Global trends 2025

The original publication is available at http://www.hichert.co.za/global-trends-2025/The National Intelligence Council's (NIC) 2025 Global Trends report deals with how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. It contains a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, amongst others in the form of four global scenarios and 2025 Global Landscape 'certainties' and 'uncertainties'. An overview of the report is provided with content highlights, extracts from the 2025 Global Landscape and selected commentary about sub-Saharan Africa

Planning and strategising during turbulence

The original publication is available at http://www.hichert.co.za/planning-and-strategising-during-turbulance/The business landscape (organisations’ contextual environment) is characterised by turbulence which describes conditions which are uncertain, complex and volatile. Standard forecasting and planning tools as well as standard winning strategies are inadequate in these conditions. Scenario planning and collaborative value-building strategies are described as alternatives

Combining theory and wisdom in pragmatic, scenario-based decision support for sustainable development

Researchers have increasingly acknowledged the relative strength of ‘hybrid’ approaches to scenario analysis for exploring the futures of coupled human-nature systems. In this paper, we explain, demonstrate, and provisionally evaluate the usefulness of a simple analytical framework, based on five categories of capital assets, as part of a protocol for overcoming the conversion problem in hybrid scenario analysis. Based on a preliminary application of the framework to a case study in South Africa, we suggest that the five capitals framework has the potential to improve expedience and counter the bias against ‘soft’ drivers in hybrid approaches to scenario analysis. However, in light of the methodological trade-off between rigour and expedience, we suggest that future research needs to compare the available protocols for hybrid scenario analysis by weighing up the relative gain in scenario quality versus the relative cost of scenario construction.The South African Maize Trusthttp://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjep202019-04-04hj2018Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Developmen

Combining theory and wisdom in pragmatic, scenario-based decision support for sustainable development

<p>Researchers have increasingly acknowledged the relative strength of ‘hybrid’ approaches to scenario analysis for exploring the futures of coupled human-nature systems. In this paper, we explain, demonstrate, and provisionally evaluate the usefulness of a simple analytical framework, based on five categories of capital assets, as part of a protocol for overcoming the conversion problem in hybrid scenario analysis. Based on a preliminary application of the framework to a case study in South Africa, we suggest that the five capitals framework has the potential to improve expedience and counter the bias against ‘soft’ drivers in hybrid approaches to scenario analysis. However, in light of the methodological trade-off between rigour and expedience, we suggest that future research needs to compare the available protocols for hybrid scenario analysis by weighing up the relative gain in scenario quality versus the relative cost of scenario construction.</p

Disruptive seeds: a scenario approach to explore power shifts in sustainability transformations

Over the last 2 decades, it has become increasingly evident that incremental adaptation to global environmental challenges—particularly climate change—no longer suffices. To make matters worse, systemic problems such as social inequity and unsustainable use of resources prove to be persistent. These challenges call for, such is the rationale, significant and radical systemic changes that challenge incumbent structures. Remarkably, scholarship on sustainability transformations has only engaged with the role of power dynamics and shifts in a limited fashion. This paper responds to a need for methods that support the creation of imaginative transformation pathways while attending to the roles that power shifts play in transformations. To do this, we extended the “Seeds of Good Anthropocenes” approach, incorporating questions derived from scholarship on power into the methodology. Our ‘Disruptive Seeds’ approach focuses on niche practices that actively challenge unsustainable incumbent actors and institutions. We tested this novel approach in a series of participatory pilot workshops. Generally, the approach shows great potential as it facilitates explicit discussion about the way power shifts may unfold in transformations. It is a strong example of the value of mixing disciplinary perspectives to create new forms of scenario thinking—following the call for more integrated work on anticipatory governance that combines futures thinking with social and political science research into governance and power. Specifically, the questions about power shifts in transformations used in this paper to adapt the Seeds approach can also be used to adapt other future methods that similarly lack a focus on power shifts—for instance, explorative scenarios, classic back-casting approaches, and simulation gaming