Looking beyond the immediate challenges
(I)CSOs are working in an increasingly complex environment. Many are facing shrinking civic space, funding pressures, and growing uncertainty about the future. At the same time, technological developments such as AI are moving quickly and raising new questions about how organisations operate and create impact. A joint OECD/WEF report published in late 2025 (drawing on 167 foresight practitioners across government, business, academia and civil society) found that AI is transforming foresight practice, from scenario design to systems mapping, but that the benefits are deeply uneven. Organisations with technical capacity and resources are pulling ahead. Smaller CSOs, particularly in the Global South, risk being locked out of the very tools that could help them anticipate and navigate the crises bearing down on them.
In this context, reacting to events as they happen is no longer enough. Organisations also need the capacity to look ahead, identify emerging trends, and consider how these developments might shape their work in the years to come.
Making foresight part of everyday work
Many civil society leaders already recognise the importance of looking ahead. The challenge is often finding ways to make it part of everyday organisational practice.
Futures thinking can support strategic planning, programme design, organisational learning, and decision-making. It can help (I)CSOs to test assumptions, prepare for uncertainty, and identify opportunities that might otherwise be missed.
It is also important that (I)CSOs play an active role in shaping future narratives. Too often, visions of the future are developed elsewhere and then adopted by the sector. Civil society has its own perspectives, experiences, and values that should help inform the futures we imagine and work towards. The growing movement toward participatory and decolonial foresight — exemplified by the Centre’s own Futures of Localisation: Scenarios for Civil Society in 2046, built through consultations across Africa and Latin America — represents a necessary correction.
Starting the conversation
Building futures capacity does not require organisations to become foresight experts overnight. We believe small, practical steps can make a difference.
The International Civil Society Centre’s Toolkit for tomorrow: Anticipating civil society futures offers a range of accessible exercises that organisations can use to explore trends, discuss possible futures, and identify actions they can take today. Taking time to look ahead now, (I)CSOs can be better prepared for whatever comes next.
