Foresight

Activities

This will be achieved through:

• Identifying megatrends affecting food, land and water systems at global and regional scales, including changes in population, income, technology, urbanization, inequality, migration, diets, land and water use and climate, along with their impacts on nutrition, poverty, inclusion, greenhouse gas emissions and the environment in order to inform analytical and learning opportunities. 
• Addressing regional and national challenges and priorities, providing more in-depth and comprehensive foresight analysis and more immediate policy recommendations to national decision-makers and partners.  
• Enhancing access, transparency and use of tools, data and metrics for governments and researchers, especially in developing countries. 
• Enhancing foresight skills and making learning actionable by developing training materials and programs to enhance ownership and use of foresight-related data, metrics, models and results by key engagement partners, with efforts focused on selected countries to build greater levels of self-reliance.

Engagement

This Initiative will work in the following focus countries: Bangladesh, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, Rwanda and Zambia. Additional collaborations are planned with partners in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa.

Outcomes

Proposed 3-year outcomes include:

1. Better-informed global and regional decision-making. Global and regional partners contribute to and use foresight analysis to inform decisions about investments to transform food, land and water systems in ways that improve nutrition, livelihoods, equity, climate adaptation and mitigation, and environmental outcomes. 
2. Better-informed national policy choices. Governments in at least six countries contribute to and use foresight analysis to better reflect climate risk in policy dialogues and decision-making, including policies and investments designed to make food, land and water systems more resilient, while recognizing synergies and trade-offs with other goals relating to nutrition, livelihoods, equity and the environment. 
3. Improved access to foresight tools and data. National, regional and global partners in at least six countries and two regions contribute to and can access state-of-the-art foresight tools, data and systems-level metrics that identify major drivers and impacts on food, land and water systems at national, regional and global levels under alternative future scenarios. 
4. Strengthened national foresight capacity. National partners in at least six countries where foresight capacity is still nascent, and other partners as appropriate, gain enhanced knowledge, aptitude and skills with foresight tools, data, metrics and analysis relevant to food, land and water systems through access to innovative training and delivery platforms and through collaborative research.

Impact

Projected impacts and benefits include:

	POVERTY REDUCTION, LIVELIHOODS & JOBS More decent jobs are created in agrifood systems, and 1.6 million people  are supported to move out of poverty by identifying sustainable, inclusive development pathways that enable CGIAR technologies and innovations and national policies and investments to more effectively reach target populations, including smallholder farmers, the working poor and vulnerable consumers.
	NUTRITION, HEALTH & FOOD SECURITY Nutrition is improved by providing national governments, regional organizations and funding agencies with credible and useful information on the impacts of changing demand, novel technologies and alternative policy and investment strategies on nutrition-related outcomes, including diet costs and quality, under a range of climate and socioeconomic conditions. This results in 5.5 million people meeting minimum dietary energy requirements.
	GENDER EQUALITY, YOUTH & SOCIAL INCLUSION The gender gap is narrowed, creating more and better livelihood opportunities for women and youth, and promoting inclusion of lagging regions and marginalized populations by analyzing the distributional implications of policy and investment options (including gender-intentional interventions) and identifying more equitable development pathways. Around 81,000 new jobs for women are created.
	CLIMATE ADAPTATION & MITIGATION Adaptation to climate change and extremes is enhanced through improved quantification of climate impacts and options to address them, and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced while carbon sequestration is increased in agrifood systems through improved analysis of costs and benefits of alternative technologies and of changes in poverty, employment, and diets. This results in a reduction of 20 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions.
	ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & BIODIVERSITY Evidence-based policy and investments lead to expanded irrigation, improved water use efficiency, and increased soil water-holding capacity, saving 2.64 km3 consumptive water use in food production. Foresight analysis and data identify pathways that ensure environmental sustainability is an outcome of food systems transformation.

Projected benefits are a way to illustrate reasonable orders of magnitude for impacts which could arise as a result of the impact pathways set out in the Initiative’s theories of change. In line with the 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy, Initiatives contribute to these impact pathways, along with other partners and stakeholders. CGIAR does not deliver impact alone. These projections therefore estimate plausible levels of impact to which CGIAR, with partners, contribute. They do not estimate CGIAR’s attributable share of the different impact pathways.

Partners

The Foresight Initiative conducts foresight analysis for all countries and regions, but with a particular focus on two regions (Eastern and Southern Africa, and South Asia) and six countries (Bangladesh, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, Rwanda and Zambia), working with the ReNAPRI and SANEM networks of policy research institutions and other partners. The Initiative will also work with technical partners in Brazil (Embrapa), China (CAAS), India (ICAR), Indonesia (Bappenas) and South Africa (the National Treasury).

Header photo: Three-year old Rosita holds a cabbage seedling to be planted in a nursery in Situ Gunung, Indonesia. Photo by R. Martin/CIFOR.

Following an inception period, this summary has been updated to respond to recommendations from the Independent Science for Development Council on this CGIAR Initiative’s proposal. Initiatives are considered “operational” once they receive funding and activities commence.