Page 14 - Rockefeller Lockstep Document

While any single uncertainty could challenge for example, the pervasiveness of conflict
our thinking, the future will be shaped by in the developing world; the frequency and
multiple forces playing out over time. The severity of shocks like economic and political
scenario framework provides a structured way to crises, disease, and natural disasters; and the
consider how these critical uncertainties might locus of innovation for crucial technologies
unfold and evolve in combination. Identifying for development. (A full list of the critical
the two most important uncertainties guarantees uncertainties identified during the project, as
that the resulting scenarios will differ in ways well as a list of project participants, can be
that have been judged to be critical to the found in the Appendix.)
focal question.
The two chosen uncertainties, introduced
below, together define a set of four scenarios
CHOOSING THE CRITICAL for the future of technology and international
UNCERTAINTIES
development that are divergent, challenging,
During this project’s scenario creation workshop, internally consistent, and plausible. Each of the
participants — who represented a range of two uncertainties is expressed as an axis that
regional and international perspectives — selected represents a continuum of possibilities ranging
the two critical uncertainties that would form between two endpoints. WEAK
Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development shape the broader contextual environment of LOW ADAPTIVE CAPACITY HIGH
the basis of the scenario framework. They
chose these two uncertainties from a longer
STRONG
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ALIGNMENT
list of potential uncertainties that might
the scenarios, including social, technology,
economic, environmental, and political trends.
The uncertainties that were considered included,

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