Discover and learn from the Solidarity Playbook on cybersecurity
Strengthening cybersecurity
With increased digitalisation (international) civil society organisations – (I)CSOs – have faced an increase in digital threats and cyberattacks carried out by malicious actors interested in financial gains...
Every year, institutions release their trend reports. Recently, the World Economic Forum identified four different environmental issues as the most significant risks facing the world in the next 10 years. The UNDP Trends Report cites four climate-related trends in its top 13 themes. However, we know climate change is not merely a future trend, we are already feeling the damaging effects of climate change. February 2024 was globally the warmest on record.
The Scanning the Horizon Community, hosted by the International Civil Society Centre, investigates trends and signals affecting civil society and looks to apply this learning and approach to Civil Society Organisations. At the start of the year, the Scanning Community met to examine and explore those areas where digital technology and the environment converge.
We delved into a thought-provoking workshop to understand the intricate relationship between digital technologies and sustainability. Taking the Doughnut Economic Model – a framework, developed by Kate Raworth, that challenges traditional notions of economic success and sustainability, – we were able to use the ‘Digital Doughnut’, a visual tool that helped us explore the nuances of our digital footprint.
The Doughnut Economic Model offers a holistic approach to sustainable development. It visualises a “safe and just space for humanity,” represented by the area between the inner and outer rings of the doughnut. The inner ring denotes the minimum standards of well-being that every person should have access to, as outlined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Meanwhile, the outer ring represents the planetary boundaries we must not exceed to safeguard the health of our planet.
Doughnut Economics
This model prompts us to consider not only the immediate impacts of our actions but also their long-term consequences on both people and the planet. By framing sustainability within this broader context, we are compelled to think beyond mere environmental conservation and examine the systemic issues at play.
The intersection of technology and sustainability is a pressing issue in today’s world. While technological advancements offer huge benefits, they also pose significant challenges to our environment and society. From the proliferation of electronic waste to the energy-intensive nature of digital infrastructure, the digital sector has a substantialecological footprint. We do not always think about the physical and environmental infrastructure of digital technology. Cloud technology, for example, requires a significant amount of energy and waste. A Google data centre uses450,000 litres of water per day. Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes. There is often a hidden environmental cost to all this new technology.
The ‘Digital Doughnut’ takes the doughnut economy and uses the model to assess digital technologies. During our workshop, led by Alistair Alexander, participants examined the global impact of digital technologies and their implications for planetary health. We explored pressing topics like disinformation, e-waste, and energy consumption, shedding light on the multifaceted challenges we face.
In an era defined by rapid technological advancement and growing environmental concerns, the need for a more sustainable approach to digital development has never been greater. When we talk about sustainability in the tech realm, it is easy to focus solely on surface-level solutions like renewable energy and recycling. While these are crucial steps, we must not lose sight of the deeper questions. What are the underlying paradigms and systems driving climate change? How is digital technology contributing to this crisis and what fundamental changes are needed?
At the heart of our efforts with Scanning the Horizon is collaboration with our members and partners to bolster future literacy within the sector. We are actively engaged in charting and anticipating emerging trends.
Our Scanning the Horizon Community unites professionals from diverse sectors to share knowledge, and expertise, and test novel methodologies. Please email us if your organisation is interested in gaining more insight into our community as part of its foresight work. We look forward to hearing from you.
Rachel leads the Futures and Innovation programme at the Centre. She is responsible for managing the portfolio of projects and events as well as leading and developing the Scanning the Horizon strategic peer learning platform. Rachel has more than 15 years of experience working in the third sector, on a national and international level, working for various ICSOs in international development and human rights in both London and Berlin.
13th February 2024 by Mareyah Bhatti, Eva Gondor, Patricia Mugenzi
It is widely understood that the civil society sector faces undue restrictions and threats to its operating space globally. To help strengthen the capacity of civil society actors, we need to develop the ability to anticipate the future and act in a proactive manner to shape the future. The International Civil Society Centre and Forum for the Future recently collaborated on this issue at the International Civic Forum (ICF) 2023, a two-day workshop in Brussels joined by 40 actors from across the civil society sector.
