Towards a climate-resilient future together. A toolbox with participatory foresight methods, tools and examples from climate and food governance

Abstract

Human settlements, both urban and rural, face numerous challenges at once: adapting to the impacts of climate change, improving sustainability, urbanization and renewal, increasing housing demand, and a need for more social cohesion. While governments have knowhow and budgets, and are now developing plans and scenarios for climate-resilient settlements, it is the local citizens who will be living in these settlements. Consequently, they should be involved in designing, planning, and building their future environment. However, while many governments are experimenting with citizen participation, it can be difficult to set up meaningful and engaging collaboration between policymakers, citizens, and other local and regional actors. ‘Foresight’ or ‘futures’ processes have a valuable contribution to make here. However, for citizens, ‘the future’ may easily feel too technical or distant. While much has been written on the technical aspects of scenario methods, there is little practical guidance on what might make it engaging to citizens. Rather than recruiting citizens into what feels like a technical process, an actual collaboration is required. This toolbox offers practical guidance, tools, and tips on how to set up such collaborations in thinking about and jointly developing ‘the future’. The toolbox collects and showcases some of the lessons learned from several international research programs on citizen engagement in the form of practical foresight methods and advice on how to apply them. These programs include CoCliServ (Co-development of Place-Based Climate Services for Action; funded by EU JPI Climate/ERA4CS), CCAFS (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security; funded by CGIAR global research partnership), and Utrecht University’s Water, Climate and Future Deltas program. The latter funded the development of this toolbox. We envision that the toolbox may provide inspiration and guidance for policymakers, consultants and researchers involved in collaboratively tackling local and regional future challenges.