Strategic foresight trajectory workshop in Asia and the Pacific

The regional workshop brought together regional experts who reviewed, validated, and refined the global scenario set that UNEP had already formulated, reflecting regional perspectives and underrepresented sociocultural dynamics. The workshop also reviewed the analysis of signals, clustering, and emerging themes to ensure regional relevance. Then, it identified regionally specific areas of interventions or actions, risks, and opportunities.

UNEP’s approach to Strategic Foresight guided the workshop, which aims to establish an institutionalised approach to foresight and horizon scanning. UNEP’s goal is to develop an anticipatory and future-oriented culture, recognising that tackling global systemic challenges requires integrating forward-looking knowledge and insights across disciplines, knowledge systems, and sectors of society. This involved two processes. At the global level, UNEP brought together a Foresight Expert Panel to interpret, analyse, and cluster emerging signals of change based on the results of a horizon scanning survey, providing insight into their potential for disruptive change.

Then, following this global analysis, a series of regional workshops were held to review the global outputs, provide necessary contextualisation, validate and adjust the initial identification of emerging signals of change, and provide information on regionally specific issues, risks, and opportunities.