1 The phrase ‘planning from the future’, besides being the title of this article, is the motto of the Humanitarian Futures Programme at King's College, London. It suggests an approach in which standard futures analysis, which normally depends upon trends analysis, is replaced by scenario analysis, which focuses upon the complex interplay of non-linear factors that in and of themselves do not necessarily reflect consistent patterns of behaviour.

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5 John Holmes, ‘New dimensions of collaboration and the corporate sector’, speech to the RedR/King's College London conference ‘Hard Realities and Future Necessities: The Role of the Private Sector in Humanitarian Efforts’, London, 3 December 2009, p. 12.

6 E. Beinhocker, above note 3, p. 378.

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11 Personal reflection of the author, who served as a member of the Council on Disaster Management of the World Economic Forum from 2011 to 2012.

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13 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Lisbon Summit Declaration, 20 November 2010, para. 40, available at: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68828.htm (last visited 10 December 2011).

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16 Note the preface by Michael Jones, UN Resident Coordinator, to the Humanitarian Futures Program (HFP) Report, Integrated Action Plan: A Phase One Analysis of the UN Country Team in Tajikistan, HFP, King's College, London, 2008, available at: http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/sites/default/files/IAP_Tajikistan_Report_Phase1.pdf (last visited 16 May 2012). Note also HFP, China Dialogue, and University College, London, The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of Threat; Sources of Survival, HFP, King's College, London, May 2010, available at: http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/sites/default/files/Waters%20of%20the%20Third%20Pole.pdf (last visited 10 December 2011).

17 Onishi, Norimitsu and Fackler, Martin, ‘Japan held nuclear data, leaving evacuees in peril’, in The New York Times, 8 August 2011, available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/world/asia/09japan.html?pagewanted=all (last visited 11 December 2011)Google Scholar.

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19 Ibid., p. 118.

20 House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Third Report: Scientific Advice and Evidence in Emergencies, March 2011, para. 110, available at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/publications/ (last visited 16 May 2012).

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23 See ‘Foul Humanitarian Words’, a comment on the dangers of the misuse of the terms ‘practical’, ‘academic’, and ‘the field’ for humanitarian policy-makers, arising out of discussions at the Policy and Advocacy Group for Emergency Relief, Ottawa, Canada, 20 October 2011, HFP Newsletter, November–December 2011, available at: http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/newsletters/nov-dec11/foulwords (last visited 16 May 2012).

24 The difficulty for the policy-maker to move out of what might be described as his or her ‘comfort zone’ is suggested in a critique by Harvard University's Stanley Hoffmann of a recent work by the distinguished political analysts, Friedman, Thomas L. and Mandelbaum, Michael, That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented And How We Can Come Back, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 2011Google Scholar. Hoffmann notes that, despite the authors' recognition that the world has changed fundamentally and that the United States is now just another power in a world of multiple powers, they nevertheless fall back on the contradictory assumption of ‘American exceptionalism’, namely the uniqueness of the American experience, which would enable it to resume its role as global leader. In other words, it is difficult for even highly trained analysts to let go of fundamental assumptions, despite the implications of major transformational change. See Hoffmann, Stanley, ‘A cure for a sick country?’, in New York Review of Books, Vol. 58, No. 16, 27 October–9 November 2011Google Scholar.

25 Mahbubani, Kishore, ‘A letter to Netanyahu: time is no longer on Israel's side’, in Financial Times, 11 November 2011, p. 9Google Scholar, in which Professor Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, suggests that ‘shrinking [US] budgets will cut defence and aid expenditures … Countries will no longer hesitate to vote against American preferences.’ Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/15537caa-0bc8-11e1-9310-00144feabdc0.html (last visited 16 May 2012).

26 ‘[This is] not a recommendation in disguise for relativism, for tactical humanism does not believe in the equal claims of all possible moral worlds. It believes in producing values out of engaged debate’. Arjun Appadurai, ‘Tactical Humanism’, in Jerome Binde, The Future of Values, UNESCO, Paris, 2001, p. 18.

27 Personal communication, ICRC Geneva, 2004.

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31 Fisher, David, ‘Domestic regulation of international humanitarian relief in disasters and armed conflicts: a comparative analysis’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 866, June 2007, pp. 353–355CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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33 Moises Naim, ‘Minilateralism: the magic number to get real international action’, in Foreign Policy, July/August 2009, available at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/18/minilateralism?page=full (last visited 11 December 2011).

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36 Creac'h, Yves-Kim and Fan, Lillianne, ‘ASEAN's role in the Cyclone Nargis response: implications, lessons and opportunities’, in Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, Issue 41, December 2008, available at: http://www.odihpn.org/humanitarian-exchange-magazine/issue-41/aseans-role-in-the-cyclone-nargis-response-implications-lessons-and-opportunities (last visited 10 December 2011)Google Scholar.

