Intergenerational Foresight 2026

The regional provocations presented in this handbook converge on a shared insight: many of today’s most persistent governance failures do not stem from a lack of analysis or technical capability. They arise from the distribution of authority, responsibility and legitimacy across time. Whether in resource governance, innovation ecosystems, demographic transition, crisis response, or institutional trust, short- term horizons and narrow participation repeatedly constrain the scope of foresight. Intergenerational foresight reframes what credible long-term leadership requires. It treats the future as a shared responsibility to govern, rather than as an abstract horizon to observe. This shift has practical consequences. It positions foresight as an institutional capability rather than a specialist function, moves participation from consultation toward shared authority and anchors legitimacy in accountability to those who will live with today’s decisions. The provocations surface recurring leverage points at which this reframing alters outcomes and shows how institutions exercise power, build trust and accumulate resilience over time through design choices such as handover rather than dependency, stewardship rather than extraction and long-term optionality rather than irreversible lock-in. Taken together, these contributions demonstrate that intergenerational foresight requires institutions to reshape the rules by which they make decisions today so that future generations inherit both assets and agency. It operates at the intersection of anticipation and governance, broadening the knowledge considered legitimate, the interests represented and the time horizons recognized within decision-making processes. This approach carries clear implications across sectors. For governments, it emphasizes that they cannot defer long-term responsibility to future administrations or confine it to advisory processes; they must embed it in decision-making rules, institutional mandates and accountability mechanisms. For private-sector and civil-society actors, it highlights the limits of episodic foresight and the need to integrate long-term thinking into strategy, capability development and performance evaluation. For investors and philanthropies, it underscores the importance of aligning capital with governance arrangements that enable continuity, learning and shared ownership over time. Intergenerational foresight does not displace existing foresight methodologies or governance frameworks. It builds upon them, redirecting their use toward deeper questions of legitimacy, power and long-term consequence. It recognizes that institutions cannot eliminate uncertainty and argues that they can design authority over uncertainty more deliberately. In doing so, it offers a way to navigate complexity without defaulting to short-term optimization or technocratic control. The work ahead lies in integration. Institutions will determine the relevance of intergenerational foresight by the extent to which they embed it in everyday decisions, from investment approvals and infrastructure governance to innovation incentives and community participation. Integrating intergenerational foresight into routine governance requires experimentation, institutional learning and sustained collaboration across generations, regions and sectors. This handbook represents one contribution to that effort. It reflects a growing recognition that long- term governance is a structural challenge that demands changes in how authority is exercised and distributed. As uncertainty deepens and irreversible decisions become more common, the ability to govern long-term consequences together will increasingly define institutional resilience and legitimacy. Intergenerational foresight offers one pathway for building that capacity and the invitation now is to carry it forward through practice.Conclusion Intergenerational Foresight: An Approach for Long-Term Responsibility in Governance 46