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In 2020, the Annual Meeting of the international civil society futures platform Scanning the Horizon will take place in two split online meeting formats between May and September/October.

The first May format will include setting up small working group collaborations to develop new trends analysis as inputs to the second September/October convening and to incorporate analysis of the emerging implications of post-pandemic futures following further developments over the next few critical months. The process has been reworked to incorporate new priorities and interest expressed from conversations with other sector networks/convenors and ICSO strategists in the Scanning community to jointly explore what a changed post-COVID-19 world might mean for civil society organisations, as part of the original theme of ‘interconnectedness’.

Conference Concept and Draft Agenda

Throughout this process, we will explore how international civil society organisations (ICSOs) can strengthen their strategic capacity to analyse how the major global trends influencing their work – both the urgent and the important – might interact with each other to bring about different potential future states, which could drastically shift the relevance and impact of these organisations. The meetings will enable peer exchange between member organisation’s global strategists and foresighters and futures thinkers from diverse private, public, academic and philanthropy backgrounds.

Aims of the meeting

1. Mutual learning between ICSOs and other sectors – private, public, academia, philanthropy – on supporting and strengthening intersectional analysis for better organisational strategic decision-making (May meeting sessions).
2. Develop potential future ‘snapshots’ and collectively analyse emerging implications for ICSOs of some of the key emerging intersections between climate change, civic space and post-COVID-19 responses and developments (September/October convening sessions). This will be developed into a ‘sector guide’ strategic reference document after the meetings.
3. Sharing of tools and facilitation techniques/tips successfully used by organisations to engage internal decision-makers with more complex intersectional trends analysis (September/October convening sessions).