LAUNCH: UNICEF's Youth Foresight Playbook at the Dubai Future Forum

Written for foresight practitioners and youth-focused and youth-led organizations, as well as think tanks and other UN agencies, Designing a Youth-centred Journey to the Future is hands-on toolkit developed to help make foresight more accessible to young people, and to transfer power to them through meaningful youth engagement principles.

UNICEF holds a firm belief in the power and potential of young people. UYFF embodies this conviction, enabling young people to contribute to the anticipation of and response to future challenges. Meaningfully engaging youth in foresight research can help UNICEF access fresh perspectives and insights, becoming more responsive and adaptive to changes in the external environment that could greatly impact present and future generations, and making significant strides towards enhancing anticipatory governance, as well as achieving a more equitable future for children and youth worldwide.

Over the course of 12 months, fellows will hone their foresight skills and have the opportunity to contribute to pioneering research and advocacy projects. The Fellowship program provides the necessary resources, training and support for these young individuals to make a significant impact on UNICEF’s work. UYFF embraces a meaningful youth engagement approach, meeting young people where they are and giving youth both the support and the space to steer the programme. This is a chance for young people to collaborate with UNICEF, as well as global peers and stakeholders, advocating for issues that are close to their hearts while enhancing their anticipatory capacity, leadership and communication capabilities within a diverse and dynamic network.

UNICEF has recruited a group of young futurists/foresight practitioners from around the world to become its latest cohort of Youth Foresight Fellows. Fellows will work with UNICEF to design and facilitate a comprehensive foresight research process to inform UNICEF’s Global Outlook, which provides an annual in-depth analysis of trends and events impacting the rights and wellbeing of children across the globe. Fellows will also design a foresight tool to make futures thinking more accessible to young people.

UN Global Pulse provided financial and technical expertise to support the first cohort of UNICEF Youth Foresight Fellows in 2022–2023. Those Fellows designed the youth foresight process for Prospects for Children in the Polycrisis: A Global Outlook for Children in 2023 and Our Future Pledge toolkit for a global foresight youth campaign. We recently brought together two of these Fellows — Fisayo Oyewale, 26, from Nigeria, and Joshua Steib, 20, from Germany — to talk about foresight and intergenerational equity.

“Remember, you are more than just a climate activist now – you are a climate futurist,” said one of my mentors. “Demonstrate it.” It was with those words that I was sent to speak at a high-level panel alongside UN chiefs and leaders at the UNICEF Global Leadership Meeting – a meeting that comes around once a decade.

With the clock ticking towards 2030 – amidst a backdrop of increased political polarization, the climate crisis, the rise of populist movements, ever-increasing distrust towards institutions, and the aftermath of a global pandemic that disproportionately impacted children and young people and exacerbated intergenerational unfairness – it is more important than ever to find ways to support and elevate young people’s access to spaces of influence so they can each contribute to their community, their society, their country and their future.

Our planet is in crisis. Temperatures are rising, sea levels are increasing, and social inequalities are growing. Young people have the power to solve these challenges and shape the world we live in. But to do this, we need to look beyond the present and imagine the possibilities of tomorrow. #OurFuturePledge is a campaign by young people for young people that aims to build a more inclusive and sustainable future by increasing youth participation in foresight. We invite you to share a short video, artwork, story or post on social media describing your vision for the future. Use the hashtag #OurFuturePledge and tag @UNICEFInnocenti. Join other young changemakers in a conversation about your hopes for the future and share your visions with a global audience.

This report outlines the polycrisis in which the world finds itself — multiple, simultaneous shocks with strong interdependencies, intensified in an ever-more integrated world — along with eight trends that will shape child rights and well-being in the coming year.