to education for girls and to reproductive health services and rapid adoption of the small family norm. World average fertility would decline to 1.6 births per woman by 2040, resulting in a population of 8.4 billion in 2075. This would put less pressure on increasing food production and allow greater scope for preservation of natural ecosystems. These two trajectories demonstrate why alternative population growth scenarios need to be investigated when considering future food system transitions. Demographers need to be involved in teams working on projections of climate and food security.
Scenarios of global food consumption : implications for agriculture
2023
Birgit Meade, James L. Seale, Riley Seeger, Ronald (Ronald D.) Sands, Sherman Robinson
Abstract
The global land base is under increasing pressure to provide food for a growing population. This report describes how increasing population, income, and agricultural productivity may affect global production and consumption of crops and food products by 2050. Results show that in an income-driven food demand scenario, production of world crop calories increases by 47 percent from 2011 to 2050. Demand for food calories and crop calories increases over time in all scenarios, with most of the adjustment through increases in crop yield (intensification). The amount of cropland also increases (extensification) but less on a percentage basis
This report aims at inspiring strategic thinking and actions to transform agrifood systems towards a sustainable, resilient and inclusive future, by building on both previous reports in the same series as well as on a comprehensive corporate strategic foresight exercise that also nurtured FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31. It analyses major drivers of agrifood systems and explores how their trends could determine alternative futures of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems. The fundamental message of this report is that it is still possible to push agrifood systems along a pattern of sustainability and resilience, if key “triggers” of transformation are properly activated. However, strategic policy options to activate them will have to “outsmart” vested interests, hidden agendas and conflicting objectives, and trade off short-term unsustainable achievements for longer-term sustainability, resilience and inclusivity.
Agrifood systems are undergoing a transformation with the aim to provide safer, more affordable, and healthier diets for all, produced in a sustainable manner while delivering just and equitable livelihoods: a key to achieving the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, this transformation needs to be executed in the global context of major challenges facing the food and agriculture sectors, with drivers such as climate change, population growth, urbanization, and natural resources depletion compounding these challenges.
Food safety is a keystone to agrifood systems and all food safety actors need to keep pace with the ongoing transformation while preparing to navigate the potential threats, disruptions, and challenges that may arise. Foresight in food safety facilitates the proactive identification of drivers and related trends, both within and outside agrifood systems, that have implications for food safety and therefore also for consumer health, the national economy, and international trade. Early identification and evaluation of drivers and trends promote strategic planning and preparedness to take advantage of emerging opportunities and address challenges in food safety.
In this publication, the FAO Food Safety Foresight programme provides an overview of the major global drivers and trends by describing their implications for food safety in particular and for agrifood systems by extrapolation. The various drivers and trends reported include climate change, changing consumer behaviour and preferences, new food sources and production systems, technological advances, microbiome, circular economy, food fraud, among others.
The intended audience for this publication is broad – from the policymakers, academia, food business operators, private sector, to all of us, the consumers.
For organizations embarking on a foresight initiative, the most important aspect to determine is the intended outcome. Are you looking for insight, or action? Do you want to focus on concepts that have some degree of certainty, or more nascent and emerging concepts? Depending on your answer, Future Today Institute can determine the kind of engagement that would suit you best.
Anticipation methods and tools are increasingly used to try to imagine and govern transformations towards more sustainable futures across different policy domains and sectors. But there is a lack of research into the steering effects of anticipation on present-day governance choices, especially in the face of urgently needed sustainability transformations. This paper seeks to understand how different perspectives on anticipatory governance connect to attempts to guide policy and action toward transformative change. We analyze perspectives on anticipatory governance in a global network of food system foresight practitioners (Foresight4Food) – using a workshop, interviews, and a survey as our sources of data. We connect frameworks on anticipatory governance and on transformation to analyse different perspectives on the future and their implications for actions in the present to transform food systems and offer new insights for theory and practice. In the global Foresight4Food network, we find that most foresight practitioners use hybrid approaches to anticipatory governance that combine fundamentally different assumptions about the future. We also find that despite these diverse food futures, anticipation processes predominantly produce recommendations that follow more prediction-oriented forms of strategic planning in order to mitigate future risks. We further demonstrate that much anticipation for transformation uses the language on deep uncertainty and deliberative action without fully taking its consequences on board. Thus, opportunities for transforming future food systems are missed due to these implicit assumptions that dominate the anticipatory governance of food systems. Our combined framework helps researchers and practitioners to be more reflexive of how assumptions about key human systems such as food system futures shape what is prioritized/marginalized and included/excluded in actions to transform such systems.
