The Netherlands has the best protected delta in the world. Yet how do we safeguard our long-term protection against high water and a sufficient supply of fresh water? And how can we make sure that the Netherlands also remains an attractive country in which to live, work and invest?

The measures required to these ends are prepared and elaborated in the Delta Programme. The Delta Programme is a national programme in which the national government, provinces, municipalities and water boards collaborate with social organisations, the business community and knowledge institutes, under the direction of the government commissioner for the Delta Programme (the Delta Commissioner).

Delta Scenarios

As a part of the Delta Programme, a set of four scenarios was developed with the purpose of presenting a clear and comprehensive view on the various possible futures for the extremely long term (to 2100): FULL, STEAM, CALM and HOT. The climatic and socio-economic changes are considered the main driving forces for the development of very different conditions for water management in the next century. The two key uncertainties of the Delta Scenarios are:

1. Will there be a moderate or rapid climate change?

2. Is there socio-economic growth or socio economic decline?

Sub-programme Rhine Estuary-Drechtsteden

The Delta Programme consists of 9 sub-programmes, one of which is the sub-programme Rhine Estuary-Drechtsteden. The Rhine Estuary, the Drechtsteden and the connected areas of Haringvliet, Hollands Diep and the waters linked to them (the Northern Delta Basins) form the transitional zone between the North Sea and the Rhine and Meuse rivers. A feature of this region is that the water levels, currents and sediment transport (the movement of sediment such as sand and gravel) is influenced by both the sea and the rivers. Sea and river processes meet up here, strengthening or weakening one another.

The predicted climate change has various consequences for the region. The rising sea level means that dangerous situations can arise sooner and more frequently in case of storm surges. Barriers will therefore need to be closed more often. This increased closure frequency means that the chance of a closure coinciding with a high river discharge also increases. Climate change entails a greater chance that the required frequency of river discharges will increase, as will the quantities of water to be discharged. The combination of a higher sea level and high river discharges will mean that in the future, water levels will be higher than they are now. Consequently, the areas outside the dikes will be flooded more often and to greater depths.

Regional Delta Scenarios

To prepare decisions about the development of the water system in the region, research was done into possible long term scenarios for the region up to 2100.Three thematic studies explored future developments for the urban area, for the port and the industrial cluster, and  for agriculture, nature and recreation with the national Delta Scenarios as a starting point. De Ruijter Strategy worked on the process and the report of the urban study and explored possible futures of the urban area of the Rhine Estuary and the Drechtsteden up to 2100; Studio Marco Vermeulen designed images of what the urban region might look like in the different scenarios in 2100.

Next, De Ruijter Strategy was asked to draft a set of Regional Delta Scenarios Rhine Estuary-Drechtsteden, based on the thematic studies, existing literature and reports, interviews with experts and workshops with stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. The result was published in January 2012.

The Regional Delta Scenarios do not only offer new insights for all stakeholders but also points of reference for the extremely long term, which can be used for policy for the shorter term. As we speak, the scenarios are being used to tighten up the sub-programme’s problem analysis quantitatively and geographically. They are also used for the development and risk analysis of possible strategies.

Would you like to know more about this project? Please contact Jolanda van Heijningen at 0031 20 625 02 14 or per mail: jolanda@deruijter.net

The project resulted in a Final Report with an extensive analysis, scenarios and policy options  for the future of the Dutch Armed Forces: the ‘Future Policy Survey: Guidance for the Armed Forces of 2020’ (2010). After the presentation of this report, the Minstry of Defence  commissioned the Netherlands Institute for International Affairs ‘Clingendael’ to develop an instrument to monitor trends developments and to place them within the perspective of the future scenarios in the Future Policy Survey.

On March 12, 2012 Clingendael presented the ‘Strategic Monitor 2012’.  This monitor uses an approach similar to the early warning system for the Ministry of Justice that De Ruijter Strategy developed. The Strategic Monitor 2012 describes the outlines of the rapidly changing international system for the year ahead. One of the conclusions that can be drawn from the report is that the international system is moving from a multilateral scenario towards a multipolar and more fragmented world.

The English summary of the Strategic Monitor 2012 can be downloaded here.

Many people in the financial, political and business worlds may well think that this crisis illustrates the failings of Strategic Planning and Scenario thinking. Paul de Ruijter, Henk Alkema and Saskia Stolk argue that the crisis is to a large extent caused by a lack (or even absence) of long-term thinking and that we should use the methodology of Strategic Planning to get through this crisis.

