How might agriculture develop in southern Africa?

As a policy research institute dedicated to the effective communication of its findings, the Institute engages decision-makers in government, business, NGOs and other sectors in the development and implementation of policies that are simultaneously beneficial to the global economy, the global environment and to social well- being. [...] Making Sense of Complexity trade knowledge network Acknowledgements We wish to thank the authors of the various briefings that formed the critical backdrop to the formulation of this report, and all those who participated in a robust and wide-ranging workshop in Harare to discuss these briefings and formulate the scenario outlines. [...] One of the main objectives of scenario planning is to help us understand the driving forces (i.e., the underlying social, political, environmental, economic and technological trends that ‘cause’ the future) and to identify the critical uncertainties that affect, in this case, Southern African agricultural futures. [...] Its objective in this case was to identify the driving forces and critical uncertainties in the regional agricultural environment, and then to explore how these might unfold in the long term to shape the setting against which decision-makers will have to determine the policies and approaches of their respective organizations and countries. [...] May summarizes the major procedural steps in the construction of scenarios below,9 and the comments in italics describe the process as it was undertaken in the Harare workshop.