Heleen Mees, Joost Vervoort, Lucas Rutting, Peter Driessen
Abstract
In recent decades, foresight has been connected to various disciplines that engage with complex societal problems, leading to specific interpretations of foresight. We offer an interdisciplinary perspective on foresight's increasing use for governance of social-ecological systems (SES). We seek to strengthen the use of foresight in this domain by bridging to insights from other disciplines that can help overcome its limitations. Participatory foresight for SES governance offers potential to elicit thinking about uncertainty and complexity, facilitate dialogue between stakeholders, and improve inclusiveness of governance processes, but often fails to be sufficiently reflexive and politically aware to be truly impactful and inclusive. It can be strengthened, we argue, by a more thorough integration with adjacent research fields: critical futures studies, critical systems theory and environmental governance. We distill key insights from these fields, including the importance of being politically reflexive about whose perspectives are considered, whom foresight processes should benefit, and the importance of co-producing methodology and outcomes. We encourage scholars and practitioners to further explore integration with these fields, highlighting the importance of inter- and transdisciplinary teams. Finally, we offer an example for how limitations of foresight as used in a particular field can be overcome through interdisciplinary integration.
Allison Grove Smith, Amy R Beaudreault, Andrew Ash, Christopher B Barrett, Holger Meinke, Lesley Torrance, Mandefro Nigussie, Nighisty Ghezae, Suneetha Kadiyala
Abstract
Foresight and trade-off analyses offer organizations such as CGIAR an opportunity to better prepare for alternative futures through adaptive research strategy and management. This essay introduces a set of papers that explore foresight and trade-off analyses within the context of the major reforms now occurring in the CGIAR. We tease out lessons not only for One CGIAR, but also for international development research organizations more broadly.
Global Food and Nutrition Security
In order to create sustainable food systems, producers, eaters, businesses, governments, and the funding and donor communities must understand how to quantify and understand the real costs of food. Advocates of the economic model known as True Cost Accounting (TCA) recognize that if we do not assess and account for everything that goes into producing and consuming food as well as the impact it has on people and the environment, we risk continuing on a path of damage to the planet and public health.
Looking across diverse food system futures: Implications for climate change and the environment
2021
Aniek Hebinck, Monika Zurek, Odirilwe Selomane
Abstract
Agriculture and food systems are in urgent need of transformation. Various foresight reports unpack food systems’ challenges and propose diverse pathways of change towards sustainability. We interrogate the framings and proposed pathways of eleven selected reports from a food system perspective, with a focus on environmental and climate change implications. We synthesize key drivers of food systems and their impact on food system outcomes. We distil trends and strategies identified across the reports and their scenarios and discuss the diversity of ‘sustainability pathways’ and ‘solution spaces’. There is general agreement that resource protection and adaptation balanced with significant greenhouse gas emission reductions are vital to food system transformation. There is less consensus on the choice of change options and how to address potential trade-offs. While new technologies or consumption changes are described, more attention needs to be paid to overcoming blind spots like implications for equity or changes in governance mechanisms.
In 2021, those working to build food systems that are just, equitable, and operate within planetary boundaries have our work cut out for us. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and rapidly declining soil
fertility are critically damaging the health of people and the planet, dislocating societies, and threatening food systems around the world. Five years into a global commitment to eliminate hunger by 2030, we have lost significant ground. In 2019, an estimated 690 million people were hungry and upwards of 2 billion lacked regular access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food. This was before COVID-19 added approximately 130 million people to the world’s hungry, pushed uncounted millions more to the brink of hunger, and put one third of food and farming livelihoods at risk.
At the same time, the locus of power in food systems and the broader global economy is shifting at dizzying speed. In 2008, the world’s most powerful corporations drilled oil wells and traded stocks. Twelve years later, the world’s five corporate titans all deal in intangible data and have a market valuation that exceeds the GDP of entire continents. The new biodigital giants are now primed for the next step: unleashing big data and digital DNA into the world's pharmacies, food markets, and financial systems. 'Multi-stakeholderism’ is everywhere as corporations – sensing the social and environmental tipping points ahead – seek to draw governments, scientists and a handful of civil society organizations into an artificial new multilateralism.
Against this backdrop, we consider what food systems could look like by 2045 if (agri)business-as-usual is allowed to run its course. We also imagine what could happen if, instead, the initiative is reclaimed by civil society and social movements – from grassroots organizations to international NGOs,
from farmers’ and fishers’ groups, to cooperatives and unions. We consider what this ‘Long Food Movement’ could achieve if it succeeds in thinking decades ahead, collaborating across sectors, scales, and strategic differences, working with governments and pressuring them to act, and transforming financial flows, governance structures, and food systems from the ground up.
