11 December 2024, Apia, Samoa - Pacific people have been way finders and stewards of the Pacific region for centuries, using their knowledge and experience to sustain life, livelihoods and well-being. Strategic foresight and futures thinking aligns with this lived reality and provides creative yet structured ways to think about and plan for the future.
In a collaborative effort to enhance the use of strategic foresight to develop future focused strategies, the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) came together for the Futures and Strategic Foresight Workshop. Facilitated by SPC, the workshop was designed to introduce and inspire the use of strategic planning tools among SPREP staff. The initiative is a joint activity under the SPREP and SPC Memorandum of Understanding renewed in 2023.
SPREP Acting Director General Ms. Easter Chu Shing welcomed the participants and highlighted the importance of the workshop to the work of the Secretariat. “We look forward to learning from the experience of SPC in applying futures thinking and strategic foresight tools and approaches which will be useful for SPREP as we begin the process of preparing our next SPREP Strategic Plan, as well as the review and update of our regional thematic strategies in the coming years”, said Ms Chu Shing.
Co-facilitated by SPC’s Lead for Strategy and Innovation, Ms. Valery Wichman, and Knowledge Integration and Learning Officer, Ms. Christina Hazelman, the workshop leveraged the SPC Pacific Pathfinder Toolkit which was co-designed with member countries. A guide and toolkit for Pacific people, policy analysts and planners, comprising of tools to help gather intelligence about the future, explore dynamics of change, describe our future, create alternative scenarios, and develop and test strategy. Throughout the workshop, participants were tasked with applying some of the tools to real life SPREP cases for further discussion and thought.
Ms Wichman encouraged participants to be engaged in the process throughout the workshop. “We have all been applying strategic foresight in our daily lives in some way even though we may not call it that. So, I encourage you to lift your gaze from the technical alone to futures-based planning. As technical people we tend to become so focused on our own respective areas. The workshop will give us the opportunity to step back and look out towards the horizon, taking a bigger picture perspective. Through this process we can promote and inspire creative and imaginative ways of thinking that is fit-for-purpose for our work”.
Through this collaboration, SPREP and SPC have empowered staff to step into the future with confidence, creativity and foresight, ensuring that the region’s environmental strategies and policies are dynamic, resilient and fit-for-purpose.
SPREP Executive Officer, Ms Audrey Brown-Pereira, reflected on the workshop and the benefits of the capacity building collaboration between SPREP and SPC. “I am truly grateful to our sister CROP agency of SPC for enabling Valery Wichman and Christina Hazelman the opportunity to deliver in person the Strategic Foresight and Futures Workshop. What they shared was practical, insightful and contextual to their firsthand experience in the Pacific, which ensured the learning outcomes were tangible and impactful."
"We are at a critical juncture of our journey, as our current SPREP Strategic Plan concludes at the end of 2026. The more we can learn from others, that have proven experience in this space and have enabled access to tools we can work with, the better informed our process for strategic planning will be for the benefit of our Members”, said Ms Brown-Pereira.
The Strategic Foresight Workshop has set the stage for a more innovative, imaginative, and future-focused approach to planning at the Secretariat. Strategic foresight tools will be instrumental in developing the next SPREP Strategic Plan, ensuring it reflects the dynamic and changing needs of the Pacific region.