Futures issues objectives

One of the key objectives of the Humanitarian Futures Programme (HFP) is to help organisations with humanitarian roles and responsibilities to think about challenges that they may face in the future. The objective is not to provide techniques for predicting or forecasting the future, but to open up ways to think about ‘what might be’.

The assumption underpinning this objective is that organisations, networks and individuals that embrace the value of speculation will be better prepared to deal with the complexities and uncertainties that are increasingly a hallmark of our age. They will be more inclined to explore new factors that increase human vulnerability and new approaches for addressing them.

With this in mind, HFP over the past three years has generated various types of futures analyses, or speculative pieces about issues that might affect how the myriad components of the global community view and prepare to respond to the sorts of disasters, emergencies and catastrophes that may well lie ahead.

The value of these efforts, however, needs to be tested in at least two inter-related ways. The first is whether or not the analyses in and of themselves resonate with those who share them; the second is the extent to which they are useful in achieving HFP’s overriding objectives. Before listing the main futures analyses undertaken to date by HFP, it is worth noting criteria used for determining the value of such exercises.

Assessment criteria

There are six criteria used for the assessment of futures analyses.

1. Seven dimensions of humanitarian futures

These seven demensions suggest the of changes for which the ‘humanitarian sector’ will have to be prepared over the next decade or so. These assumptions are at best hypotheses, and have not been tested in any systematic way. They have, however, been generally received in various groups in which they have been discussed with a degree of recognition and consensus. For HFP these assumptions have generally served as broad parameters for its futures analyses, and to the extent that they have been regarded as plausible, they appear adequate to promote speculation. 

2. General conclusions

While the futures analyses are in many instances speculative, there is generally an internal logic that suggests a degree of plausibility to these analyses. The fact, for example, that synchronous failures could generate not only major systems collapse across continents, but also new forms of vulnerability is a possibility that seems to make sense, and also reflects the thinking of scholars in other disciplines. Hence, a second criterion concerns the extent to which the analyses have an internal logic – though not provable – that is compelling.

3. Evidence

The challenge for futures analysis that does not rely on overt trends analysis or extrapolation is that evidence can be difficult to demonstrate. Depending upon the subject, the futures analyses undertaken by HFP have varying degrees of what might be described as conventional confirmation. For the most part, where there is evidence, it is based upon interviews and a modicum of statistical analysis based upon those interviews. This is the case for Mapping the Models and for Responding to Catastrophes. Dimensions of Crisis Impacts combines some extrapolation based, for example, upon IPCC findings with speculation, while ECOWAS 2020 reflects a much more conservative set of findings based principally upon trends analysis. The conclusions of Wat/San in Urban Situations are predominantly speculative.

4. Plausibility

The extent to which those with whom HFP work regard HFP’s futures analyses as possible is an important criterion for the Programme’s objectives. Credibility in and of itself is not the important factor in this regard. Far more important is that partners do not feel that HFP’s futures analyses are so implausible that they are not worth considering. As a heuristic device, futures analyses normally can only trigger a willingness to speculate about the ‘what might be’s, if there is an element of perceived reality to which partners can relate. This emerging realisation led HFP to tackle this head on in its Crisis Drivers of the Future project, with ‘plausibility interviews’ in China, India and Russia as well as the United Kingdom and the United States.

5. Originality

The balance between plausibility and something that may be perceived as new and unusual is often difficult to maintain. Nevertheless, the criterion of originality is important if partners are to recognise that the effort is to take them beyond their normal zones of understanding. Scenario development normally confronts the tension between plausibility and originality by working through a quadrant analysis, often preceded by interviews and questionnaires. The boundaries of HFP’s futures analyses have never been tested in that way. The extent to which Futures Analyses themes have sparked interest in new horizons or generated new perspectives have been left mainly to an impression about partners’ reactions.

6. Application

The extent to which the substance of futures analyses has been used to help achieve HFP’s overall objective is the final criterion that HFP has used to assess the value of its futures analyses. Application in this context has at least three measures. The first is the extent to which futures analyses have strengthened some of HFP’s ‘tools’ such as its Organisational Self-Assessment Tool by ensuring that essential balance between plausibility and originality. Secondly, portions of futures analyses have been used for developing scenarios, and this, too, reflects practical application. A third and vital application is that futures analyses also serve as the basis for demonstrating what one means by futures in a humanitarian context, and that in turn is reflected in various training, teaching and wider public fora