The Director of the Adaptation Division within the UNFCCC, Dr Youssef Nassef, was looking for opportunities to ‘disrupt’ the status quo of community development in order to identify and move as many communities as possible onto transformative pathways that deliver enhanced community resilience to the impacts of climate change. The greatest challenge is time – how do we make the most positive change in as little time as possible.
The UNFCCC created Resilience Frontiers (resiliencefrontiers.org) to facilitate programmes of work that change thinking, and that aren’t constrained by what we do now, to look beyond. This programme runs in parallel to that of the more traditional nation-state. Shaping Tomorrow was engaged as the horizon scanning platform to spot potentially disruptive innovations and foresee change on multiple levels.
The adoption of foresight methodology, including horizon scanning, has been challenging thinking. 3 reports have been produced using the Shaping Tomorrow platform: ‘Adaptation to Climate Change”, Building Community Resilience’ and ‘Disruptive Adaptation Strategies’. Resilience Frontiers is about to enter a new phase of activity focussed on scaling its efforts and demonstrating them on-the-ground.<