The Corona crisis of 2020 was far away when Prospex, in 2010, developed scenarios on the pandemics of the future with the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF). ASEF wanted Europe and Asia to be prepared for possible things to come, having just received the warning of the mild H1N1 pandemic at that time. With Prospex, ASEF brought together a broad range of stakeholders and experts including experts from international organisations like WHO, UNOCHA and the European Commission, transport and nutrition companies like Lufthansa and Nestle, physician and patient organisations and NGOs such as CARE and the Red Cross. Prospex designed & facilitated a strategic foresight process to developed scenarios that capture possible outbreaks of various infectious agents in diverging situations in the future – and explored how to best prepare for these. ASEF with Prospex followed up with sector-specific strategy building on pandemic preparedness on the basis of these scenarios, At the time, ASEF tabled the resulting key recommendations and sector approaches at the Asia-Europe Ministerial Meeting (ASEM), a two-yearly summit between European and Asian state leaders.
ASEF ASAP: Preparing for the pandemics of the future
