Page 9 - Rockefeller Lockstep Document

explore the role of technology in international then to begin to examine what those possible
development through scenario planning, a alternative paths may imply for the world’s
methodology in which GBN is a long-time leader. poor and vulnerable populations. Such an
exercise required project participants to push
This report builds on the Rockefeller
their thinking far beyond the status quo, into
Foundation’s growing body of work in the
uncharted territory.
emerging field of pro-poor foresight. In 2009,
the Institute for Alternative Futures published Scenario planning is a methodology designed
the report Foresight for Smart Globalization: to help guide groups and individuals through
Accelerating and Enhancing Pro-Poor exactly this creative process. The process
Development Opportunities, with support from begins by identifying forces of change in the
the Rockefeller Foundation. That effort was a world, then combining those forces in different
reflection of the Foundation’s strong commitment ways to create a set of diverse stories — or
to exploring innovative processes and embracing scenarios — about how the future could evolve.
new pathways for insight aimed at helping the Scenarios are designed to stretch our thinking
world’s poor. With this report, the Foundation about both the opportunities and obstacles that
takes a further step in advancing the field of the future might hold; they explore, through
pro-poor foresight, this time through the lens of narrative, events and dynamics that might
scenario planning. alter, inhibit, or enhance current trends, often
in surprising ways. Together, a set of scenarios
WHY SCENARIOS? captures a range of future possibilities,
good and bad, expected and surprising — but
The goal of this project was not to affirm what always plausible. Importantly, scenarios are
is already known and knowable about what not predictions. Rather, they are thoughtful
is happening right now at the intersections of hypotheses that allow us to imagine, and then to Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development
technology and development. Rather, it was to rehearse, different strategies for how to be more
explore the many ways in which technology prepared for the future — or more ambitiously,
and development could co-evolve — could both how to help shape better
push and inhibit each other — in the future, and futures ourselves.

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