Develop future-ready policies and plans 

As a core part of the UN’s Quintet of Change, UNDP recognises the importance of incorporating foresight in strategic planning, both for our own projects and for planning alongside our partners. 

Foresight is not about predicting the future, but about expanding awareness of what could happen, clarifying the assumptions underpinning today's decisions, and designing actions that remain resilient as conditions change. 

To help UNDP colleagues, partners, policy makers to incorporate foresight into their own planning work, UNDP’s Strategy and Futures team has developed a comprehensive guide on how to use foresight for governmental and developmental planning processes. 

The Foresight for Strategic Planning Toolkit helps policy makers, governments and UNDP partners to develop strategic plans that are resilient against multiple future eventualities, by detailing practical foresight tools and methodologies, including horizon scanning, scenarios, implications analysis, visioning, back casting, and wind tunnelling and stress testing, to convene diverse voices, monitor weak signals, make since of change and anticipate and prepare for multiple possible futures ahead. The guide also provides practical tools and guidance on how to stress test and adjust plans for future fitness, monitor and manage risk and revise ongoing strategies as context changes.