How do civil society organisations (CSOs) accustomed to fire-fighting crises imagine more adaptative and agile ways of preparedness and planning?
In mid-2023, we joined efforts to design a replicable methodology that offered a creative and engaging way to use future stories and scenarios leading to 2034. The purpose of this was to help CSOs design current and future strategic plans and inform their practices. The objectives offered participants a way to explore a range of possible futures and identify potential action areas to navigate those varied futures on three distinct levels: as individuals, organisations, and as a sector. We hoped to use the ICF 2023 to test the methodology and receive feedback on how it can be developed to support future planning for CSOs.
The sessions took the attendees on a journey… first immersing them in the present and exploring current trends, then travelling to alternative possible futures based on the set of trends, and finally bridging the gap between possible futures and their actions, resources and mindsets. While the workshop surfaced several sectoral actions, the sessions were designed to ensure a focus on the attendees present and their specific agency and role in driving the change needed.
How could they as individuals in their respective roles contribute to their organisation’s resilience? And how could their organisation work with others to reduce sector-wide vulnerability?
We designed the sessions to be generative spaces that led the group to bring their experience and expertise while stretching beyond what exists in the present and imagining more ambitious (yet tangible) actions for possible futures.
“As CSOs, we need to get used to ‘futurising’ as this informs current actions and helps us to avoid ‘routinising’.” ICF participant
The participants produced a range of ideas at the sectoral, organisational, and individual levels that we summarised below:
Sector-wide actions
We need to empower and involve local communities
Anticipation is about participation and if we want to build a better future, we need to listen to local communities, invest in community relations, and change approaches to collaboration. Local partners need to be involved from the beginning of processes; communities need to be turned into co-investors and co-designers rather than receivers.
The language we use needs to shift to remove barriers to involvement
As raised by a participant and echoed by many around the room, the language around development is “colonial-centric”. It is often in English, French, or Spanish and filled with jargon that can be difficult to interact with. How can we expect to involve people in decision-making and hear their voices, if the language or medium of conduct is inherently exclusionary? For communities – and the youth in particular – to be deeply involved, we need to think about access to such spaces and especially the language we use.
We need to apply a more holistic approach and deepen collaboration on intersectional problems
The challenges we face in the civil society sector are complex and interconnected, and therefore require intersectional approaches. Rather than approaching challenges in isolation, we can use a similar concept to the “whole child approach” or “one health approach” to recognise intersectional identities, needs, and experience.
We need to craft futures across the civil society sector and together with other sectors
Foresight needs to be ‘humanised’ and made approachable. It was viewed by many as a key skill to prepare for the future, and therefore needs to be done by a wider range of stakeholders. Thinking about the future is inherently a human act. Instead of approaching uncertainty with the usual sense of fear, foresight allows us to plan and stress test approaches against potential futures in a more informed manner.
“The process led to some ‘aha’ moments for me which will have a significant impact on my planning.” ICF participant
Organisational actions
The participants worked in pairs or peer groups to draft tangible organisational plans they can contribute to. The ideas revolved around two aspects:
Strengthening participation and inclusiveness in decision-making processes International and local CSOs need to invest more into co-creation, reflection, and exploration of alternatives with partners and communities.
Building foresight capacities and applying foresight within organisational activities The participants left motivated to involve their colleagues, partners, and allies in further collaborative foresight processes and exercises.
Individual actions
Building foresight capacities and their application were further underlined in concrete individual actions that the participants expressed their interest in developing such as:
Promoting and prioritizing knowledge sharing about foresight to broaden perspectives
Planning a foresight exercise for colleagues to strengthen organisational capacities
Integrating futures thinking into existing processes and upcoming strategies
The individual actions identified during the ICF 2023 underscore the importance of fostering foresight at multiple levels — empowering local communities, shifting organisational language, and humanizing foresight for broader stakeholder engagement to ensure plans, projects, and strategies reflect our hopes for the future.
