Podcasts

What happens when a global animal health institution starts thinking about the future?

In this episode of the Tension Podcast, foresight advisor Tianna Brand shares how the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) used its 100th anniversary to leap forward, creating participatory future scenarios to explore collapse, innovation, and transformation in global food systems.

You’ll hear – Why foresight matters in scientific and emergency management contexts:

• How climate, trust, and misinformation shape the futures of animal health
• Tips for integrating foresight into traditional risk and response systems
• Why uncertainty isn’t a threat – it’s an opportunity to build strategic imagination
• The powerful question: What kind of ancestors do we want to be?

From “Hangry Games” to “Farming for Resistance,” this episode is a must-listen for anyone working in global health, emergency management, or strategic planning.

🎧 Listen now: 

This podcast episode can be streamed below and is also available through Castos, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Learn out Loud, Listen Notes, Player FM, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, RadioPublic and YouTube.

About the Episode’s Guest

Tianna Brand was the Foresight Advisor at the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH). Since 2020, in this role, she helped to identify emerging issues, signals of change and events that could influence strategy or policy decisions. With foresight methods and frameworks, she facilitated discussion and debate about possible futures that are emerging as well as unexpected futures. 

She has been with WOAH since 2015 in other roles and prior to that her career began in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency where over a decade she gained a wealth of leadership experience in animal and public health including Canada’s role in WOAH standards development; and in laboratory biosafety and biosecurity.

In addition to holding a Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science from University of British Columbia, and a Masters in Public Administration from University of Dalhousie and she is a certified foresight practitioner trained in the foundational ideas of the Natural Foresight© framework and holds a professional certificate in foresight from the University of Houston College of Technology.

In her off hours, when she is not actively thinking about futures, she is “future-steading” by minding her hens and vegetable garden.

Links & Resources:

WOAH 100th Anniversary Playbook: https://www.woah.org/en/document/a-playbook-for-the-woah-100th-anniversary-participatory-foresight-project/

Key Certainties and Uncertainties in Animal Health & Welfare:  https://www.woah.org/en/document/key-certainties-and-uncertainties-in-animal-health-and-welfare/

Show Notes

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Credits

Host & Producer: Donna Dupont

Editor: Mikhial Gurarie

Graphic Designer: Habiba Elgendy