Futures thinking and strategic foresight are key to helping us address complex issues and deal with significant uncertainty – and to embedding long-term perspectives that consider implications on future generations.
To contribute to fostering this culture of anticipation and preparedness, and to building a multilateral system that remains relevant for current and future generations, the UN Futures Lab/Global Hub and the ISC have collaborated to better understand the concrete and transformational role of futures thinking and strategic foresight in informing decision-making and action.
The outcome of this collaboration is a joint report on “Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight in Action: Insights from the Global South.”
Futures thinking and strategic foresight in action: Insights from the Global South
UN Futures Lab/Global Hub and the International Science Council (2025)
Futures thinking is a long-standing practice for exploring possible futures, identifying emerging trends, and testing new paradigms. It allows societies to better anticipate change, foster intergenerational perspectives and shape better decisions today.
Strategic foresight is a systematic, participatory, future-intelligence gathering and medium- to long-term vision-building process to inform present-day decisions and mobilize joint action. These approaches are not about predicting the future, but about creating capacity to respond to uncertainty with more resilience, imagination, and responsibility.
Futures thinking and strategic foresight help organizations, leaders and policy-makers navigate uncertainty, address complex challenges and promote long-term, sustainable outcomes. It challenges assumptions, engages stakeholders, and envisions alternative pathways.
The spotlight on the Global South is intentional. Although this region possesses rich, locally developed foresight traditions and proven methodologies, its perspectives have too often been sidelined in global dialogues.
To better understand foresight’s practical application, the UN Futures Lab/Global Hub and the ISC issued a call for case studies to highlight approaches developed and used in the Global South that demonstrate the use of futures thinking and foresight in decision-making, planning, and action.
The selected 14 case studies were chosen for their diversity across geography, theme, sectors and stakeholders. They illustrate a range of impacts, primarily through a typology of approaches by desired outcomes, including improved social wellbeing, systems innovation, policy development, organizational change, and inclusion of indigenous knowledge.
The value of foresight is not just in imagining different futures, it is in translating those insights into tangible change. It is important to recognize that foresight exercises alone do not drive change, it is the actions taken in response to foresight insights that truly make a difference.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to futures thinking and strategic foresight practices, six key recommendations resonate across the case studies featured in the report.
1. Exercise bold leadership to shift mindsets and challenge status quo
Leaders must actively cultivate a culture that embraces foresight, challenges dominant paradigms, and drives openness to innovate and novel solutions. Building such a culture is essential to dismantling outdated norms, overcoming systemic barriers, and enabling future-oriented action.
2. Invest decisively in collaborations between scientists, policy-makers, and communities to drive faster, real-world impact
Significant and sustained investment is required to bridge science, policy and societal efforts. Overcoming resistance to change and unlocking collective action demand financial and institutional commitment, particularly where entrenched interests or norms impede forward-looking change.
3. Leverage contextual insights and behavioural science to enhance foresight
Foresight initiatives must recognize the extent of cognitive and behavioural biases, and historical and local contexts. Addressing these influences – including over-optimism and resistance to counter-narratives – is critical to fostering constructive engagement and resilience in the face of uncertainty.
4. Embed inclusive participation and long-term thinking at all levels
Foresight processes must be explicitly inclusive, accessible, and participatory, ensuring that diverse perspectives are integrated from the outset. Gender, age, geographic location, demographics, and diverse backgrounds and perspectives should be recognized in foresight exercises – as should the types and sources of data used.
5. Build systematic foresight capacity and ensure impact measurement
Creating opportunities and mechanisms for capacity-building in foresight and embedding long-term thinking into education, leadership development, and decision-making pipelines is essential to building a future-ready workforce and institutional culture. Foresight exercises must be scaled appropriately, with robust, context sensitive measures of impact to ensure they translate into tangible, sustainable outcomes.
6. Strengthen networks, data access, and evidence-based adaptation
Building strong, dynamic and diverse communities of practice and ensuring open and equitable access to data are fundamental for adaptive policymaking. Collaborative knowledge ecosystems, including indigenous and community-based groups, must be cultivated to drive innovation, share lessons from real-world foresight applications, and embed futures thinking across systems.
By showcasing practical, actionable recommendations for implementing foresight in inclusive, participatory, and impactful ways, this report acknowledges foresight as a living practice, one grounded in community, equity and long-term thinking. In doing so, it contributes to a more forward-looking and anticipatory multilateral system that is fit for future generations.
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