Karlijn Muiderman

141 Opening up or closing down anticipatory governance 5 mind-sets of policymakers to plan under scientific uncertainty through reliance on robust data and strengthened interaction with external experts. The African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA-2050) Program uses mainly crop and convection permitting modeling to assess probable futures and organizes workshops with policymakers to build institutional capacities for science-based planning to mitigate future risks, which is mainly approach 1 with some approach 2 action. The Food Security, Agriculture and Climate Change (CCAFS) Future Scenarios Project sees futures as more fundamentally uncertain and complex and explores plausible futures to be able to navigate them as they emerge (approach 2). The CCAFS scenarios were used to guide the reformulation of Burkina Faso’s Rural Development Policy II (2016-2020) to make it more robust to diverse futures. However, the policy document and policy makers stated to appreciate the processes for its technical assistance in reducing future risks, thereby using approach 1 language. 5.4.1.3. Opening up/closing down Both the WABiCC and AMMA-2050 programs embed an approach 1 conception of the future and pursue a combination of approaches 1 and 2 actions – embedding language on deep uncertainty and capacity building within a linear planning approach. Both programs also aim to reduce risk and increase resilience (also 1 and 2). These processes opened up to include multiple sources of scientific information but maintained a relatively exclusive processes. The CCAFS process followed approach 2 but ended up being used by policy makers for linear planning strategies – thereby reducing equally plausible futures to a consensual and most likely future and reframing futures as technically informed in a way that was not originally intended by the anticipation process. Focus group participants shed further light on the closing down dynamic. Participants saw the future as a relatively closed and predetermined space - credible futures are those that can be assessed by science. According to multiple interviewees should anticipatory governance therefore support the evidence-base of policies and get the science right about future climate change to inform decision-making more accurately beyond subjectivity and perception. Future uncertainty was considered a problem of science - it can result in underestimation or overestimation (e.g., of yields) and misinform planning. Processes that explicitly engage with inherent future uncertainties and subjectivity, such as participatory scenarios work, are considered less authoritative than model-based scenarios. Some described participatory scenarios as the second-best option: “It depends

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