Tackling climate change effects worldwide brings the interest of many donor countries with expertise to (co)develop solutions into beneficiary countries through international cooperation. The solutions proposed can be either too solution-driven, understood as a donor country selling its knowledge / products, or on the other hand, too locally problem-driven, which is desirable in theory, but facing practical limitations such as time or scale constraints when closing to outside influences. A methodology that tries to join both (apparently opposing) sides, with their advantages and disadvantages of problem and solution driven hasn’t been explored yet. For exploring how this can be done, in this research 2 case studies are analyzed: the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (BDP2100), a nation-wide long term holistic plan on the Bangladeshi Delta, and a group of Coastal Water Management initiatives, a set of continuous efforts to adopt livelihoods to the dynamic situation in the coastal regions of Bangladesh. These cases are analyzed through interviews and desk research to determine to what extent are they problem and solution driven compared to proposed frameworks, and pointing how can they be improved. From these analyses, a combined framework is proposed where problem and solution driven approaches are joined taking the best from each perspective. The result is meant to be a first guiding tool for decision-makers in donor and beneficiary countries that face the dilemma between taking local and foreign elements for developing solutions.

Foresight used in the current developments of the Zwolle region limits itself to short-and-medium term foresights. Based on the hypothesis that prioritizing decision-making based on short-term, risks and opportunities may inadvertently omit crucial factors, while a focus on longer-term perspectives enables a more comprehensive understanding of complexity and uncertainty, questions the robustness of the developments. Therefore, this thesis conducted a case-study to assess the durability of current and novel development directions of the Zwolle Region focussed on distant-future sea level rise scenarios to amplify anticipatory consciousness, and therefore broadening the scope of policy directions for decision makers. For this, this thesis turned to the question: How robust are the current proposed development directions of the Zwolle Region compared to Sea Level Rise scenarios up to 2300? Based on a systematic grey literature an overview of the novel development directions of the region have has been created. According to a Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways analysis, the developments were compared to distant-future sea level rise scenarios that were based on interim KNMI sea level rise scenarios and semi-structured expert interviews. Following the analysis, it was determined that the proposed development directions assume the existing condition of the regional water system. Given the projected rise in water levels due to SLR, which is expected to significantly impact the regional water system, leading to increased moisture and frequent flooding, this thesis asserts that the current proposed developments lack robustness.