LocationsAnticipating Tomorrow(s): Why Mongolia Needs Futures Thinking
June 9, 2025
Anticipating Tomorrow(s): Why Mongolia Needs Futures Thinking
In a world increasingly defined by complexity, uncertainty, and rapid change, Mongolia, a democratic, resource-rich, and geographically sandwiched nation between global powers, faces a unique set of development challenges. From building resilience to anticipating long-term risks and shaping proactive policies, the ability to think and anticipate tomorrow’s change has never been more urgent.
That’s why UNDP Mongolia has turned to futures and foresight methodologies not as crystal-ball predictions, but to employ approaches, methods, and tools that can cultivate a mindset and support the country to think more deeply, act more deliberately, and govern more adaptively.
Over the past two years, we have worked to introduce and embed the methodologies into national policymaking by building Mongolia’s strategic foresight capacity through two major initiatives: Mongolia’s Green Transition Scenarios and the AI Futures Mongolia 2050 initiatives.
What is Futures and Foresight?
Think of it like packing for a long trip. You don’t know the exact weather, so you pack for rain, sun, and cold just in case. These methodologies help countries do the same by supporting them to prepare for different futures, not just one guess.
At its core, foresight helps us pause and ask big, long-term questions: What might the future look like if current trends continue? What if unexpected changes disrupt our plans? What should we start preparing for now? And most importantly, what kind of future do we want to create together?
Foresight is the practice of systematically exploring multiple possible futures to better inform decisions today. It helps the country:
- Build resilience against unpredictable futures,
- Identify which policy options that are robust across multiple scenarios by stress testing,
- Engage diverse stakeholders in long-term policy planning
Most importantly, it fosters a mindset of anticipatory governance where the government not only reacts to crises but prepares for complex, interconnected changes in advance.
Foresight in Practice: Mongolia’s Green Transition Scenarios
With the support of the President’s Office of Mongolia, UNDP facilitated a comprehensive Green Transition Scenario Exercise in 2024 to support charting of the country’s environmental, economic, and social pathways to 2050. Using the University of Houston’s Framework Foresight methodology, the exercise aimed to uncover long-term opportunities, threats, and system-wide trade-offs associated with Mongolia’s shift toward a low-carbon, sustainable economy.
The process involved multi-stakeholder workshops and interviews with policymakers, private sector actors, youth, civil society, and academia. It explored five plausible scenarios from techno-nomadic societies to space-linked resource economies. Each scenario integrated crucial themes such as climate adaptation, energy transition, sustainable mining, circular economy, and green education reform.
By modeling diverse scenarios such as “Green Nomadism” and “GreenTech Education,” the foresight exercise enabled stakeholders to:
- Anticipate geopolitical tensions over mineral resources and regional energy diplomacy;
- Evaluate the socio-economic impact of climate-induced migration and urbanization;
- Weigh trade-offs between fossil fuel dependence and renewable futures; and
- Identify system levers such as education, decentralized energy, and gender equity that can enable transformative change.
Insights from this foresight exercise are now being used to inform policy discussions on Mongolia’s LT-LEDS, COP27 commitments, and green finance priorities. More importantly, the scenarios are helping foster a shared national narrative about the future, a critical step in aligning public ambition, government planning, and private investment for a just and green transition.
Foresight for Digital Futures: Mongolia’s AI Scenarios
Mr. Telmen Erdenebileg during the presentation of key findings from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Landscape Assessment for Mongolia and the Mongolia 2050: AI Futures Foresight Exercise.
Building on the momentum, UNDP and the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications (MDDIC) launched the AI Futures Mongolia 2050 exercise in 2025 to explore how AI could drive human development if shaped by Mongolia’s values and priorities.
Using the foresight framework methodology, the initiative combined an analysis of over 500+ signals with stakeholder consultations involving government, tech leaders, academia, and youth. It produced four transformational scenarios:
- Digital Airag – Mongolia as a global leader in culturally adaptive AI;
- Quantum Nomads – A decentralized, AI-integrated society;
- Eternal Algorithm – Ethical AI grounded in core beliefs and nomadic values;
- Algorithmic Arid – A climate-tech innovation hub in a resource-scarce future.
These scenarios revealed risks like brain drain, technology dependency, and governance gaps, as well as opportunities in rural AI innovation, climate adaptation, and cultural tech leadership. They informed Mongolia’s first National AI and Big Data Strategy, now ready to submit for parliamentary review.
The foresight process also highlighted key needs: stronger ethical governance, rural connectivity, and urgent investment in AI talent as Mongolia faces a shortage of over 27,000 ICT professionals, yet enrollment in related university programs remains limited, and the country’s AI talent risks being lost to brain drain.
Future-Fit Governance Starts Now
From Voices from 2050: Mongolian Lives Reimagined, part of the Exploring Mongolia’s Green Transition Futures report.
As Mongolia strives to improve its Human Development Index and strengthen its institutions, future-fit governance needs to become a core part of policymaking. This means:
- Embedding foresight into planning and budgeting processes,
- Investing in cross-sectoral scenario building and systems thinking capability,
- Strengthening participatory platforms for dialogue while prioritizing adaptive capacity within ministries and local governments to ensure more responsive and inclusive policymaking.
Futures thinking is not a luxury but a necessity for sustainable development in an age of uncertainty. Mongolia has strong potential to embed foresight into its policymaking practice, and it is already demonstrating that with the right tools and inclusive dialogue, it can lead forward-looking, strategic conversations that shape resilient and sustainable futures for Mongolia.
Because the future isn’t something we wait for. It is something we shape through the right choices we make today, so that everyone has a chance to thrive.
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