President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent announcement of a National Dialogue signals a defining moment for South Africa. With deepening inequality, democratic fatigue and widespread disillusionment, there is an imperative that this dialogue is not limited to elite consultations without sufficient public participation. If it defaults to top-down solutions and closed-door deliberations, it risks entrenching the exclusionary patterns of the past it aims to undo.
South Africa urgently needs systemic reimagination: a radical, participatory rethinking of who we are and where we want to go. To avoid becoming a performative gesture of rhetorical consensus or technical fixes, the dialogue must embrace participatory futures – an approach that invites all South Africans, especially those historically marginalised – to co-create shared visions that can guide and shape the new systems, initiatives, institutions and collective practices of tomorrow.
Why Participatory Futures?
Participatory futures extend beyond inclusion, representing a shift in how we work with multiple ideas of the future by using collective intelligence, anticipatory responses and preparatory actions to help people lead from the emerging future together. Participatory futures enable citizens and influential actors to identify priorities, collectively and systemically reimagine long-term alternatives and shape systemic change from the ground up to bring together those with the most to gain and those with the most to lose to co-create truly just futures. In a country where less than 38% of citizens believe the next generation will be better off, this isn’t a luxury – it’s a lifeline.
A citizen involved in the early phases of the National Dialogue discussions captured it best: “No country can run without citizens getting fully involved.” This involvement must go beyond symbolic gestures, tokenism, “participation-washing,” or town hall meetings. It demands genuine co-creation, intergenerational thinking and a shift in mindsets, values and systems to ensure they are fit for purpose and inclusive in a rapidly changing world.
These ideas are not speculative. Around the world, participatory futures have reshaped how countries tackle complexity. In Colombia, post-conflict dialogues used foresight methods to confront painful legacies and build more inclusive reparations processes. In Finland, citizens were directly involved in scenario planning for a post-carbon society. In Egypt, the Alexandria Dialogues used futures thinking to reimagine development strategies with a focus on youth, education and the future of work.
Why Does This Matter Now?
Our most urgent challenges – including persistent poverty, widening inequality, femicide and all levels of abuse (especially against women and children), youth unemployment, and climate breakdown – cannot be successfully addressed within the confines of five-year election cycles or siloed bureaucratic plans. Our education system is in crisis, with only around half of all learners who enter Grade 1 eventually writing matric. Gender-based violence remains what the president rightly calls a “second pandemic”. Trust in institutions, too, is waning. Only 36% of South Africans express confidence in government. Many have observed and believe the system benefits the few while excluding the many. These are not short-term issues; they are systemic and complex, requiring proportionate responses. There is a need for action-oriented anticipation with the mindset of ancestors to build a future that is not only better for us but also for generations yet to come.
South Africa’s new Government of National Unity – 10 parties pledging to “put the nation first” – offers a rare opportunity to rethink how we approach participation, politics and policy. The presence of a diverse Eminent Persons Group, including everyone from sports heroes to grassroots activists, sends a strong message that this moment can be different.
However, legitimacy demands more than symbolism. It is earned by ensuring people have the genuine power to influence decisions and take ownership of required actions. Participatory futures processes can help rebuild public trust by inviting people into inclusive and safe transformative spaces where their voices and agency shape real meaningful outcomes. When seen as co-authors of the future rather than passive recipients of policy, citizens can reimagine their agency, and in doing so, can systemically begin to reimagine and materialise meaningful change in the country.
Such an approach also builds much-needed resilience and the ability to transform despite shocks. The shocks of the past few years, ranging from pandemics and the KwaZulu-Natal riots to load shedding, have left many South Africans feeling disheartened, anxious and uncertain. Participatory futures and foresight create the psychological and social scaffolding needed to withstand such disruptions. It offers ‘safe-to-fail’ yet transformative spaces where communities can explore alternatives, anticipate risks, and rehearse responses while in crisis or before crises hit.
Importantly, participatory futures offer wayfinding options for inclusive and decentralised progress. A staggering 71% of South Africans bear witness to the system favouring a select few. Without participatory foresight input, even the most well-intentioned policies will likely fail to reach those who need them most while securing an elite few.
Imagine vocational education reforms co-designed by learners, teachers, employers, and communities, rooted in values that emphasise collective rights, shared responsibility, and future-orientated innovation. Imagine energy transitions that centre township entrepreneurs, youth climate leaders, and rural innovators. When citizens build and sustain systemic innovations, development can have wider positive impacts.
The Future of National Dialogues
The National Dialogue is an opportunity to maximise where we can choose what kind of South Africa we want to become. Will we pursue a technocratic, data-driven path that improves services but leaves communities behind? Will worsening crises fracture society into self-reliant enclaves? Will a centralised, top-down compact impose discipline at the cost of freedom? Or will we embrace what could be called a “Demokrasia Futures” scenario, where power is vested in the people, and their participation in decision-making can lead to interconnectedness, communal solidarity and transformative visions grounded in care economies, regenerative agriculture, and a just, inclusive well-being co-created by citizens and government?
This is not utopian. It’s deeply pragmatic and reminiscent of indigenous African values. Participatory futures approaches help us to democratise long-term thinking, break open dominant narratives and make space for reimagination. It invites new forms of knowledge – creative, indigenous and lived – to the table. It tests futures in the present, through prototypes, experiments, and approaches such as policy trials and serious gaming that make transformation real.
Of course, participation is messy. Disagreement is inevitable. But when dissent is embraced as generative, when people are encouraged to challenge and reimagine together, democracy becomes stronger, more adaptive, and more humane. Around the world, movements like Enspiral, the Sociocracy movement model and democratic innovation platforms like Rwanda’s annual Umushyikirano forums, Taiwan’s vTaiwan and Japan’s Future Design Councils show how structured disagreement can build stronger and more transformative futures.
South Africa stands at the convergence of multiple crises: social, ecological, economic, democratic and spiritual. The National Dialogue offers a meaningful chance to break from the past. More than negotiating better terms within a broken system, we have an opportunity to co-create a new, improved one. Let us not waste it!
The future belongs to all of us. Let’s shape it together.
