UNDP Arab States Futures Series - STORYTELLING: Empowering Narratives about the Future

Storytelling is essential to doing good futures work. Exploring methods and approaches that emphasize storytelling, this session looked at how narrative can empower people to feel a greater sense of agency. Speakers: Pupul Bisht, Founder of the Decolonising Futures Initiative, Creative Lead & Network Weaver for Next Generation Foresight Practice Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Principal Research Scientist at KenSci and Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington Zahra Mahamed, Executive Director of Somali Storytellers film company, Storyteller and Award winning poet Moderator: John A. Sweeney, an award-winning futurist, designer, and author, with experience in over 45 countries. John tweets on trends, emerging issues, and all things postnormal at @aloha\_futures. This session was part of a webinar series organised in the framework of the UNDP Youth Futures Fellowship and involving acclaimed futures thinkers from around the world. In October, UNDP launched a participatory futures exercise involving young people in the Arab States and their imaginings of the futures of climate action and civic engagement. 32 young people, from 15 Arab countries were selected from among over 400 creative works, to partake in a 7-week online fellowship programme on futures thinking. You can view their creative pieces in this online gallery: