Foresight as a process for improving attitude towards change

27 June 2017. The very last webinar of GFAR before the summer was about: "Beyond decision making: Foresight as a process for improving attitude towards change"

Presenters:

1. Robin Bourgeois is an agricultural economist and foresight practitioner from the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). 
2. Tanja Hichert is a leading South African futures and foresight practitioner who specialises in scenario planning, risk scenarios, long-term strategy and horizon scanning. 
3. Katindi Sivi-Njonjo is the founder and lead consultant at LongView Consult, a socio-economic research, policy analysis, foresight strategy and training firm

Presenters addressed the following questions:

• How can foresight help to improve agriculture stakeholders’ and farming communities’ attitude to change? How do you see this happening? Can you give an example of instances where this has happened, in your experience?
• From experience, what are the most effective foresight methods to employ when working with agricultural stakeholders and farming communities? Why?
• How can agriculture and rural development stakeholders transition from pre-active planners based on forecasts to pro-active seekers and agents of change through foresight? What are the incentives the can facilitate this transition and how can foresight practitioners convey these incentives to stakeholders?
• What skills and resources are required to enable agricultural and rural development stakeholders, and farming communities, to engage in foresightanalysis and be positioned to use foresight outputs to catalyse change? How can these skills/resources be facilitated or improved on?
• What role can participatory foresight play in ensuring an inclusive decision making space for rural communities and improving their ability to participate in the ways their futures are determined? What role can development organisations play in facilitating this?