Strategic foresight and humanitarian response

From funding contractions to the climate crisis, rapid technological advances to political upheaval, the changes we see today will shape a vastly different world for humanitarians and the communities we serve. Strategic foresight provides structured approaches to engage with this uncertainty and build resilient, forward-facing strategies.

Strategic Foresight is ‘an organized and systematic process to engage with uncertainty regarding the future’ (Maree Conway). It is not about predicting the future, but ‘understanding the current and future contextual and operating environment’ (The School of International Futures). Through processes such as systems mapping, horizon scanning and scenario building, foresight allows us to think collaboratively about the future of humanitarian data to transform how we work today.

Humanitarians are focused on responding to immediate needs, yet the environments in which we operate are unquestionably shaped by longer-term changes that go far beyond our sector. Humanitarian response is impacted by drivers of change, spanning the social, technological, political, economic, environmental, legal and even shifts in values. To create a resilient humanitarian system, we need to challenge our assumptions about the future, understand emerging risks, and create shared visions for the futures we are driving towards.

The role of the Centre

The Centre introduced foresight capacity to its learning and practice workstream in 2023, after using The Three Horizons framework to develop our new strategy.

In 2024, we initiated a Humanitarian Data Futures project to understand and navigate the evolving landscape of data and digital technologies in humanitarian action, guided by foresight methodologies and in collaboration with experts. Our guiding questions have been: how will the humanitarian data environment evolve over the next ten years?; how will advances in data and digital technologies impact the future of humanitarian response?; and what opportunities and risks do these advances present?

We began the work with a horizon scan, using desk research and expert interviews to identify early signs of change in the humanitarian operating environment. This process surfaced 43 ‘drivers of change’, which we interrogated through a collaborative session at the Centre’s Humanitarian Data Forum in The Hague in June 2024. Drivers of change are global issues and trends that shape our future societies and markets (School of International Futures). Through examining the interplay and interconnection between drivers, we were able to surface important areas for further exploration.

We have been exploring three areas of focus:

  • Unpacking Artificial Intelligence | Ambiguity around the future of AI emerged as a recurring theme. In response to rapid technological advances in AI, and growing debate around its use in humanitarian response, we developed a brief note on AI and the humanitarian sector, which covered the state of the technology, key definitions, and risks and challenges.
  • Assessing Novel Data Sources | Novel data sources can be defined as data that is not initially produced for humanitarian response but can improve our situational awareness. Despite significant piloting over the last decade, uncertainty remains about where, when and how novel data is best deployed, and the role it should play alongside traditional forms of humanitarian data. We used two tools, the Technology Axis Model and the S-Curve, to assess the integration of novel data sources and consider the factors that may define their future use in the humanitarian sector. See our ‘Assessing the Potential of Novel Data Sources’ blog for more information.
  • Navigating System Contraction | Changes to the funding environment in early 2024 has created significant uncertainty. To quote Wendy Schultz: “You can’t control the future, but you can influence it, by what you choose to do, and what you choose not to do.” Using Jim Dator’s Four Archetypes of the Future (Growth, Collapse, Discipline and Transformation), we are collaborating with partners to articulate a plausible, preferred future for the humanitarian data ecosystem by 2030 and the innovations necessary to get us there.

Get in touch!

We would like to expand the use of foresight in the humanitarian sector and want to test and stretch our thinking with humanitarian data partners. If you have questions, reflections or ideas, contact us at centrehumdata@un.org.