The Capacity to Decolonise (C2D) is a proposition for a large, multi-year participatory action research programme focused on the role of “futures literacy” as a core capability for expanding imagination, choice and agency for people. As such, we hypothesise that building Futures Literacy in communities can contribute to empowerment through and for decolonisation. In a quest for transformation, the project premise is to use the future in a capability-based approach to “development”: finding its origins, purposes and methods of implementation in local actors’ own understanding of their issues to seek endogenous solutions fueled by their futures literacy. Here, Futures Literacy is understood as a capability that allows us to unearth why and how we anticipate, and thus become more conscious of the choices we make and unexplored existing alternatives.

The C2D programme proposal is for a five-year (2021 – 2025), ZAR 109 million (CAD$ 8,4 million) anticipatory action research programme which involves up to  six diverse grounded case studies; a shared commons for sharing, reflection and theorisation; and a systematic, experimental approach to building knowledge about novel transformative practices for community engagement and empowerment. Three cases are proposed to launch the initiative: Transforming Governance  (led by Twaweza in Tanzania), Transforming Development (led by Kabakoo in Mali and Badenya in Sierra Leone), and Transforming Tertiary Education (led by the University of Gulu in Uganda). Geographically, the programme will focus on various sites located across Africa. However, Africa-based champions will work with international partners (North-South-South). The project will involve many opportunities to connect localised experiments with a global community of research and practice.”