To help influence future strategies to accelerate progress towards sustainability and resilience, FAO’s strategic foresight framework:

• acknowledges that agrifood systems are interconnected with broader socioeconomic and environmental systems, and that many of their driving forces originate outside agrifood systems, while their outcomes impinge on other systems;
• goes beyond advocacy or wishful thinking, by providing an accurate, technical and scientific diagnosis, offering an objective view of how agrifood systems may evolve regardless of personal preferences;
• connects short-, medium-, long-term dynamics and implications to current decision-making, which is often constrained by short-term incentives;
• seeks to decipher and unpack complex political economy constraints, as well as persistent and emerging development challenges, that are often difficult to address or discuss;
• helps governments anticipate, prevent, and prepare for undesirable scenarios, while promoting strategic policy options toward desirable futures aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

FAO does this through a comprehensive mix of foresight approaches, internal and external Chatham House style expert consultations, encompassing all the sectors and their economy-wide relationships, to capture and analyse:

• global megatrends of key drivers (driving forces) of socioeconomic, environmental and agrifood systems;
• weak signals of possible futures;
• scenarios for alternative futures based on weak signals;
• challenges and their origin that have impeded and will likely continue to impede a move towards a future of sustainability and resilience;
• triggers for transformation, i.e. priority focus areas that could drive agrifood systems transformation; and
• strategic options and policies to activate the triggers for transformation.

Key operational concepts and definitions

Drivers. Strong factors, driving forces and determinants that are strongly influencing and pushing agrifood systems towards a certain path. These drivers come from within agrifood systems but also significantly from socioeconomic, environmental, political, and financial systems. Their interactions are analysed at global, regional and country level, supported by the Dashboard for the future of food and agriculture.

Weak signals. The analysis of drivers of agrifood systems (and related outcomes) allows extracting "weak signals" of possible futures which, although still small or emerging today, can indicate some stronger future trends and reveal the possible long-term futures.

Alternative future scenarios. Through the identification of “weak signals” of possible futures, it is possible to elaborate specific narratives for four paradigmatic alternative future scenarios: “more of the same” (MOS), where the same development recipes adopted so far lead to a progressive degradation of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems; “adjusted future” (AFU), that envisages quick fixes but neglects structural transformations; “race to the bottom” (RAB), where further room is given to exacerbated climate change, abuse of resources and inequality, thus leading to the collapse of agrifood systems; “trading-off for sustainability” (TOS), that moves the future towards sustainability and resilience but requires trading off current final consumption for long-term investments.

Challenges. FAO’s work considers several domains where challenges, including political economy challenges, are analysed in order to better understand the barriers that have impeded, and are likely to continue to impede, progress towards a future of sustainability and resilience. These specific challenges are analysed across the following domains: economic growth and employment; geopolitics and power; demographic dynamics; natural resources and climate; agriculture; poverty, inequality, food security and nutrition outcomes.

Triggers for transformation. To support Member States to overcome persistent and emerging challenges, trade-offs, and difficult short-term incentives, FAO has identified four triggers for transformation, which are comprehensive areas where policies should be designed and implemented to kickstart difficult change:

• institutions and governance;
• consumers and citizens’ awareness;
• income and wealth distribution;
• innovative technologies and approaches.

Strategic options. These four triggers must be activated by means of public strategies and policies, and through the participation of all concerned stakeholders. FAO’s exercises outline strategic options available to decision makes to materialize desirable futures and/or avoid most undesirable ones, while also highlighting likely or possible trade-offs to deal with along transformative processes, that may require hard choices to balance them.

Source: Reviewed FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31.