The Playbook is a milestone in the evolution of the UNICEF’s Youth Foresight Fellowship initiative aiming to get youth involved in future-shaping and policymaking.
Dubai-UAE: Today, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched the ‘UNICEF Innocenti Youth Foresight Playbook’, which represents a milestone in the evolution of UNICEF’s Youth Foresight Fellowship initiative aiming to get youth involved in the conversations about the future they will inherit and in future-shaping and policymaking.
The launch happened during the second day of the Dubai Future Forum 2023, the world’s largest gathering of futurists, taking place on 27-28 November at the Museum of the Future, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dubai Future Foundation.
The ‘UNICEF Innocenti Youth Foresight Playbook’:
The ‘UNICEF Innocenti Youth Foresight Playbook’ is a case study-based toolkit including 12 worksheets that offers tasks and activities to engage young people in foresight and decision-making. They are created for governments, foresight practitioners and youth-led organisations, as well as think tanks and UN agencies.
The ultimate goal of the Playbook is to inspire young people – and those who work with young people – to not only embrace foresight methods and tools but to make them accessible, thereby fostering a collaborative environment where youth are engaged as equal partners in shaping their futures.
Bo Viktor Nylund, Director of UNICEF Innocenti, said: “Being guided by youth foresight not only helps UNICEF become a more anticipatory organisation, but we hope that it will act as a catalyst for the meaningful engagement of young people in everything we do.”
Nylund stressed the importance of involving new generations in imagining, engineering, and creating our future, as well as harnessing their creative ideas and energy.
UNICEF’s Youth Foresight Fellowship:
Each year, the Youth Foresight Fellowship recruits a group of young futurists and foresight practitioners – UNICEF’s Youth Foresight Fellows. They provide critical perspectives and in-depth analysis on trends and events impacting the rights and wellbeing of children across the globe. The organisation supports those young people by providing viewpoints and in-depth analysis that aim to enhance children’s rights and quality of life.
In 2022, UNICEF recruited its first global cohort of Youth Foresight Fellows. They included children and young people from Egypt, Kenya, the United Kingdom, the United States, Republic of Korea, Pakistan, Nigeria, Honduras, and Germany.
In 2023, with support from UNICEF country offices and national committees, the work is scaling to enable children and young people without foresight experience to become fellows at the national level.
Youth Foresight:
Young people have been a driving force for change throughout history. They should be deeply involved in imagining the future, their future, and the future of the planet. Youth foresight can be used in policymaking, planning and decision-making processes at local, national and international levels to inform future strategies, programs and investments that will impact the lives of young people.
The Dubai Future Forum 2023 hosts over 2,500 global experts from diverse future-focused fields, with broad participation from ministers, government officials, industry policymakers, CEOs, and more than 100 top global organizations from over 100 countries. The forum features more than 150 speakers across over 70 sessions over the two days.