“Futures thinking is a systemic process and should be given due attention.”
So, what does this mean?
Being a systemic process, futures thinking should be approached comprehensively, considering all interconnected aspects. In essence, it means recognising the need for a thorough strategy when addressing global challenges in the civil society sector. By practicing futures thinking, we take a proactive stance in tackling the complex issues faced by the sector, while fostering resilience, collaboration, and inclusivity. It is about developing the capacity to not only monitor trends but also to envision, through a participatory approach, how they might unfold providing us with a powerful tool to break away from conventional crisis management practices. Futures thinking urges us to be strategic, forward-looking, and adaptable in our approach, ensuring a more effective response to the evolving landscape of the civil society sector.
Find out more
The ICF 2023 was part of a wider three-year initiative “Anticipating futures for civil society operating space” (2022 – 2025) led by the International Civil Society Centre. The initiative aims to strengthen anticipatory capacities and future readiness of civil society professionals who are working to defend and expand civic and civil society operating space. Check out this website to find further information and resources from this initiative and possibilities of involvement.
Mareyah is a Change Designer at Forum for the Future, with an academic background in medical geography and personal passion for food systems and their cultural significance. She works closely in the Food and Futures teams at Forum, managing and delivering their programmes. She was recently seconded to Singapore for the 'Protein Challenge Southeast Asia,' a runner-up for the esteemed Food Planet Prize. Beyond this, Mareyah contributes to Forum’s Future Centre platform as an editor, identifying emerging signals and authoring blogs on topics from the future of protein to human rights in the fashion supply chain.
Eva leads on the Centre's civic space work - the Solidarity Action Network (SANE) aimed at strengthening resilience of and solidarity among civil society actors, and the International Civic Forum (ICF), our annual civic space platform to network and identify opportunities for collaboration. Prior to joining the Centre she worked at the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Foundation) in Stuttgart where she managed the foundation’s projects focusing on civil society and governance in Turkey, the Western Balkans, and North Africa.
Patricia is the coordinator for Strategic foresight (Africa Region) at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC). She helps IFRC’s National societies explore possible futures to address upcoming challenges. Before joining the IFRC, Patricia served in various positions in both international and governmental organisations, including the Government of Quebec. In this role, she provided invaluable insights and guidance on geopolitical matters, playing a pivotal role in shaping government policies and strategies.
The stage was set for the International Civic Forum (ICF) before the end of 2023 in the vibrant and creative innovation space of Transforma Lab, Brussels. For two days, a workshop with forty participants from around the globe was held with the aim of preparing them, their civil society organisations, and the civil society sector at large for anticipating futures. This is by no means an easy feat, but we were fortunate to hear how it played out for three participants: Patrick Allam, the Legal Officer from Spaces for Change, Melissa Juisi Simo, the West Africa Civil Society Institute’s (WACSI) Programmes Assistant, and Răzvan-Victor Sassu, the Head of Strategy and Policy for the World YMCA. In the interviews, they shared with us their thoughts about foresight and futures crafting and their takeaways from the experience.
Regarding “futures” work, what has been your connection?
Before attending the ICF 2023, all three interviewees had varied connections to futures work. As Melissa noted, most civil society organisations are essentially in “reaction mode.” Although her organisation has begun pursuing futures work, it is still a new area for her personally to explore. Prior to taking part in the ParEvo foresight exercise run by the ICSCentre in the first half of 2023, Patrick hadn’t work with it before. ParEvo is a participatory and evolutionary approach to creating stories about possible futures. In the exercise, 15 participants developed stories about possible civic space futures through eight iterations of storytelling. Patrick began the exercise with a great deal of scepticism and uncertainty about the future. But later on:
“I now recognize the role that we can play in ensuring that the future is one that we can actively govern and possibly shape its outcomes.” Patrick
Patrick Allam, the Legal Officer from Spaces for Change
Through this work, he started to see potential for a more positive future. On the other hand, for Răzvan, it is a daily reality to acknowledge the importance of foresight in the development of global strategy and policy. Futures thinking had already been incorporated into Răzvan’s strategic processes, but he pointed out that:
“We also want to try to expand the network of people who actually think futures thinking is important. We don’t want it to remain limited to a bubble in Geneva who finds it significant.” Răzvan
Răzvan-Victor Sassu, the Head of Strategy and Policy for the World YMCA
The three participants all agree on the importance of futures thinking, despite having varying degrees of experience with it.
