By Team LKI
Congo Basin Futures was honoured on Tuesday, 18 November 2025, as the Winner of the inaugural Dubai Foresight Awards in the Foresight for the Planet category.
Selected from hundreds of submissions across 50 countries and three finalists, #CongoBasinFutures emerged as the overall winner in its category.
Dr Nsah Mala received the award trophy from His Royal Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, during the 4th edition of the Dubai Future Forum. The event brought together more than 2,500 futurists, academics, decisionmakers, and thought leaders. The Dubai Foresight Awards, administered by the Dubai Future Foundation, aim to “celebrate thinkers, innovators, and pioneers in foresight and future design from around the globe, highlighting their transformative achievements and vital contributions to creating a better future for humanity.”
Congo Basin Futures is a project that Dr. Nsah Mala initiated and leads. It deploys participatory foresight methodologies, storytelling, and indigenous knowledge to explore alternative futures for the Congo Basin tropical rainforests, the second-largest in the world. The project seeks to identify both undesirable and preferred futures, while shaping present-day policy and action to safeguard the Congo Basin for current and future generations—humans and nonhumans alike, including culturally significant biodiversity such as royal animals used in some Cameroonian indigenous kingdoms (#RoyalAnimalsFutures).
This international recognition represents a significant achievement for the Congo Basin and for all project participants and partners. The team hopes to secure additional funding to continue advancing work under #CongoBasinFutures.
Dr Nsah Mala has expressed special gratitude to all project contributors, particularly the Kings of Mbessa, Oku, Din-Noni, and Ajung, as well as the diverse group of collaborators—environmentalists, journalists, writers, teachers, nurses, security officers, designers, and others—who took part in online and Yaoundé workshops in 2024. Their collective effort made this success possible.
The milestone of the Dubai Foresight Awards follows earlier support from the School of International Futures (SOIF) through the 2023 Next Generation Foresight Practitioners (NGFP) Fellowship, and from the University of Cologne through UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES Coalition, MESH, GSSC, and the Sharing a Planet in Peril initiative. The recognition also builds on the International Prize for Francosphere Theses in Foresight and Futures Studies (2022), awarded to Dr. Nsah Mala by Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) and Fondation 2100.
The announcement of the award comes as COP30 concludes in Brazil with the Belém Call to Action for the Congo Basin Forests, which aims to mobilize over $2.5 billion within the next five years to protect the Earth’s second largest tropical rainforest. According to Dr Nsah Mala, this renewed global commitment offers a glimmer of hope and reinforces ongoing efforts to preserve the Congo Basin.
