First UNEP Sensemaking Workshop

UNEP is embarking on the development of a strategic foresight initiative and aims to establish an institutionalized approach to foresight and horizon scanning to develop an anticipatory and future oriented culture. This will strengthen UNEP’s capacity, supported by the active international community mobilized by the ISC, to navigate current and future uncertainty and disruptive change, while effectively delivering on its mandate. Part of the process will require the use of an expert panel to help draw insights from the data and information collated and is being established in the context of UNEP’s Programme of work.

The Expert Panel is expected to aid in processes to identify and evaluate emerging issues and signals of change, including opportunities. The work of the Panel will culminate into a Global Report, co-branded with the ISC, to be published in 2024. It is also expected that the Report together with the insights and recommendations of the Panel will inform the deliberations of the sixth UN Environment Assembly in February 2024 and the Summit of the Future in September 2024.

The Expert Panel will work through a structured debate to (1) review, adjust and to prioritize the initial issues and signals and identified phenomena that were gleaned from the survey; and (2) to connect the issues from the Horizon Scanning to the set of UNEP scenario narratives that aim to provide a structure or framing for the issues and signals identified through the Horizon Scanning exercise. The Expert Panel will ultimately support the attribution of Horizon Scanning issues and signals to specific scenarios as well as identifying where issues and signals from the Horizon Scanning may fall out of or challenge the meta-frame, and how the meta-frame may have to be further developed or adjusted.

More information will be made available on this page in due course.