This note explains the value of strategic foresight and provides implementation advice based on the IMF’s experience with scenario planning and policy gaming. Section II provides an overview of strategic foresight and some of its tools. Scenario planning and policy gaming have been the Fund’s main foresight techniques so far, though other tools have been complementary. Accordingly, section III focuses on the scenario planning by illustrating applications before detailing the methods we have been using, while section IV describes policy gaming including the matrix policy gaming approach with which we have experimented so far. Section V summarizes the key points. In so doing, the note extends an invitation to those in the economics and finance fields (e.g., researchers, policymakers) to incorporate strategic foresight in their analysis and decision making.
Today, more than ever, decision-making needs well-founded information on how the world changes in the coming times. The future behaviour of trends, the emergence of weak signals and the disruptive unfolding of wild cards all need to be taken into consideration in strategising, risk analysis, planning and innovation to future-proof these processes.
United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration
Abstract
The United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) has developed
a set of principles of effective governance for sustainable development. The essential
purpose of these voluntary principles is to provide interested countries with practical,
expert guidance on a broad range of governance challenges associated with the
implementation of the 2030 Agenda. CEPA has identified 62 commonly used strategies to
assist with the operationalization of these principles. This guidance note addresses
strategic planning and foresight, which is associated with the principle of sound
policymaking and can contribute to strengthening the effectiveness of institutions. It is
part of a series of such notes prepared by renowned experts under the overall direction
of the CEPA Secretariat in the Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government of
the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Citizens rightly expect government policy that creates long-term benefits for society. To deliver this aim we need more than policy proposals which work well in the present context. We also need to understand what is changing beyond a policy area, how those changes might affect its impact, and how we might adapt policy proposals in response. Futures thinking and foresight tools provide government with a structured approach that is robust and responds to long-term change. The future is inherently uncertain and complex. To deliver long-term benefits we need to monitor and make sense of possible future change, explore the dynamics and uncertainties of that change, describe what the future might be like and understand potential implications. This guide will introduce you to resources for all these areas.
Scenario exercises can aid decision-making where uncertainty exists. Four future food system scenarios for the UK are explored here for implications on dietary shifts, food waste, biodiversity and food prices.
Scenario exercises can aid decision-making where uncertainty exists. Four future food system scenarios for the UK are explored here for implications on dietary shifts, food waste, biodiversity and food prices.
Scenarios for UK Food and Nutrition Security in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic
2021
Alba Juárez-Bourke, Altea Lorenzo-Arribas, Dominic Duckett, Mike Rivington, Richard King
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a major shock to both UK and global Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) and the full impacts yet contain many unknowns. This report presents a Scenario Planning exercise that has examined current trends and evaluated plausible, future developments to support policy responses. Allowing that the future is inherently unknowable, using scenarios can help to inform contingency planning. This foresight exercise develops four scenarios for alternative UK agricultural land use, land management and supply chain relationships to better understand the consequences for Food and Nutrition Security and long-term environmental sustainability, both in the UK and overseas.
A. M. Rojas, A. Smajgl, A. Voinov, B. A. Bryan, E. A. Moallemi, E. G. Ritchie, E. Nicholson, F. J. de Haan, K. K. Miller, K. Szetey, M. A. Shaikh, M. Hadjikakou, M. Stafford Smith, P. Lamichhane, R. Bandari, S. Khatami, S. Malekpour, W. Novalia
Abstract
Abstract The achievement of global sustainability agendas, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, relies on transformational change across society, economy, and environment that are co-created in a transdisciplinary exercise by all stakeholders. Within this context, environmental and societal change is increasingly understood and represented via participatory modeling for genuine engagement with multiple collaborators in the modeling process. Despite the diversity of participatory modeling methods to promote engagement and co-creation, it remains uncertain what the extent and modes of participation are in different contexts, and how to select the suitable methods to use in a given situation. Based on a review of available methods and specification of potential contextual requirements, we propose a unifying framework to guide how collaborators of different backgrounds can work together and evaluate the suitability of participatory modeling methods for co-creating sustainability pathways. The evaluation of method suitability promises the integration of concepts and approaches necessary to address the complexities of problems at hand while ensuring robust methodologies based on well-tested evidence and negotiated among participants. Using two illustrative case studies, we demonstrate how to explore and evaluate the choice of methods for participatory modeling in varying contexts. The insights gained can inform creative participatory approaches to pathway development through tailored combinations of methods that best serve the specific sustainability context of particular case studies.
Foods for Plant-Based Diets: Challenges and Innovations
2021
A Alcorta, A Porta, A Tárrega, MD Alvarez, MP Vaquero
Abstract
Background document to the FAO e-conference on “ The Role of Small Farms Within a Larger Context of Food Security ” 1 . Global Context 2 . The SALSA Project
2020
FAO
Abstract
Global Sustainable Agriculture Investing : Global Sustainable Agriculture Investing : Helping Farmers , Helping The Earth