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39 See E. N. Lorenz, above note 10.

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44 The problem for many planners is that they assume that a plan must reflect relatively firm and fixed steps for a defined period of time. Hence, when one busy executive argued that anyone nowadays with a five or ten year plan is ‘probably crazy’, he implied that to plan one had to be relatively certain about the environment in which one was operating H. Courtney, above note 42, p. 160.

45 This is based upon a consultancy dealing with preparing for pandemics undertaken by this author in 2005.

46 Richard S. Olson and Juan Pablo Sarmiento, Communities of Practice and Disaster Risk Reduction (forthcoming). See also Etienne C. Wenger, ‘Communities of practice: a brief introduction’, available at: http://www.ewenger.com/theory/ (last visited 10 November 2008).

47 It is interesting to note that studies by the RAND Corporation and British Telecommunications Research suggest that technological change will be enhanced by ‘multidisciplinary trends and interactions’. See Anton, Philip S., The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and their Synergies with Information Technology by 2013, prepared for the National Intelligence Council, RAND, Santa Monica, CA, 2001, p. 35, available at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR1307.pdf (last visited 16 May 2012)Google Scholar. As Ian Pearson has said, ‘positive feedback’, or the way that technologies will inter-relate and interact, means that different technological disciplines will result in an acceleration of overall technological advance. See Pearson, Ian D., ‘What's next?’, in BT Technicology Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4, October 2001, p. 101Google Scholar.

48 van der Vink, Gregory E., ‘Scientifically illiterate vs. politically clueless’, in Science, Vol. 276, 23 May 1997, p. 1175CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blockstein, David E., ‘How to lose your political virginity while keeping your scientific credibility’, in BioScience, Vol. 52, No. 1, January 2002, p. 92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Personal communication, December 2003.

50 Stacey White, ‘Turning ideas into action: innovation within the humanitarian sector – a think-piece for the HFP Stakeholders Forum’, Humanitarian Futures Programme, King's College, London, 2008, available at: http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/sites/default/files/InnovationsThinkPiece.pdf (last visited 16 May 2012).

51 Roz Lasker, The Expert's Blindspot, available at: http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/tools/mediacent/film/experstblindspot (last visited 16 May 2012).

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54 Ibid., pp. 81 ff.

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56 See Kar, Kamal, with Chambers, Robert, Handbook on Community-led Total Sanitation, Plan International UK, London, 2008, available at: http://www.communityledtotalsanitation.org/resource/handbook-community-led-total-sanitation (last visited 12 December 2011)Google Scholar. See also King's College, Talking Science, Talking Sense, Humanitarian Futures Programme, London, 2011, available at: http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/content/talking-science-talking-sense (last visited 16 May 2012).

57 See, for example, P. Harvey et al., above note 7.

58 Burke, Joanne and Kent, Randolph, Commercial and Humanitarian Engagement in Crisis Contexts: Current Trends, Future Drivers, Humanitarian Futures Programme, King's College, London, June 2011, available at: http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/sites/default/files/Commercial%20and%20Humanitarian%20Engagement%20(EXEC%20SUMM.).pdf (last visited 17 May 2012)Google Scholar.

59 A study on the engagement of the private sector in humanitarian action is being led by the Humanitarian Futures Programme, King's College, London. It focuses on the role of global, regional, and national ‘platforms’ in supporting the private sector to play an effective humanitarian role. Historically, there have been multiple obstacles that have impeded private sector involvement in humanitarian action, including differences in terminology, methodologies, procedures, and timescales. As a result, ‘the debate rarely moves beyond general calls for more strategic collaboration with humanitarian actors and for a better understanding of the role and added-value of each sector. Therefore, this study will take this discussion to a new level, producing practical ways of “going beyond the problem” and options on the role that platforms can play in helping the private sector to engage more strategically in humanitarian action’ (see http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/content/supporting-private-sector-take-active-humanitarian-role-–-joanne-burke-partnerships-manager- (last visited 17 May 2012).

60 On 15 January 2010, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that it would grant certain Haitian nationals in the United States temporary legal status and permission to work, a designation known as ‘temporary protected status’. This, among other things, recognized the importance of maintaining the flow of remittances from the Haitian diaspora to their families in Haiti. Chishti, Muzaffar and Bergeron, Claire, ‘Haiti tragedy raises important immigration issues for the United States’, in Migration Information Source, 16 February 2010, Migration Policy Institute, Washington DC, available at: http://www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus/display.cfm?ID=771 (last visited 12 December 2011)Google Scholar.

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62 Amartya Sen, ‘The man without a plan’, in Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006, available at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61525/amartya-sen/the-man-without-a-plan (last visited 10 December 2011).