“We need futures if we want to lead the future that we are going into, if we want to see innovation, and if we want to see participation.” Melissa
How can we go about futures thinking?
Melissa compares futures thinking to a daily task, something one will do daily to ensure longevity, efficiency and optimal productivity. She thinks that this strategy will promote creativity and teamwork – all of which are crucial for imagining the future. When talking about the strategy of his organisation, Răzvan brings up the creation of a think tank to facilitate strategic foresight, especially with regard to the needs of young people. He highlights the challenges of prioritising future thinking amidst ongoing crises and funding constraints, suggesting the integration of bite-sized future thinking activities into existing processes. Patrick emphasises the value of systematic future planning, not only within his organisation but also extending to their networks, having been influenced by his ICF experience. In his view, this is a means of being proactive as opposed to reactive, working towards a situation in which upcoming events won’t come as a surprise.
Did you have any “aha” moments at the ICF?
“Where can we make a difference now that will make a difference in the future?” is a quote that motivated Melissa.
“How am I making a difference now for the future and not just making a difference now to correct the past? Because that has been the pattern.” Melissa
Melissa Juisi Simo, the West Africa Civil Society Institute’s (WACSI) Programmes Assistant
Melissa further underlined: “It was so beautiful for me to see that although we’re different groups from different parts of the world, we’re able to see similar risks and opportunities available for civil society.” But at the same time, she reflected that if there is too much alignment in thinking and we only stay within civil society, this might lead to the omission of some crucial perspectives. There is a need for increased cooperation between civil society and other sectors, including the government and business when it comes to shaping the future. Răzvan’s eureka moment centred on the notion that the workshop simplified the idea of “futures literacy” for those who are unfamiliar with it. He can imagine that creating a simple “package” for organisations would be helpful. Patrick’s realisation was that:
“Instead of finding ourselves in the future, where we are in the vicious circle of always reacting to issues as they come up, the goal is that everyone of us will move to the mode where we are actively shaping our future.” Patrick
He adds that this approach shouldn’t be only applied when it comes to organisational strategy but also for funding and community involvement.
International Civic Forum 2023 Group Photo
What will you do with the insights from the ICF?
Melissa, Patrick, and Răzvan talked about how they wanted to incorporate futures thinking into their work going forward. Melissa intends to absorb the information and share it with others through an article that can be used as a reference. Her second ambition is to develop a curriculum or a learning material to share with other civil society organisations to strengthen their capacities. Patrick is eager to implement a more methodical approach to integrating foresight into the institutional thinking of his organisation and expanding it to their network. Răzvan advocates for the inclusion of strategic foresight as a fundamental component of strategic planning and proposes incorporating futures thinking and methods into routine meetings, such as a staff retreat.
Throughout the interviews, Melissa, Patrick, and Răzvan highlighted the growing significance of foresight and anticipation for civil society. They further emphasised the need for taking an integrated approach to futures thinking and making it a regular practice. The perspectives and experiences that they have shared serve as a reminder of the complexity of the issue, the opportunity it presents, and the teamwork needed to address it.
International Civic Forum 2023International Civic Forum 2023 where forty civil society professionals met to workshop on anticipating futures.
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, check out Anticipating futures for civil society operating space – Solidarity Action Network (SANE). The International Civil Society Centre’s three-year initiative (2022 – 2025) focussing on strengthening anticipatory capacities and future readiness of civil society professionals who are working to defend and expand civic and civil society operating space. The ICF methodology was co-developed by the ICSCentre and Forum for the Future, with support of Patricia Mugenzi.
