Project Background

The Youth Futures for Systemic Justice project (October 2024 to May 2025) addresses the systemic exclusion of young people from futures planning in East and Southern Africa. Moving beyond passive dialogue, it promotes action-oriented anticipation by equipping 36 young changemakers with practical skills in strategic innovation and relational systems thinking. This shifts the role of youth from passive recipients to active agents and ‘seeds’ of transformation, capable of both imagining and enacting more just futures.

The project builds on the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes (SOGA) methodology, which identifies and strengthens hopeful grassroots innovations already being led by young people. The project also developed new methods to build anticipation practice with changemakers. Through in-person summits and virtual labs, participants used various systems and futures-thinking approaches to explore systemic challenges and build anticipation practice by prototyping new safe-to-fail experiments.

Methodology

Our approach is grounded in Anticipation as Practice and the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes framework. Rather than viewing youth initiatives as responses to problems, we see them as ‘seeds’ – hopeful, community-based alternatives already driving positive change for people and the planet.

We supported these seeds through five interconnected strategies:

  1. Anticipatory thinking – Young people explored systemic causes, challenged dominant narratives, imagined new possibilities and worked with future alternatives using methods such as causal layered analysis and the Three Horizons Framework. This allowed them to reframe issues such as menstrual health as collective concerns rather than personal burdens.
  2. Learning through experimentation – Youth Futures Labs provided space for real-world testing and adaptation. Participants responded to emerging needs by, for instance, combining climate grief support with agroecology projects or setting up local barter systems.
  3. Building networks for change – Community radio, alumni circles and peer learning spaces enabled connection across countries and generations, creating opportunities for shared learning and mutual support.
  4. Action research – Young people were full participants and co-creators of knowledge. They uncovered futures already present in their communities and expressed their insights through storytelling, experimentation and reflective practice.
  5. Shared responsibility for the future – The project fostered a collective mindset, moving responsibility for change from individuals to communities. This approach encouraged long-term thinking rooted in care, justice and resilience.

Rather than aiming for fixed results, we followed how trust was built, drew on local knowledge systems and developed the confidence to lead change. Anticipation was not treated as a method to apply but as a way of thinking, relating and acting. Youth were not learning about change; they were making it happen.

Seeds, Changemakers and Researchers

Youth Seed Initiatives (‘Seeds’)

These are hopeful grassroots projects already driving positive change within communities. Identified through the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes (SOGA) approach, they serve as living prototypes for more just and transformative futures. Examples include the Radio Domus podcast platform amplifying youth voices and trauma-informed leadership models.

Changemakers

These influential individuals are recognised for their ability to effect change within communities or institutions. They work with the project to connect grassroots ‘seed’ innovations to wider systemic transformation, often acting as mentors and bridges to established networks and policy spaces.

Youth Researchers

As core members of the project team, these young academics were selected for their skills and commitment to social justice. Positioned as co-researchers, they contributed to all phases of the project – from design and analysis to co-authoring outputs – ensuring the work remains truly youth-centred.

The Partners

South African Institute of International Affairs

Lead Project Organiser

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) is an independent public policy think tank advancing a well-governed, peaceful, economically sustainable, and globally engaged Africa. SAIIA’s work spans foreign policy, governance and environment, economic policy, and social development linking local experiences with global debates. SAIIA’s membership base spans a wide range of private sector companies, diplomatic missions institutions, students, and individuals who have an interest in international affairs.

The African-generated knowledge provides local and regional decision-makers with independent, evidence-based options for Africa’s future development. SAIIA provides an open platform for the public to engage with these issues and facilitate discussions between a wide variety of partners. The public outreach activities inspire the students to take an interest in international and help to develop research and leadership skills.

Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Youth Futures for Systemic Justice Project
Project Co-Lead

The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT Graduate School of Business is a globally ranked centre of excellence dedicated to advancing social innovation and entrepreneurship. Its mission is to build capacity and knowledge – with partners, practitioners and students – to advance the discourse and systemic impact of social innovation. In collaboration with the UCT GSB, the Centre has integrated social innovation into the business school curriculum, established a wide community of practitioners and awarded over R8 million in scholarships to students from across Africa. Its work covers various sectors including innovative finance, systems change, social entrepreneurship, education, youth development and healthcare.

The Centre for Sustainability Transitions

Youth Futures for Systemic Justice Project
Project Co-Lead

The Stellenbosch Centre for Sustainability Transitions (CST) is a Stellenbosch University ‘flagship’ initiative established in 2015. This initiative brings together complexity thinking, sustainability science and transdisciplinary research methodology. Research at the CST is largely conducted in collaborative inter- and transdisciplinary teams that draw in expertise from different disciplines as well as from policy, practice and local stakeholders. Much of the research is funded by external project grants, and students are part of the larger project teams which provides additional opportunities for learning and research support. CST has multiple cross-cutting research themes including governance, entrepreneurship & Innovation, social-Ecological Resilience, decoupling & Resource Flows, complexity & Systems Modelling, and transdisciplinarity.

Summit Photos

Summits

The Visioning Summit

As part of this initiative, a youth futures visioning summit was convened in Cape Town, South Africa from 3–6 September 2024. This summit provided a platform for seeds and changemakers to collaboratively explore and envision bold and positive futures for youth competencies and anticipation in the Eastern and Southern Africa regions. The workshop employed foresight methods such as the Futures Wheel, Three Horizons Framework and causal layered analysis to explore future possibilities and innovations.

The Anticipation Summit

Guided by skilled facilitators, this summit focused on personal learning journeys, the roles of change agents in systems change, multiple pasts and futures, causal layered analysis, systemic innovations and building anticipatory capabilities by integrating futures/foresight with relational systems thinking. This approach enhanced participants’ anticipatory skills and empowered them to design contextually relevant leverage points; frames of mind and safe-to-fail experiments aimed at driving systemic change. The project not only empowered participants but also inspired lasting, transformative impacts within youth initiatives and changemakers across the ESA regions.

View Publications

Read the special report
Read the journey guide