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Scenario building
To empower and decide
Medium term
Top-down
Active participation
Small group
Medium - big group
About

Scenario building is a hybrid methodology that combines qualitative and quantitative techniques to anticipate plausible futures, assess territorial implications, and support evidence-based decision-making. The process typically begins with formulating assumptions and constructing narratives that outline different possible trajectories based on strategic variables related to public space or urban policies.

This approach supports the projection of future demands in areas such as mobility, urban infrastructure and the availability of public space, providing a rigorous analytical foundation for territorial planning and public policy design.

Benefits

  • Enables participants to use foresight to better understand current urban challenges.

  • Helps communities identify internal drivers of change and visualise alternative futures in which they can actively participate.

  • Fosters new forms of collaboration, leadership and organisation among urban stakeholders.

  • Encourages inclusive and participatory processes where a range of voices contribute to building shared urban visions.

Importance

  • Visualises urban futures with an intersectional lens

Scenario building makes it possible to imagine urban futures where ecological sustainability and gender equality are not only compatible but integrated as complementary goals.

  • Promotes active inclusion in urban planning processes

This methodology fosters participatory and inclusive spaces where citizens can actively shape urban policy.

  • Supports integration between ecological and gender justice

Scenario analysis helps anticipate the differentiated effects of ecological transformations on gender equality and vice versa. It highlights the tensions between both approaches, enabling the design of proactive strategies to align them.

Steps

  1. Define the objectives, the territorial scope and the time frame for the activities.

  2. Identify baseline scenarios and determine the relevant variables for each one aligned with the workshop’s goals.

  3. Assess uncertainty and conduct structural and cross-impact analysis of the selected variables.

  4. Analyse the results and identify incompatibilities to develop coherent scenarios.

  5. Link scenarios to potential actions through discussion or backcasting to define a short-term vision and a shared strategy.

Key Aspects

  • Allocate enough time to ensure an inclusive and deliberative process.

Scenario building requires sufficient time to support sustained dialogue, critical reflection and consensus-building among diverse participants. It is essential to plan additional time for explanation and validation, especially when working with communities with varying technical or educational levels.

  • Strengthen local capacities through training and community empowerment.

Training community members to lead and facilitate participatory processes is key to enabling empowerment. Involving local facilitators also increases the cultural and linguistic sensitivity of the interventions.

  • Adopt integrative and realistic methodological frameworks.

Managing the complexity and uncertainty inherent in foresight analysis requires clear methodological tools and expert facilitation to balance diverse perspectives. This approach helps articulate local aspirations with external structural dynamics, avoid deterministic visions and acknowledge the limits of community control over systemic factors.

Outcomes

  • Development of future urban scenarios grounded in local context

Builds scenarios that reflect alternative urban development pathways based on gender and ecological criteria. This diversity supports exploring how various decisions and contextual conditions may shape territorial evolution.

  • Scenario comparison to identify challenges and priorities

Conducts a comparative analysis of the scenarios to detect critical challenges, structural gaps and priority areas for intervention. This process highlights tensions between objectives and informs evidence-based decision-making.

  • Policy formulation aligned with a desired strategic scenario

Supports the design of public policies, concrete measures and territorial projects to achieve the desired scenario, prioritising environmental sustainability, territorial justice and gender equity as core principles for the urban future.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This website reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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