CASE STUDY: Futures of Brazil: Signals of Transformation
The Brazil Signals Spotlight study shows how UNDP country offices can partner with host governments and draw on UNDP's foresight capabilities to strengthen national long-term development planning.
By Stephen J. Dupont
THE CONTEXT: Brazil Navigates the Future
As one of the world’s most diverse nations -- environmentally, culturally, and racially
-- Brazil occupies a unique position on the global stage. It aims to strengthen its leadership role while nurturing relationships within Latin America and fulfilling its responsibilities as a G20 member, a BRICS founder, and a prominent country of the Global South.
Amid rapid global change, Brazil is a recognized innovator in fields such as clean energy and universal healthcare. At the same time, Brazil faces complex development challenges, including addressing inequalities, accelerating growth, and driving increased prosperity for all, while preserving the country’s extraordinary natural resources.
Brazilian policymakers decided to use foresight as a tool to look further ahead into possible futures and help guide the country’s future direction.
Inspired by UNDP’s Signals Spotlight, in January 2025, the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services (MGI) for the Federal Government of Brazil reached out to UNDP Brazil to explore the possibility of creating a Brazilian version of the Signals Spotlight.
“This initiative with the United Nations is part of a learning process,” said Extraordinary Secretary for State Transformation Francisco Gaetani during the launch of the Spotlight. “...we have an expectation that this can reverberate and bring the country a bit into reflection, to think, to propose things related to the future. Sometimes we have the feeling we’re in a time loop, like that day that repeats with variations, and we think ‘no,’ it’s important for us to start building the future right now.”
The UNDP Signals Spotlight, published ahead of the September 2024 Summit of the Future, looked at signals of change through the lens of intergenerational fairness. In 16 areas of change, it explored what kind of world we might leave for future generations – and what this might mean for development.
THE PROCESS: Embracing Foresight
Futures of Brazil: Signals of Transformation (also known as The Brazil Signals Spotlight 2025 or “Spotlight”) is a foresight study, which is part of a broader initiative of the Brazilian government to develop foresight literacy and turn insights revealed in the Spotlight into policy action and foresight capability. Over a two-year period, UNDP is assisting MGI in developing a foresight capacity for an ongoing signal scanning culture and an internalized foresight capability. This includes providing foresight training support through UNDP’s Next Gen Foresight training program and offering project management and technical advice for building a future trends and signals scanning system.
From the onset of this study, the Brazil Signals Spotlight served as vehicle to grow the foresight capability both within the MGI and UNDP Brazil. In addition, it offered the UNDP Strategy and Futures team an opportunity to extend a real-life experience in development to futurists with its Futures Fellows program.
“What we launch today is more than a report or an intellectual exercise,” said Michele Muschett, UN Deputy Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the UNDP. “It is a collective commitment to imagining a path forward for one of the world’s most vibrant and influential nations. This study invited us to sit at the table and confront the interconnected systems that define our present and that will certainly shape our future.”
“Brazil’s Spotlight is intended to be a vital compass,” Muscett added, “tailored to guide Brazil from reacting actively shaping its future by identifying signals of change, equipping policymakers and citizens with foresight needed to navigate uncertainty and harness the potential of this vibrant nation.”
The Spotlight focuses on signals and trends that MGI and UNDP see emerging over the next five to ten years (2030 – 2035). The Spotlight is seen not as a tangible product, but as an opportunity to spark conversations about the future of Brazil among Brazilians of all walks of life, inspiring hope that converts into action.
“The Spotlight was designed to expand thinking and show that the future is shaped by conscious choices and built through a participatory process with diverse national and local stakeholders, civil society, youth, UNDP. It stands as an invitation to reflect and strengthen an anticipatory governance better prepared for change,” said Lívia Maria da Costa Nogueira – Senior Project Manager, UNDP Brazil.
Together, a core team of nine people from MGI, UNDP Brazil and UNDP Strategy & Futures Team identified 16 themes upon which to identify signals of change throughout the country of Brazil. To give the process additional structure, the themes were grouped into three clusters based on the following aspirations: Hope for Fair Futures, Courage for Responsible Futures and Agency for Adaptable Futures. The 16 themes were groups as follows:
Navigating the Clusters and Themes
In the Spotlight, each cluster and theme is explored in depth with an overview summary; short viewpoints that highlight blind spots, breakthroughs and possible breakdowns in the future; implications and policy provocations to ponder and act upon; insights shared by those interviewed or surveyed for the Spotlight; and ideas to consider in addressing thorny problems and issues – what Brazilians would like to see in the year 2035.
