Foresight in African Food Systems

A series of webinars are organized by FARA in partnership with AFAAS and the sub-regional research organizations (i.e. ASARECA, CCARDESA and CORAF). The initiative is meant to facilitate the strengthening of foresight capacity in Africa under these organizations jointly implemented CAADP- XP4 project which funded by the EU and financed through IFAD. 

The Webinar series on Foresight is meant to foster collective intelligence gathering and responses to confronting current and future vulnerabilities in Africa’s food system, especially with the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic.

If there was ever a time that Africa needed to put in place foresight systems, it is now. According to Foresight International (2006): Foresight is “a university human capacity which allows people to think ahead and consider, model, create and respond to, future eventualities”. The advent of COVID-19 has opened many eyes to the realities of unforeseen eventualities.

The primary purpose of the webinars are to:

• Offer support in using foresight and scenario processes to make sense of the COVID-19 and guide adaptive responses.
• Provide a space for sharing observations, concerns, insights, and innovations
• Provide a set of basic frameworks and principles on foresight
• Introduce practical foresight and practical tools
• Facilitate and mentor a virtual foresight and scenario analysis 

22 May 2020. Foresight in Africa’s Food System Webinar

• Dr Jim Woodhill, the first panelist focused on “Assessing the impacts, Learning & Information sharing to foster foresight and scenario analysis in response to uncertainties”. 
• ”We need to put in prison some of the challenges we are yet to encounter in the future before we get there so that our food systems are not compromised” 
• Dr Saher Hasnain, the Research and Community of Practice Coordinator at the Foresight4Food Initiative shared with participants the foresight thinking and the food system, scenarios, frameworks for understanding foresight and tools for conducting foresight.
• Sabrina Chesterman, the Programme Manager for the Adaptation to Climate Change in Rural Areas in Southern Africa (ACCRA) mentioned how CCARDESA through the GIZ Programme is organising a virtual foresight training for climate-resilient agricultural development targeted at various professionals, including those from extension and the media from Southern Africa. 
• Dr Podisi CCARDESA ‘s Research and Advisory Services Thematic Coordinator shared how CCARDESA is working through the SADC climate risk analysis and Resilient Development Pathways Project in which CCARDESA and GIZ are working with ILRI/CCAFS to help use foresight for the local region’s context. This collaboration entails running foresight activities at the regional level including training. These will be scheduled in liaison with FARA to minimise clashes and optimise the participation of stakeholders.

12 June 2020. Tools and Methods in Foresight process: An introduction

Related: Free training webinars on Foresight in climate change resilience will be hosted by the climate Risk analysis and Resilient Development Pathways project every Wednesday at 2-4 pm between 17 June and 22 July 2020.

This training series is a joint initiative of the SADC Secretariat’s Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) Directorate, the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) through the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and German Development Cooperation facilitated through the SADC / Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH ‘Adaptation to Climate Change in Rural Areas’ programme (ACCRA), funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

• The six training webinars will be run every Wednesday 2–4pm (SAST) between Wednesday 17th June and Wednesday 22nd July. The webinars will be conducted on Zoom 
• You will be able to access all resources, including the webinar recordings, presentations, a complementary Toolkit Manual on the CCAFS website: https://bit.ly/SADCfutures.
• In August 2020, the Foresight Training Resource Centre and forthcoming SADC Future’s foresight e-learning course will also be accessible on the CCARDESA website.

Related: 

AGRICA - Climate risk analyses for identifying and weighing adaptation strategies in sub-Saharan Africa project (BMZ/GIZ/ Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) September 2018 - December 2020