DEVELOPMENT

3 Methodology
Box 1
The Afd2025 foresighting system
Foresighting for Development
Development agencies, steering through future worlds. Afd2025
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The foresighting system comprises all the themes that could see changes with a potential
impact on the environment and on AFD’s futures by 2025/2030. These themes were
collectively identified in brainstorming workshops attended by some 500 AFD staff
members. The foresighting system comprises a total of 22 themes divided into 5 major
fields.
The first field, “Visions and representations of the world,” reflects Afd2025’s wish to
broaden its scope of reflection as far as possible, by incorporating potential changes in
mindsets, value systems and the place of religions.
The second field groups together analyses of how “People and their environment” evolve.
The chosen line of inquiry is the environmental sustainability of food, energy and water
production and consumption, as well as migratory patterns, the importance of technology
and the changing modes of land-use planning. How will humans interact and exploit the
natural, technical and social resources they have in order to build their future?
The third major field of the Afd2025 foresighting system, “Sharing, economy, finance,”
focuses on key economic and financial questions, as well as on the issues of poverty, inequality
and social inclusiveness, the aim being to explore possible developments in the
distribution of wealth and the organization of world trade in 2025 and beyond.
The fourth field, “Local needs and demands,” involves the donors’ counterparties and
integrates two observations: firstly, at local level – be it sub-national, country or regional level
– the dynamics of change are highly diverse as they depend on specific contexts influenced
more or less markedly by regional or global phenomena. The second observation is that
development assistance sometimes focuses more on supply than demand. This field thus
questions what proportion of a donor’s activities effectively, partially or marginally meets
a given demand, as well as how this evolves over the long term.
The fifth and final field, “Governance and collective action,” explores the ways in which these
could both be designed and organized. Clearly, changes in modes of governance and
collective action have substantial impacts on the mandates, strategies and work methods
of a development agency like AFD. The policy framework, practices and solutions
adopted to respond to such changes will lastingly transform its profession(s) and
its mission(s).
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