Background

The UN Strategic Foresight Guide (2023), launched in 2023 by the UN Futures Lab/Global Hub, provides foundational knowledge, practical tools, and expert insights for making foresight accessible and actionable across thematic areas. Since its approval by the UN Secretary-General at the Senior Management Group Meeting (SMG) in 2023, the Guide has been downloaded over 1,000 times, supported teams across the UN system, and been implemented in diverse contexts leading to valuable lessons regarding its application. The Guide has also been pivotal in amplifying strategic foresight in UN training institutions, such as the UN System Staff College (UNSSC) which drew on the Guide to develop its training curricula, the Strategic Foresight Module of the UN 2.0 Fundamentals E-learning path.

For the second edition, the UN Futures Lab/Global updated the Guide with support from UN Women – the lead UN entity on gender equality who holds institutions accountable, shifts laws, supports women’s agency and access to resources, and transforms discriminatory norms and practices to close the gender gap and build an equal world for all women and girls. UN Women is institutionalizing gender-informed foresight practices into its work at all levels, including into strategic planning processes – from corporate to regional and country-level.

Why gender transformative foresight?

The collaboration between the UN Futures Lab/Global Hub and UN Women combines the different mandates and expertise through a value-add approach. The UN Futures Lab/Global Hub brings consistency and UN-wide alignment in foresight mainstreaming efforts, building on its mandate to empower the UN System and beyond to use futures thinking and strategic foresight in planning, policymaking, and decision-making. UN Women brings the expertise in gender mainstreaming, given their mandate to coordinate and promote the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality, and in all deliberations and agreements linked to the 2030 Agenda. Together, the UN Futures Lab/Global Hub and UN Women will ensure that the way the UN applies foresight has a gender lens, fostering future strategies that are inclusive and equitable.

Why update the Guide?

To ensure the UN Strategic Foresight Guide remains a relevant and effective resource, the following updates and enhancements were undertaken:

Incorporating lessons learned from real-world applications across various UN entities to (i) refine definitions, tool guides, and usability in the UN context; (ii) update methodologies and use cases; (iii) enhance usability and accessibility; and (iv) address questions that arose during implementation
Integrating a gender lens by updating the Guide’s language, prompts, guiding questions, and framing of the tools and methods

The Guide has three goals:

1. Explain the key concepts of strategic foresight and its relevance for Governments, UN entities, civil society, and other organizations
2. Provide an overview of foresight tools guided by the three UN core principles of Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA), Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE), and Leave No One Behind (LNOB). Exploring how the tools might be used to decide which ones might be appropriate for its application
3. Show how to frame and design a first foresight initiative or engagement

What is new in the second edition?

This edition integrates a gender lens throughout every step, ensuring that foresight not only anticipates change, but also helps co-create fairer, more equitable futures. Using gender transformative foresight, the update of the Guide helps:

Envision new realities – especially for people facing multiple, intersecting discrimination
Identify how power, social norms, and inequality shape outcomes
Address the risks and opportunities to advance gender equality
Imagine more inclusive paths forward

This edition includes:

Tips on how to use AI, data, and the G-PESTLE framework in a foresight process
New foresight use cases
More resources
A facilitation package for each tool

Stay tuned for updates on the launch of the UN Strategic Foresight Guide 2nd edition 2025