To In efforts to develop the ability of public-sector organizations to set forward-looking strategic directions based on plausible scenarios for the future, the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) is hosting the second round of a capacity-building workshop in Tokyo, 5–8 June 2018. A similar project on Strategic Foresight Capability Building in the Public Sector for NPO Heads was held in March 2018. (read more)

NPO Heads attending will be equipped with the fundamentals of strategic foresight and scenario planning. Participants are from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, IR Iran, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Nepal, and Pakistan, along with six APO Secretariat staff.

The workshop is conducted by Centre for Australian Foresight Co-Founder Dr. Anita Sykes-Kelleher and Looking Up Feeling Good Director Marcus Barber. Dr. Sykes- Kelleher has worked for the UN and global corporations in more than 30 countries on capability-building programs; Barber is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Defense and Strategic Studies, Canberra, Australia, and author of Getting Your Future Right.

The four-day workshop will establish a common knowledge base for future studies and foresight, including principles, assumptions, overview of methods, and value of foresight in the public sector as well as ways to institutionalize foresight thinking in development policy planning. Participants will gain an understanding of how collective scenarios can be created  to build supporting policy narratives.

The workshop is structured to guide practical scenario development of plausible futures, identify and reframe assumptions of the future, and understand challenges involved in moving beyond current perspectives on what tomorrow may hold.