Foresight

Foresight and ex ante impact assessment

The identification of relevant, legitimate and potentially most effective research areas provides the basis of FTA’s prioritization and work programming. For this, one needs to be able to identify trends, anticipate stakeholders’ needs and understand the main challenges and opportunities toward reaching the objectives.

To do so, FTA aims to systematically organize and analyze data about trends, influences, and actual and potential changes. This work feeds into, and uses the results of, foresight and global assessment models such as the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) IMPACT model, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis’ (IAASA) Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIUM).

MELIA provides support for ex-ante impact assessments, which estimate the potential impact of an intervention or set of interventions. This requires clear understanding and articulation of current situations, trends and relationships and of assumptions about responses and interactions.