Dubai Municipality has achieved Level 4 “Future Foresight Leadership – Master”, the highest tier of the International Foresight Accreditation awarded by the Global Innovation Management Institute (GIMI), making it the first municipality in the world to do so.
The accreditation comes less than a year after the Municipality reached Level 3 in November 2025. In that time, it has scaled foresight across its operations and strengthened staff skills in applying foresight tools to planning and decision-making.
International experts assessed the Municipality using GIMI’s S4 Future Foresight Maturity Model, which measures maturity across four pillars: Scoping and Designing, Scanning and Screening, Scenarios and Foresight, and Strategy and Innovation. Dubai Municipality scored 10/10 in all four.
Assessors pointed to a foresight knowledge base of 556 entries across the five STEEP domains, including 396 weak signals, 114 trends, 36 megatrends and 10 wild cards, alongside 33 documented drivers of change. They also recognised its continuous horizon-scanning system, the Future Observatory, the Future Shaper network and a set of alternative scenarios to 2040 built on system-dynamics modelling in Vensim, which lets the Municipality stress-test decisions before they are implemented.
Eng. Marwan Ahmed bin Ghalita, Director General of Dubai Municipality, said foresight is part of daily work rather than a separate exercise.
“It helps us detect emerging change early, anticipate future needs and make decisions today that remain robust across different futures,”
he said.
Eng. Nasser BuShehab, CEO of the Planning and Governance Sector, said the focus is on turning foresight into action by scanning for weak signals and testing strategic options before committing resources.
GIMI is a non-profit organisation headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, dedicated to advancing innovation and foresight as management disciplines worldwide.
News Source: Emirates News Agency
