Locations
Why should we make these foresight exercises participatory?
A participatory approach brings numerous benefits:
- Richer Insights: Stakeholders from diverse backgrounds contribute unique knowledge and experiences, helping to uncover overlooked signals, trends, and barriers. For example, local community leaders might highlight grassroots challenges that are not visible in global datasets.
- Enhanced Buy-In: When stakeholders are involved in the foresight process, they are more likely to engage with and act on the resulting insights. This fosters collaboration and trust. Many UNDP country offices have reported better relationships and trust with their partners after inviting them to collaborative foresight exercises.
- Validation and Refinement: Involving stakeholders helps validate assumptions, challenge biases, and refine outputs like drivers and scenarios.
I think [our partners] trust that we can do [foresight]. That's why we are getting all these requests from new partners, for example, the request to help apply foresight to the gender strategy with the Senate of Uzbekistan. Also, the partners we have already worked with are interested in doing this again. I think this is the best result we could ask for.Farida Ahmatiy, Head of Solutions Mapping, UNDP Uzbekistan Accelerator Labs
Horizon Scanning, at its core, is about identifying emerging signals of change that may impact the future. Making this process participatory ensures that diverse perspectives are incorporated, resulting in richer insights and a broader understanding.
Download a one-pager with tips on making Horizon Scanning participatory
Driver Identification involves clustering and analysing signals to create thematic drivers of change. Making this process participatory ensures that drivers reflect the expertise, priorities, and perspectives of key stakeholders.
Download a one-pager with tips on making Driver Creation participatory
This marks the end of Chapter 1.
You and your team should now have a clear understanding of the Drivers of Chnage that are likley to impact the landscape of development in your context in the future. Armed with this knowledge, you can move onto imagining multiple plausible futures to identify the development challenges and opportunities that emerge.