Foresight & capacity building
Futures Literacy
A UNESCO-developed capability: the skill of understanding the different ways people use the future, so they can imagine alternatives and act with greater awareness in the present.
Definition
Futures literacy is the capability, developed within UNESCO under Riel Miller, that allows people to better understand the role of the future in what they see and do. Being futures literate empowers the imagination and enhances the ability to prepare, recover, and invent as change occurs. UNESCO builds the skill through structured learning-by-doing Futures Literacy Laboratories.
References
UNESCO definition and method
origins and framing
Overview
What it means
People constantly use imagined futures — for prediction, planning, or reassurance — usually without noticing. Futures literacy makes those uses conscious, distinguishing probabilistic and optimisation-driven "futures" from open, exploratory ones, so decision-makers stop being trapped by a single expected tomorrow. In sustainability it counters short-termism and lock-in to business-as-usual scenarios.
How it is used
UNESCO and partners run Futures Literacy Laboratories with governments, cities, companies, and communities; the capability informs strategic foresight, anticipatory governance, and education for sustainable development.
Why it matters
Transformative change requires imagining futures that do not extrapolate the present; futures literacy treats that imagination as a learnable, universal skill rather than an expert technique.
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