Pluralistic discussionamong foresight producers

a necessity to progress towardsimproved international collective anticipation

capacity

Lessons from Foresight Exchange Workshops / Forward Thinking Platform (2010 – 2012)

Sébastien Treyer (IDDRI), Bernard Hubert (Agropolis)

Foresight and ARD 2010 - 2012

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Thinking Forward Initiative10 different foresights, 32 participants

Organisers : FI4IAR and CTA

Foresight in the GCARD Roadmap

Global Foresight Hub

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Foresight Exchange WorkshopAgriculture and environmental stakes in foresights

16 different foresights, 35 participantsOrganisers : EFARD, Agropolis, Agreenium,

Agrinatura, GFAR, IDDRI, and other regional fora

Identification of 3 main themes

Mobilisation for GCARD 2012

Foresight Exchange Workshop26 participants

Co conveners : Agropolis, Agreenium, GFAR and regional fora

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WG1 Farming patterns of the future

WG2 Sust. consumption & production

WG3 Land use change

Participant institutions and exercises :FAO, SCAR, IFPRI, Millennium Institute,PROCISUR, PBL, Cirad, INRA, IIASA,World Bank, UK Foresight…

Key messages

• Community of practice : yes ! , but• there is a major, complementary and even more specific role

• that can be played through the structured and organised discussion amongforesight producers

• and that increases anticipation capacity beyond a meta analysis of foresights

• It must be organised if we want to produce relevant syntheses

• It must rely on the principle of pluralism of approaches and worldviews (not only of methodologies)

• It must ensure we question one another on the conceptualframeworks / framings that we are using

Outline

1. Foresight as a collective structured pluralistic discussion practice and not just methods

2. Pluralistic discussion : what plurality and why ?

3. How to organise a confrontation of our differences to make itfruitful ?

4. Who should be participating ?

1. Foresight and anticipation capacity :a practice of pluralistic debate

• « Forum prospectif » (Jouvenel, 1964)

• The « manufacture of futures » lies not only in explicit foresight production, but also in many other types of expert production and incomplete vision statementsor implicit assumptions (The politics of anticipation, Futures, Sept 2017)

• Before being a set of methods and approaches, foresight is about ensuring propercritical and public discussion of explicit or less explicit projections into the future

• Debating futures, unvealing implicit assumptions is as important as and complementary to producing new scenarios

• A pluralistic debate among foresight producers / practitioners is necessary

• A structured debate - need for futures literacy

• One important and specific role of a community of practice on foresight

The specific futures challenge for food systems

• The need to build visions and alternative scenarios in order to explore and anticipate possible changes and disruptions

• And not only usual/mainstream conceptual frameworks, keeping unchanged goals, performance criteria and division of labor

• But when the goals are changing and multiple and when these transformations are expected/needed: a need for a renewal of values, concepts and knowledge … and even evaluation criteria

• Inventing the difference that will really make a difference

• In order to be ready before having to face stakes!

• To explore and anticipate not only to adapt!

from the conclusions of the BeijingForesight Exchange Workshop, 2011

Thinking Forward : a public good ?

• Thinking forward : a collective process

• Emerging from dialogue and debates between a diversity of exercises

• In order to put some lights and targets on the map which will indicate the road

• Closely linked to integrated assessments on agricultural information (observation systems, networks, data banks …)

• And to help to set hierarchies on what is at stake according to a diversity of concrete situations (social, geographical, historical …)

from the conclusions of the BeijingForesight Exchange Workshop, 2011

2. What plurality should be exploredand why ?• The obvious : a complementarity of methods

• quantitative projections/simulations + qualitative scenarios / interpretative approaches / participatory processes

• but a much richer typology is necessary

• Framing / Nature, scale and scope of the problem addressed• If we want to think out of the box, we need to be aware of what each foresight excludes from

its framing• All foresight studies intend to be systemic, but they all delineate the boundaries of the

system and what is “the rest of the world”• What can not / does not need to be represented, What selection of scenarios• What solutions can not be represented• Important to enable a reframing / a reformulation of the problem

• Matters of concern : what is put at the centre of the focus

• Lenses / analytical frameworks on the food system, even different worldviews

Plurality also in the way we envisionlinks with decision• Different relations between the changes described and the possibility

of action• Foresight exercises can be more or less finalised, either to inform directly

strategic decision/policy decision, or on the contrary rather to feed a dialogue among stakeholders upstream of any decision process

• Explore the unexpected and disruptions vs discuss necessary transformations and their feasibility

• What do we mean by policy/decision making processes ?

