Strategic Foresight as Policy Infrastructure for Financial Governance: A Multi-Layered Framework for Anticipatory Policymaking in Emerging Economies

This article develops a multi-layered framework for understanding how strategic foresight can function as a form of policy infrastructure within financial governance systems, with a particular focus on emerging economies. Drawing on recent literature on anticipatory governance, data-driven regulation, and institutional capacity-building, the paper argues that effective foresight depends not only on methodological tools but on the alignment of political, technical, participatory, and regulatory conditions. A structured review of secondary sources (2020–2024), complemented by descriptive analysis of the experiences of Singapore, India, and the OECD, is used to highlight common patterns in how financial authorities incorporate anticipation into their decision-making environments. These insights are then applied to the Iranian banking sector to illustrate how the proposed framework can organize existing information and reveal practical constraints and opportunities. The paper also outlines three exploratory scenarios for Iran in 2030, derived from the interplay of key technological, regulatory, and geopolitical drivers identified in the study. Rather than offering predictive claims, the analysis provides a structured way of interpreting institutional dynamics and clarifying the types of capabilities required for anticipatory governance in constrained settings. The findings underscore the importance of coherent political sponsorship, reliable data ecosystems, participatory mechanisms, and channels for translating foresight insights into regulatory action. The framework offers policymakers a way to diagnose systemic gaps and consider how foresight can be embedded more effectively within financial governance architectures.