Most citizens of democratic nations expect their governments to do their very best to make society more egalitarian, productive, adaptive, and resilient. To do so requires governments to track not just today’s headlines but grapple with long-term underlying trends, like globalization and demographic change. Governments must also make assumptions about the future course of these trends and examine how they might collide or build on one another.

Or, governments can sit by and hope for the best.

Foresight and futures analysis is a science-driven discipline that has gone in and out of vogue over the last two decades, often confined to the private sector and military and intelligence agencies. But the increasing complexity of the world and the exponential rate of major changes, such as the transformation of the global workforce, unprecedented rates of urbanization, the explosion of the digital economy, and seismic shifts in energy production and consumption, are bringing back the need for foresight and futures.

In cooperation with the private sector, government can play a vital role to expand economic opportunities by anticipating changes that would undermine the livelihoods and wellbeing of its citizens, especially those facing extreme poverty. This is what we believe at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s U.S. Global Development Lab. Foresight and futures analysis can play an outsized role for civilian components of government, as it has already done for two decades in other segments of governments.

Seven Major Headwinds

In a testament to the growing interest of governments across the globe, the Government Foresight Network (GFN) held its most successful forum ever in New Delhi last year with over 50 participants from more than a dozen countries, ministries, and commissions.

The GFN was created in 2009 at the urging of the UK Foresight Program as a voluntary body of leading government foresight units to share lessons learned, build global capacity, and exchange views on emerging issues. GFN is guided by its cooperating members, now more than a dozen countries worldwide, and meets annually in a member’s home country. Plans are already underway for the next GFN meeting to be held in Beijing and previous meetings were hosted in the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Belgium, and South Korea.

Four GFN member organizations recently met in Washington to present at the annual meeting of the World Future Society, and despite many differences, they described a common set of headwinds as they seek to carry out their objectives. The Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council of India, Policy Horizons Canada, STEPI of South Korea, and the U.S. Global Development Lab outlined seven major challenges to contemporary government foresight efforts:

Today’s Demands, Not Tomorrow’s: Government regulatory, budgeting, and planning cycles are often between two to five years, but foresight decision-making typically goes well beyond five years and frequently extends to a decade or more. Poor understanding of how to use foresight in policy and decision-making can lead government leaders and senior officials to defer using foresight “until later,” thus undercutting its real power.

Peripheral Location: Government foresight units or their equivalents are, for the most part, situated outside traditional high-level policy decision-making-loops (two noteworthy exceptions are Singapore and Finland, where foresight units are co-located in the prime minister’s office). “Location, location, location,” the oft uttered catch phrase in the real estate business, seems to aptly apply here. The closer to top decision makers, the increased likelihood that foresight insights will make an impact.

Little Upfront Buy-in: Competing demands and urgent priorities often mean foresight insights get just a few seconds of air time for top-level decision-makers. Government leaders and senior officials who engage early are often overwhelmed by the “tyranny of the inbox” and the short leash of their schedulers as time goes by. The net result is that foresight insights are often overlooked or sidelined.

Findings Divorced From Implementation: Briefings and reports proliferate in today’s government milieu. Even when foresight findings get their day in the sun, they often come up short-handed with regard to next steps. This is especially so when the foresight work is not done in conjunction with those responsible for its eventual implementation.

More Than Word of Mouth: Foresight insights are often developed by study participants and many non-participants are sometimes skeptical, protective of their turf, or simply unconvinced about its value to their own work. Widening the circle of adherents and generating new foresight champions throughout government, not just in the foresight unit or in nearby corridors, is one way to overcome this dilemma.

Organizational Leadership Churn: Top government leaders change rapidly but building a foresight unit, justifying its usefulness, and documenting its uptake requires time. New government leadership requires making your case for foresight all over again. We might look to our foresight colleagues in the intelligence, defense, and private sector for overcoming this hurdle as they seem to have better luck.

Proving the Discipline: In the age of big data, analytics, and evidence-driven planning, foresight still has its doubters in civilian components of government. Foresight generates plausible scenarios using well-tested approaches. Persuading others it is not prediction, guesswork, conjecture, or worse can be a full-time job.

Different, But Alike

The four entities representing India, South Korea, Canada, and the United States differ widely in organizational structure, mission, and goals. India, South Korea, and Canada are focused more on foresight implications as they impact their own citizens, while the U.S. foresight emphasis is on the wider global community where it provides targeted development assistance. The funding streams and history of each organization varies considerably as well. Policy Horizons Canada can trace its origins back to 1996, and works in close proximity to top-level Canadian decision-makers. The U.S. Global Development Lab’s Futures Team, less than four years old, resides in just one of several bureaus that work to impact future programming.

Yet, each of these organizations is dedicated to using modern foresight tools to “see around the corner.” The seven major challenges they outlined indicate shared barriers to incorporating futures analysis into government decision-making. The fact there was a meeting at all to highlight the challenges may indicate a new dedication to overcoming them.

Within the U.S. government there has certainly been a notable uptick in the demand for foresight and futures analysis – and not just for international development. The Office of Management and Budget, which drafts the president’s Congressional budget and evaluate government-wide agency effectiveness, recently advocated for stepped-up use of strategic foresight for all executive government branches including USAID. This would include the expanded use of tools such as scenario planning, trend analysis, and horizon scanning.

Hopefully this presidential mandate will serve as a spark for other GFN members as well. Only time – and the dedication of foresight and futures practitioners – will tell if today’s global surge in interest will be more permanent than past flirtations.