De Ruijter, Alkema and Stolk urge the business community not to sit back waiting till Governments and the world of finance have regained control of the situation. They might be waiting for a long time. Instead we need to look within and analyse where our own planning, our assumptions and our anticipation have failed. This will give new insights to assist getting through and using opportunities to come out stronger. In the end it will have to be businesses that get us out of the recession.

Interested? Find the article here.

The Law of the Future Joint Action Programme, initiated by the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL) in 2010, joins creative thinkers from academia and practice to reflect on alternative futures for law and legal systems and aims to provide both policy recommendations, research agendas and recommendation for legal training. The programme is set up as a multi-stakeholder, multi-year process. One of the instruments in the Joint Action Programme is scenario building and one of the first outcomes of the programme are the Law Scenarios to 2030, which were presented at the Law of the Future Conference on 23 and 24 June 2011. Paul de Ruijter and Renate Kenter contributed to these scenarios.

The input for the scenarios came from different sources: 49 Think Pieces written by leading thinkers and doers (brought together in the 750 pages book The Law of the Future and the Future of Law), interviews with experts, and 15 scenario feedback sessions for different professional and geographical groups. The trends indicated in this material were reworked into two contingencies:

• Will we witness continued internationalisation of rules and institutions (‘International’) or will this trend stagnate or even reverse (‘National’)?
• Will private governance mechanisms and private legal regimes further expand and become predominant (‘ Private’), or will state-connected institutions and legal regimes retain their position (‘ Public’)?

Taken together, these contingencies theoretically allow four scenarios, of which the latter possible scenario (national-private) was seen as somewhat incoherent and hugely theoretical. The three remaining scenarios were developed further to describe three different global legal environments.

The first question regarding the future global legal environments is whether international rules and institutions further expand or not. If the expansion of international rules and institutions continues, we may expect a Global Constitution scenario. In this world, the legal order will slowly develop as the European Union has been developing: into a robust legal order of its own, highly integrated with national legal systems.

If, on the other hand, the process of expansion of international rules and institutions reverses, we may expect athickening of legal borders instead, which will then, almost by definition, be dominated by state-made law (at national or regional level). This world, which is described in the second scenario Legal Borders, will probably see regional organisations emerging as part of the development of legal borders aimed at warding off the global legal environment.

However, international rules and institutions can also further expand as part of a process of shifting emphasis from law created and enforced by state-connected institutions to private governance mechanisms and private legal regimes. If they do, as described in the Legal Internet scenario, the global legal environment will be characterised by a growing body of international rules and institutions with an increasingly public-private or even private nature.

The Law of the Future Forum and Conference, where representatives from government, business and civil society met, will produce actionable recommendations for policy (what should be done?), research (what don’t we know) and legal education (what should be taught?). Consequently, the Law of the Future Monitoring Mechanism will be developed to monitor which (aspects of the) scenarios are unfolding or not.

www.lawofthefuture.org

“Rabobank has taken precautionary measures to secure sufficient liquidity in times of crisis. Late last year, the bank got 30 billion Euro in mortgages ready as a security for loans of the European Central Bank in case of emergency. According to CFO Bert Bruggink, Rabobank has not suffered from the crisis up to now. He wants to get the bank ready for worse times in the future. “We anticipate on a worst case scenario. I do not assume that we will need it, but at least we are prepared.”

In 2008 Rabobank, unlike other banks, made a profit of 2.8 billion Euro. Recently Rabobank published four future scenarios for businesses on how the world will look in 2030.

De Ruijter Strategy was part of a few scenario projects like developing Interest Rate scenarios in 2002 and Consumer scenarios in 2004, and will assist in preparing the local Rabobanks and their customers for the implications of the brand new IN2030 scenarios.

As a contribution to the 2010 annual meeting of the ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) in Los Angeles, Saskia Stolk, Paul de Ruijter, Constantijn Dolmans and Jules Lejeune would like to stress the importance of internationalization for industry associations and business federations. We argue that it requires a global scale to tackle challenges like global governance, scarcity of commons, climate change and financial stability in an integral way. Only with united efforts it will be possible to create a bigger pie.

