Epidemic and Pandemic Foresight Initiative

This initiative aims to achieve better collective preparedness to tackle future epidemics and pandemics by bringing key players together. Foresight enables us to understand the complexity of the world, negotiate uncertainties and articulate strategic visions. To start the conversation, World Health Organization and partners embarked in 2021 on a journey of exploring the future of pandemics and epidemics. They are complex phenomena fueled by a multitude of diverse, interconnected factors. Hindsight – critical reviews of past infectious threats – helps us to react better, but the current pandemic taught us that this is not enough. To better manage the ongoing pandemic and to be better prepared for other infectious threats in the future, a forward looking, coordinated and collaborative approach across all levels of planning and response is vital. Foresight is different from a prediction or forecasting of the future. It presents a new approach for better preparedness. It is forward-looking, action-oriented, and fosters collective ownership of the future.

Distinguished experts from a variety of disciplines provided their views to develop scenarios for the future of infectious threats and explore risks and solutions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch our video to learn more about our foresight initiative for improved pandemic preparedness.