Building consensus and increasing self-efficacy: participatory scenarios as a tool for developing food security solutions in West Africa

Abstract Food security in West Africa is threatened by climate change, as well as demographic shifts and land constraints. Communities and policy-makers in the region need to plan for long term sustainability and food security when many conditions are highly uncertain. Participatory scenario planning has been proposed as a tool for building strategic action in the face of uncertainty. Proponents have made claims that this process can generate consensus and self-efficacy for action, but these claims have not been tested empirically. We used two parallel scenario processes in Ghana and Mali, designed with the goal of prioritizing strategic actions for food security, to gather data from participants on their views of the top challenges to food security in their region, the causes of those challenges, and actors who should be implementing solutions. The data indicate that the scenario process did promote consensus among participants on these topics, as well as self- and collective-efficacy to take action, and that these characteristics persisted past the duration of the scenario process. Agreement among local and regional actors around what actions to take to promote food security and belief that they are capable of implementing those actions are key prerequisites for planning under conditions of high uncertainty. Participatory scenario exercises are therefore a useful tool.