The world is constantly changing. Again and again, companies and other organizations find themselves confronted with – sometimes sudden – changes in their environment. Instead of short-sightedly struggling for a bigger share of the pie, companies can also try to take the long view and join hands to create a bigger pie. We can make the pie bigger by combining collectivism and entrepreneurship. This combination is often found in Europe and can be brought to practice in self chosen communities, of which industry associations are an excellent example. Industry associations can turn risks into opportunities by identifying, managing and mitigating them, for example with the help of an instrument like scenario planning. However paradoxical it may sound, an important reason for a company or association to seek international cooperation is to be able to compete better.

As a matter of fact, The Netherlands combines a communitarian approach, including the association as a popular form of organization, with a commercial spirit and respect for individualism. This spirit has contributed to the success of the European Union, as the economic and the political viability of the EU has been built upon a close relationship with business associations. As a small country with major commercial interests in and outside Europe, we have no other choice than to be open to internationalization. The blend of openness to internationalization and the popularity of the association as a form of organization has lead to the fact that the Netherlands has become a center of knowledge with regards to international association management.

Read the complete article here

In order to develop an adequate conceptual foundation for decisions that will be necessary with respect to the future of the Armed Forces, the government of the Netherlands initiated the Future Policy Survey. This project began on 1 March 2008 based on the plan of action approved by Dutch government and on the terms of reference stated in the plan. Its assignment was: “To formulate, on the basis of expected long-term developments and possible scenarios and without constraints, policy options with regard to the future ambitions of the Netherlands Defence effort, the appropriate composition and equipment, and the associated level of Defence expenditure.” (House of Representatives, 2008 31 243, No. 6)

The project was executed by an interagency team drawn from the ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs, the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Justice and Finance. It was critically assessed by a sounding board of experts, led by former minister of Finance Gerrit Zalm.

In the following two years, the team organized a challenging process. This interdisciplinary, interagency and international exercise in the area of Defence, was unprecedented in the Netherlands. Many Dutch and international experts from both inside and outside the Defence organisation participated. An extensive analysis, scenarios and policy options were published in the Final Report in March 2010. However, as a result, the Future Policy Survey has produced more than what is contained in its final report. From now on, this kind of multi stakeholder, knowledge mobilizing and future orientated thinking will be structurally embedded into the process of policy making in the Defence organisation. On a final conference on 19 May 2010, the results and the Final Report were presented by means of a film (in Dutch).

De Ruijter Strategy supported the project team in this process. We educated the project team in the scenario methodology and De Ruijter Strategy moderated and developed the programs of most workshops with experts.

Please click here for an (English) article about the process of this project.

Visit the website of the ministry of Defence for the summary and conclusions of the Final Report (in English).

For more information, please contact Jolanda van Heijningen on +31 (0)20 625 02 14 or jolanda@deruijter.net.

“Strategic decisions by definition concern tomorrow and they have far-reaching consequences for the future, which means that unpredictable changes in the areas of technology, demography, economy, globalization, and the environment need to be taken into account. This creates a need for the Dutch government (and for any other government) to be prepared for an uncertain future. After all, to govern is to look ahead.

The Dutch Ministry of Justice wants to develop insight into which possible changes may be important to its policy area in the long term. To that end a broad strategic futures exploration was carried out in 2006, with the aim of increasing the departments focus on the future and the environment. Uncertain developments and trends are identified and on the basis of two key uncertainties, four future scenarios were developed.

To be able to determine at an early stage which scenario or which elements of the scenarios are unfolding in reality, the department felt the need to monitor environmental developments, which is why, after building the scenarios, an early warning system (EWS) was developed by De Ruijter.

An EWS is used to monitor various developments and to place them within the perspective of future scenarios. Without actually predicting the future, this makes it possible to determine which scenario is the most relevant at any given moment, allowing the departments to adapt its policies. Regular modifications to the EWS make it possible to monitor in the direction of which scenario society appears to be moving. This created a path to the future with which the sustainability of (new) policies can be tested periodically.”

De Ruijter supported the Ministry of Justice in developing the scenarios and early warning system. In April 2010 the article “Monitoring the future. Building an early warning system for the Dutch Ministry of Justice” (by Lineke Botterhuis, Patrick van der Duin, Paul de Ruijter and Peter van Wijck) is being published by Futures.

For more information, please contact Lineke Botterhuis on +31 (0)20 625 02 14 or lineke@deruijter.net.