Strategic Planning and Futures Studies

This project aims to formulate a five-year Strategic Plan over the period 2021-2026.

In view of the rapidly changing environment where the police operate, accompanied by new forms of crime, new technologies, demographic shifts, and rising citizen expectations, the RBPF will undertake an overall policy review and planning to address new challenges and opportunities vis-à-vis a culture of change and transformation to meet these challenges.

This study is ongoing.

This aim of this project is to formulate a new National Youth Policy and Strategy for 2020 to 2035.

A national wide survey of a total of 4,196 survey respondents with a total of 2,403 face to face youth survey respondents and 1,793 online survey respondents was conducted to ensure the proposed policy takes into consideration the needs and aspiration of the youth.

Key strategic areas that are emphasised for youth development include employment opportunities, education, health, environment, ICT, globalisation, full and effective participation, and leisure activities. In the revised Youth Policy, a new Youth Vision was formulated - “Values-driven world-class youth, who are future-ready agents of change for national development, rooted in inclusivity”, with four new policy goals, four Core strategies and 16 policy initiatives to drive its implementation.

The findings of this study formed the basis of the National Youth Policy and Strategy 2020-2035, as formulated by CSPS in collaboration with key stakeholders through several workshops.

This is a CSPS foresight study to: (i) identify current and emerging issues as well as trends likely to impact Brunei in the near- and medium-term future; and (ii) prioritise emerging issues and trends to provide specific future-oriented policy advice on areas of concern.

The output is a set of deck cards consisting of 48 trends and emerging issues specific to Brunei. The emerging issues deck cards have been used by CSPS and a several government and private sector agencies to raise awareness and address specific issues. They have also been used by some schools and colleges as a teaching resource for GCE A Levels General Paper and the International Baccalaureate.

This research is part of an ongoing CSPS foresight study project to: (i) identify emerging issues and trends likely to impact Brunei in the near and medium term future; (ii) conduct thorough horizon scanning processes in to provide futures-oriented policy advice; (iii) expand the current mindset from “business as usual” approaches to strategic planning, and (iv) identify specific strategies and policies that are more likely to lead towards the fulfillment of the three goals and the eight main strategies of Wawasan Brunei 2035.

The four alternative scenarios developed have been useful as a model in several CSPS studies, including the National Youth Policy and Strategy 2020-2035 and Job Futures Scenarios.

This paper examines Brunei’s economic situation using different layers of thought to provide a holistic view of the current state of affairs and identify possible areas of policy actions. It demonstrates the usefulness of foresight approaches in discussing national development issues and proposes that foresight practices be institutionalised in government ministries and agencies.