I was invited last week to speak about effective inclusion – a subject that many have worked on for a long with mixed results – and I felt it is essential to write a short article on why futures is imperative in fostering participation and inclusion in the public policymaking process. Policymaking is the mechanism through which the government identifies a public problem and puts a framework to address it. It is assumed that once the policy is implemented, the quality of life of the citizen will improve – mainly through laws and regulations that facilitate addressing the issue or through funding towards the achievement of the goals intended by the policy. Traditional policymaking is linear and includes identifying the problem & framing it, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. The process, in my view, is counterproductive at many levels, hence the need to infuse futures thinking. This is why.