Événements

Introduction

CCAFS and its regional partners have been jointly developing and using a scenarios approach as a platform for the exchange and application of knowledge and experience between researchers, policy makers, private sectors, NGOs and other food system actors across East Africa over the last year and a half. The development and use of scenarios has a long history in business planning. Scenarios allow for the capturing of uncertainties and systems complexity in a coherent and plausible yet surprising and challenging fashion. Scenarios are an excellent tool for generating shared engagement, building relationships, commitments and new ideas.

The purpose of this workshop, organized by the CGIAR program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food security (CCAFS) with its partners at the Society for International Development and the PANOS network for development journalism, is to bring together key private sector and civil society actors from the East African region to explore strategic planning for the future of food security, environments and livelihoods under crucial socio-economic and climate uncertainties. To do this, these key regional actors will develop a strategic vision and explore feasible strategies towards this vision by testing them using scenarios of plausible alternate futures. The workshop provides an excellent opportunity for private sector and civil society members to learn about strategic planning and to develop new regional partnerships.

Objectives

CCAFS will work closely with its partners to jointly design the workshop and invite key private sector and civil society actors to the table. SID and PANOS have long regional experience. SID in particular have specific experiences with the scenarios processes.

The workshop will start with an exercise where representatives from the private sector and civil society organizations engage in dialogue to generate a regional vision. Then, participants work back from this vision to the present (back-casting), considering which strategies are viable in the face of challenges and opportunities that the different scenarios represent. This process will lead to a number of strategies that have the potential to be robust under key regional socio-economic and environmental uncertainties.

By developing a regional vision, exploring pathways toward this vision with scenarios and leading up to robust strategies and an action plan, the workshop will address the following two objectives:

Objective 1 – Train regional actors in the development and use of scenarios, and the CCAFS scenarios specifically, as important decision making tools developed by a wide range of stakeholders at the regional level.

Output 1.1 - High-level training in strategic planning through scenarios will be offered to the participants to boost capacity to use scenarios as a decision making tool.

Output 1.2- A network of regional actors who are able to use the CCAFS scenarios in strategic planning.

Outcome 1 – A wide range of regional private sector and civil society actors using scenarios to inform new cross-sectoral climate smart organizational strategies towards better regional food security, environments and livelihoods.

Objective 2 - Co-create a non-state actors’ vision for the region’s future in terms of food security, environments and livelihoods.

Output 2.1 - Action plans on how (partnerships of) organizations in the workshop will implement certain strategies to get to the desired future as explored under different plausible future conditions (scenarios). The action plans will allow participants to take a concrete plan back with them for implementation. The action plans will also act as  public commitments and ways to measure policy impact as to whether a certain strategy was actually implemented. This will also help to measure the robustness of a certain scenario developed.

Outcome 2 - Action plans influencing investments and actions on the ground regarding environmental and socio-economic development in East Africa.

Read more about CCAFS Scenarios here.