• What theory of change using scenarios or foresight processes to impact the decision process / the change we intend to contribute to in food systems ?

3. Organised confrontation betweenthe plurality of approaches

• Organising the controversy - How to ensure a structured, useful and relevant discussion ?• Discussing futures on their plausibility, coherence, relevance and not comparing

their probability• Possible/impossible/necessary and not true/false• Internal consistency (diachronic and synchronic coehrence), implicit assumptions• Relevance for public debate

• Discussing major drivers of change and of statu quo, disruptions, patterns of transformation, path dependencies, irreversibilities• linking scenarios and pathways to current decisions

• Identifying convergences, divergences and pending debates• Discussing different framings

• A process of “problem framing” more than “problem solving”

Example of results of such a process

• Convergences and divergences on how to feed the world in 2050 (2010, 2011, 2012) – report on the process• Multiple convergences, but also divergences and controversies,

requiring further research

• Long-term outlook needed to guide decisions on research priorities as well as policy actions

• Complementarities of projections and foresights, quantitative and qualitative approaches, disruptive scenarios

• Diversity of methods and institutions desirable

• Key institutions should have long-term perspective teams

Principles and methods

Create synergies by bringing together and confronting different foresight approaches (modeling, scenarios, mixed approaches…)

Integrate the diversity of stakeholder’s perspectives(from global to regional, national and local)

Identify common findings but also controversial visions to explore the range of possible futures

Each foresight approach has a specific framing, and therefore excludes some dimensions : confronting approaches enlarges collective scope

Accept and identify divergences among approaches and worldviews because they reveal key problems for research

Think out-of-the-box, being open to emerging issues

Forward Thinking Platform

Example of debatesfor further research (2010)1. Looking beyond the agriculture sector (structural transformation of the

economy and jobs, food system, urbanization, food and energy)

2. Distributional aspects of devt pathways and development models(allocation of value along the chain, concentration and changes in the chains, types of invt…)

3. Changing paradigms : resilience or productivity, poverty or vulnerability, maintain a range of scientific approaches, paradigms, concepts to develop research on more and more complex issues; the “ecology of research”

Example of divergences (2011)

Calling for further research

• Response to market concentration (role of various stakeholders)

• Response to uneven/unfair distribution

• Trade and regulation (competitiveness of poor farmers, food sovereignty vs food security, addressing vulnerability)

• Need for paradigm change?

• from productivity to resilience of farming systems?

• More focus on poverty alleviation and social safety nets?

But also controversies among worldviews, not necessary to reconcile them!

3 themes emergingfrom confrontation (2012)

1. Farming patterns of the future, the future of farming patterns

2. Sustainable production through sustainable consumption ?

3. Land use changes : looking for agricultural land

Critical transversal lessons (2012)

Need of a global picture (global trade, global public goods), but also localised and contextualised understanding : a challenge for research and for foresight

Heterogeneity will be (should be ?) a feature of future pathways : heterogeneity of patterns of consumption, of supply chain structures, of landscapes, of farming patterns

Can we integrate heterogeneity in our models, and in our mental models ?

Diversity as an asset : conditions for coexistence, coevolution, what strategies for diversity ?

Do we follow changes or can we lead changes ? Foresight can help identify leveraging points to influence direction of changes

4. Who should participate ?

• Future literacy as a condition of proper debate – the practice of foresight as a condition, but also debating capacity as an object of collective learning

• Community of practice open to progressive inclusion of new members

• Organise the search for new members, ensure pluralism

• Ensure there are joint productions with identified users

• How to ensure the implicit manufacture of the future is alsodiscussed / questioned

Conclusion

• « Think out of the box » ? => build on our differences and divergences• Exploring potential disruptions and black swans, but also question common

assumptions, organise a discussion on usual/mainstream framings, build on controversies

• Acknowledge the limits of our epistemic community

• Adapting to risks and disruptions or Designing a future we want ?• Transformations are underway (long term progressive changes and not only

disruptions)• Transformations to sustainability are necessary: innovating on pathways• Changing food systems : exchanging on what needs to change and why it does

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