Refuture Africa

Examples and questions

What a Refuture
brief could look like.

See the client question, research, design tests and possible outputs in an illustrative food brief. Learning in Practice is a proposed demonstration; both show the kinds of work that could be commissioned.

Food / Illustrative brief

Food System Futures

What would it take to nourish people, sustain livelihoods and renew the land?

Project concept
An illustrated food landscape linking cultivation, a market, shared meals and recovery.
An imagined relationship between land, livelihoods and nourishment. AI-generated illustration

A question made practical

GrowersShared
collection pointHouseholds

Feedback shapes the service

One option to test with people: a shared collection point.

Investigate household affordability and access, growers’ livelihoods and distribution practices. With the people concerned, imagine alternatives and test a service, enterprise or market arrangement.

Scope, expertise, costs, partner roles and renewal criteria would be agreed with a client. This example is illustrative.

Possible outputs

  • Research findings and a system map
  • Co-designed concepts and prototype findings
  • Demand, pricing and operating assumptions
  • A transition pathway and stewardship plan

How this brief could develop

  1. 01 / Ground

    Research findings

    Research access, affordability and growers’ realities.

  2. 02 / Imagine

    Future options

    Explore changing costs, supply and expectations.

  3. 03 / Experiment

    Prototype findings

    Test a collection point with households and growers.

  4. 04 / Build

    Pilot plan

    Agree costs, partners, roles and review criteria.

  5. 05 / Steward

    Stewardship plan

    Review access, livelihoods and effects on land.

Research and feedback continue. Learning can change the brief.

Decision supported: whether to run a pilot, what to test and who would sustain it.

Explore alternative directions

One system.
Several futures.

Illustrative prompts for inquiry, developed with people in a real brief.

What if resilience were organised locally?

Explore how local production, diverse knowledge and stronger relationships could help a food system adapt to disruption.

A question to test: Which relationships and capabilities would make adaptation possible?

A possible output: Scenarios and an intervention portfolio for a named investment or programme decision.

Discuss a food systems brief
An imagined group discussing materials and a model as they learn together.
Learning through shared inquiry. AI-generated illustration

Candidate demonstration

Learning in Practice

Proposed / Not yet commissioned

What changes when people practise imagining, testing and caring for an alternative in their own place?

A local host, learners or educators could choose a question and develop capability through making and stewardship. Participants, place, resources and assessment remain to be agreed.

Explore a contribution

Initial application contexts

Questions from
everyday life.

Education

What should learning enable people to imagine, choose and make?

Cities

How could everyday places support agency, belonging and living systems?

Food

How could food systems renew land, livelihoods and nourishment together?

Health

How could care strengthen wellbeing and the conditions that sustain it?

Images and evidence

Possibilities,
clearly described.

The scenes are AI-generated illustrations of imagined situations. They depict possibilities, rather than actual Refuture projects or research sessions.

How work stories will be presented

Name the brief, methods, contributors, outputs, decision use and evidence limits. Obtain permission for names, quotes, images and knowledge use. Publish delivered work and outcomes only where verified.

Begin with a brief

Bring a question
with consequences.

Bring a research question, a strategy decision, a service or enterprise idea, or a pilot.

Discuss a brief