Rwanda foresightXchange 2014 21-23 October at Kigali, Rwanda

The Rwanda foresightXchange was organized by the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) and the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence (GCPSE), with the support of UNDP Innovation Facility and UNDP Rwanda. Each day in this 3-day workshop focused on a key development issue in Rwanda – Urbanization, Rural Development and Special Development Projects.

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Purpose

• Establish the practical value of foresight and alternative futures to enhance ‘traditional’ approaches to public planning;

• Experience, use and evaluate the application of strategic foresight techniques in the public planning process;

• Reflect upon the necessary and feasible institutional adjustments to incorporate foresight techniques at different stages of planning and policy development.

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Participation High-level involvement over three days, by:

• All five provincial governors, • Senior delegates of key government agencies, • Mayors of important secondary cities, • Permanent Secretaries, • Heads of government Institutions, and • Representatives of the private sector.

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Proceedings

Participants discussed, experienced and evaluated the added value of strategic foresight in:

• making sense of the complexity of key development challenges,

• exemplifying the benefits of exploring alternative futures and constructing scenarios,

• keeping focus on outcomes,

• testing the resilience of existing strategies and policies, and

• considering the organizational requirements for acting on insights gathered.

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Findings Realization that the ability to act upon insights from applying foresight approaches requires organizational adjustments, especially in: • cross-ministerial, agency and national-regional-local collaboration

and coherence (i.e. ‘whole-of-government’ or WoG), • structural incentives, • enablers and abilities to flexibly adapt (budget allocations,

performance contracts, etc.), • space and resources for iterative experimentation and further

utilization of already impressive inclusive feedback loops.

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What works? Where Rwanda’s needs and ambitions correspond with Singapore’s:

• core principles ‘foresight-driven understanding, strategy and execution’

• challenges ‘an actionable basis for adaptive strategic planning’

• solutions ‘a framework to cope with uncertainty while avoiding stasis and dogmatism’ (i.e. ‘what works’)

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Ways forward Discussions with Rwanda’s Minister of State for Planning sparked further interest in learning from Singapore; specifically about the Reinvestment Fund used by Singapore’s Ministry of Finance to foster innovation and cross-ministerial collaboration.

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Actions

• Foresight UNDP Rwanda will work with the Minister of Planning and RGB to ensure foresight will be applied as an approach in GoR planning processes at the central and decentralized levels.

• Innovation Fund UNDP Rwanda will actively support the design of the Innovation Fund for Rwanda which should have the characteristics of a homegrown solution and anchored in the Imihigo.

• Whole of Government approach UNDP will research available literature and studies that will be made available to the SPU.

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Media • We should all know that as we experience new realities and changing societal

dynamics, it requires us to focus at new approaches, new tools of monitoring and evaluations...

~ Francis Kaboneka quoted in ‘Foresight processes critical to delivering development agenda,’ The New Times Rwanda, 22 October 2014.

• … the symposium was crucial in helping the country achieve its long term development goals like Vision 2020.

~ ‘Planning crucial in tackling development challenges – Experts,’ The New Times Rwanda, 24 October 2014.

• For a video capture of the event, please click here.

• For full details of the event, please click here.

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