Each of the three clusters also are complemented with short essays written by invited guests that offer additional context or different perspectives.
Multi-Step Foresight Process
The process of developing the Spotlight involved multiple steps, which included identifying signals of change, analyzing existing trends and insights, interviewing subject matter experts, surveying stakeholders, surveying conducting sensemaking workshops with various stakeholder groups, and identifying future implications.
The foundation of the initiative was identifying signals of change and making sense of them. The team conducted eight workshops and a signals studio led by the UNDP Strategy and Futures Team to reflect upon and discuss dozens of signals of change.
Citizen participation was critical to the development of the Spotlight. Business leaders, community leaders, youth leaders, and everyday citizens of Brazil was contacted to participate in sensemaking workshops. Their input was complemented by interviews with subject matter experts recommended by UNDP Brazil and MGI, as well as two online surveys that invited participants to respond to questions about the future of Brazil.
“I thought the most valuable part of this process was the collective sensemaking,” said Mayra Almeida, Senior Project Manager, UNDP Brazil. “Working side by side with different experts to interpret signals, question assumptions, and shape plausible futures created a shared understanding that enriched the entire Spotlight.”
Seeing the Future of Brazil through the Lens of a Brazilian Lunch
The Brazilian lunch feels “sacred” within Brazilian culture. It is a time when families gather for the biggest meal of the day, and when friends and work colleagues pause to gather and share a meal. This meal serves as a center point of each day for many Brazilians, as reflected in comments received by Brazilians who were surveyed by the Spotlight team about what a Brazilian lunch means for them.
Within the Spotlight, the Brazilian lunch served as a thematic lens (or a metaphor) to explore emerging signals of change in Brazil, using a cultural reference that resonates with many Brazilian. When we look more closely at this meal within the context of the Spotlight’s 16 themes identified, we can ask profound questions that relate directly to the signals of change. The Spotlight invites the reader to reflect on the meal and ask questions such as:
· Who is welcome at this table? Are all welcome? Are some excluded?
· Who prepared this meal?
· Where did the food for this meal come from? Who grew and harvested it?
· What was said around this table? Are all views welcomed? Are some excluded?
· Who is at this table? Is that changing over time?
· What is the influence of technology on this meal?
“The Brazilian lunch theme was an inspired choice,” said Mayra Almeida, Senior Project Manager, UNDP Brazil, “It translated complex futures thinking into a familiar, culturally resonant metaphor to visualize and discuss.”
“The concept of a ‘future lunch’ grounds abstract futures in everyday reality,” said Cláudio Providas, UNDP Resident Representative in Brazil, during the launch of the Spotlight. “This question of what will be on our plates in 10 years? Who will cultivate these foods? Do we have enough to eat? This becomes a relevant future for all citizens. It is provocation as a tool.
The objective of imaginary futures is to provoke a discussion that current political polarization often stifles. By imagining different scenarios, we break the cognitive blockage that makes us believe the future is already written and inevitable,” said Providas.
Drawing on insights from the sensemaking workshops, the UNDP Strategy & Futures Team developed four scenarios (possible futures) for Brazil within the next five to ten years. The scenarios described lunches in the future, which point to broader changes within Brazilian daily life.
To expand on the metaphor of a Brazilian lunch as a means of generating stories about Brazil’s future, the team developed a game, Futures’ Served. Played either in-person or virtually, the game lets players explore the four scenarios presented in the Spotlight and serves as a fun and provocative method to spur conversation about the future of Brazil.
TANGIBLE IMPACTS: Foresight in Action
The Spotlight was launched on 26 January 2026 in Brasilia with a joint press conference conducted by MGI and UNDP Brazil. The Spotlight was posted as a downloadable PDF on the UNDP Brazil website in both Portuguese and English.
The development of the Brazil Signals Spotlight represents another step in building Brazil’s foresight capability. Inspired by the completion of the Spotlight, MGI and UNDP began to pursue several next steps:
· The development of a second Spotlight by the government of Brazil in 2026.
