Scenario planning for regional agenda setting

In the Metropolitan Region Amsterdam (MRA) partnership, 33 municipalities in North Holland and Flevoland work together on areas including economy, space and landscape, mobility and energy. Both provinces and Vervoerregio Amsterdam are also part of the partnership. An important guiding, strategic document in the collaboration is the MRA Agenda.

In view of a changing and uncertain world and future, MRA decided to use the previously developed and recently updated MRA scenarios both to review the existing actions in the current Agenda and to think through new possible challenges for which new development directions and actions need to be formulated. During a session, a wide range of strategists from across the region were introduced to the scenarios. After lively discussion about which scenarios were considered more or less likely, the group reflected on the challenges raised by the various scenarios and on possible strategies for being prepared.