Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this rich and thoughtful discussion over the past several weeks. I have deeply appreciated the range of perspectives shared—from Kenya, Benin, Southern Africa, South Asia, the Pacific, and beyond—and the way contributors have grounded the foresight–evaluation nexus in real-world questions of climate vulnerability, food systems, environmental governance, agricultural transformation, adaptive management, and community ownership.
A strong thread running through the discussion is that future-informed evaluation is not simply about adding foresight tools to existing evaluation practice. It is about rethinking timing, depth, and intent. How do we design evaluations that do not only ask what worked, but whether an intervention remains relevant, resilient, just, and viable under emerging conditions? How do we move from static baselines to dynamic reference points, from endline judgement to continuous sense-making, and from retrospective accountability to anticipatory decision support? I’ll explore more of these threads in the forthcoming discussion summary.
As the formal discussion closes today, I’d also like to ask: what might be the next step?
One possible follow-up could be a short, practical three-hour masterclass on integrating foresight and futures thinking into evaluation, specifically for food security, environmental, and agricultural development programmes. This could introduce core concepts and tools—such as horizon scanning, Causal Layered Analysis, scenarios, Three Horizons, and wind-tunnelling—while focusing on how they can be embedded into evaluation questions, theories of change, OECD-DAC criteria, adaptive learning, and recommendations.
I’d be very interested to know whether those who participated in this discussion, or colleagues in your organisations and networks, would find such a masterclass useful.
As a small closing contribution, I’m also attaching a pre-publication version of an article I co-authored on transformative foresight and the transformational imperative. In some ways, this brings us full circle back to the Chaplowe and Mukoma article I posted at the beginning of the discussion on 28 March. My article argues that evaluation must move beyond business-as-usual by engaging futures thinking not as a technical add-on, but as part of a deeper reorientation toward anticipatory, justice-oriented, and transformation-focused practice. Please treat it as a pre-publication draft and do not cite, quote, or distribute it without permission from the authors.
Thank you again for the generosity, insight, and practical wisdom you have brought to this discussion.
RE: From Hindsight to Foresight: How Evaluation Can Become Future-Informed
Kenya
Steven Lynn Lichty
Managing Partner
REAL Consulting Group
Posted on 30/04/2026
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this rich and thoughtful discussion over the past several weeks. I have deeply appreciated the range of perspectives shared—from Kenya, Benin, Southern Africa, South Asia, the Pacific, and beyond—and the way contributors have grounded the foresight–evaluation nexus in real-world questions of climate vulnerability, food systems, environmental governance, agricultural transformation, adaptive management, and community ownership.
A strong thread running through the discussion is that future-informed evaluation is not simply about adding foresight tools to existing evaluation practice. It is about rethinking timing, depth, and intent. How do we design evaluations that do not only ask what worked, but whether an intervention remains relevant, resilient, just, and viable under emerging conditions? How do we move from static baselines to dynamic reference points, from endline judgement to continuous sense-making, and from retrospective accountability to anticipatory decision support? I’ll explore more of these threads in the forthcoming discussion summary.
As the formal discussion closes today, I’d also like to ask: what might be the next step?
One possible follow-up could be a short, practical three-hour masterclass on integrating foresight and futures thinking into evaluation, specifically for food security, environmental, and agricultural development programmes. This could introduce core concepts and tools—such as horizon scanning, Causal Layered Analysis, scenarios, Three Horizons, and wind-tunnelling—while focusing on how they can be embedded into evaluation questions, theories of change, OECD-DAC criteria, adaptive learning, and recommendations.
I’d be very interested to know whether those who participated in this discussion, or colleagues in your organisations and networks, would find such a masterclass useful.
As a small closing contribution, I’m also attaching a pre-publication version of an article I co-authored on transformative foresight and the transformational imperative. In some ways, this brings us full circle back to the Chaplowe and Mukoma article I posted at the beginning of the discussion on 28 March. My article argues that evaluation must move beyond business-as-usual by engaging futures thinking not as a technical add-on, but as part of a deeper reorientation toward anticipatory, justice-oriented, and transformation-focused practice. Please treat it as a pre-publication draft and do not cite, quote, or distribute it without permission from the authors.
Thank you again for the generosity, insight, and practical wisdom you have brought to this discussion.