· The building of a signals scanning capability.
· The development of a foresight capability within the government.
The embrace of foresight by the government sends a strong and powerful signal that Brazil is making a commitment to intentionally anticipate change and take steps to navigate it.
“The Spotlight proposes an important conceptual shift,” said Andrea Bolzon, Program Specialist of the Governance and Justice for Development Unit of UNDP Brazil, “which is to think of the future as a function of the State. The future – and it’s important to repeat – is not trying to guess what happens, it’s not escaping the present, it’s not doing futurology, it’s not speculation. We have to think of the future as a legitimate function. A necessary function of the State, and even more, as an imperative of the State.”
“I think this report brings this idea of transformation potential and having a collective commitment to act in this direction, to build this shared future, and to actually transform hope into this potential with a concrete commitment to action,” said Esther Dweck, Minister of Management, Innovation and Public Services during the launch of the Spotlight.
Sharing the Spotlight
As part of a long-term initiative to build foresight literacy throughout Brazil, the Spotlight team created two other tools to help people explore the Spotlight. These included:
Acting in the Jungle of Change, which is included in the Annex of the Spotlight, is an exercise designed to facilitate collective conversation and action. This exercise places the reader in the Amazon jungle, a metaphor for a complex system, and invites each person to select a living being (animal or plant life) in the jungle, from which they explore specific points of view. Each animal represents a perspective in the real world.
The Jungle of Change exercise offers the reader an opportunity to explore the future of Brazil using the metaphor of the jungle.
The Signals Spotlight Toolkit was created to provide a step-by-step review of the process of creating a Spotlight, which can be imitated by other states, cities, or towns within Brazil, as well as other countries around the world in conjunction with their local UNDP country office.
FORESIGHT FIELDNOTES: Lessons Learned
The Spotlight involved an extensive process that included a number of steps and the time and talent of dozens of people, in addition to the core team. For UNDP country offices looking to embark on a similar journey, the core Spotlight team offer the following insights:
Creating the Spotlight is not the finish, but rather, the beginning. Instead of thinking of the Spotlight as a report to be read and filed away, its actual value lies in igniting a new, dynamic process that invites more and better questions -- a tool that can facilitate strategic decision-making.
Meeting people where “they’re at” in sharing their thoughts about the future. The process of developing the Spotlight involved creating spaces, both in-person and online, where people could share their thoughts about the future of their country. The team noticed that some people preferred the sharing of ideas in a workshop setting, while others would rather speak one-on-one, respond to a survey, or draft an essay to process and express their thoughts. The use of a game or brain-storming exercises elicited other responses. Having people share what they love to eat for a Brazilian lunch or respond to a question of whether they would bring a child into a Brazil of the future, made the exercise of gathering insights tangible, real and thought provoking.
When facilitating workshops, be flexible. What worked for one workshop may not work for the next. It is important to be able to quickly adapt to an exercise for each group and not be too precious with what was planned.
Including diverse voices is an active exercise. It is important to not only invite people from diverse backgrounds and experiences to the conversation, but to make the spaces safe and comfortable for them to share.
“I observed how powerful it is to bring together diverse perspectives – from government partners, UNDP teams and local actors – to interpret signals of change collaboratively,” said Mayra Almeida, Senior Project Manager, UNDP Brazil. “The iterative nature of the process also revealed how each round of discussion added new layers of insight and strengthened the final narrative.”
Connecting the dots. The Spotlight relies upon more than 500 signals, 14 expert interviews, the participation of dozens of people in eight workshops, and dozens of responses to surveys. Every signal or thought was valuable, offering different perspectives that when combined, allowed the team to start seeing patterns that hint at possible futures for Brazil.
However, the real value of the Spotlight is not just the curation of the signals, but how the signals are connected to tell a bigger story for the future of Brazil.
Seek reputable, relevant, and recent signals. When scanning for signals, it is important to consult sources that are both international and local, reputable and have been published recently. In an age of fake news and opinionated blogs, this is not an easy lift.
Stephen J. Dupont served on the Brazil Signals Spotlight project as a 2025-26 UNDP Futures Fellow. The core team included Futures Fellows Mariana Costa, Jonathan de Araujo de Assis, Shakil Ahmed and Ingrid Furtado. The team was led by strategic foresight advisor Bronwyn Williams.
