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Climate Scenario Planning, Panama

Youth-authored climate priorities for the city.

Climate Scenario Planning, Panama
What the students saw

Their own coastline, under the future.

Climate scenario for the Panama City waterfront proposed by youth workshop groups: the tide over the promenade, the park under water, storm damage across the siteThe Panama City waterfront today: promenade, park and skylineThe waterfront todayClimate scenario · by the students
Panama City, UNDP Accelerator Labs — drag the handle. Left: the coastline as it is. Right: the same view as the youth groups proposed it — not a render to admire, but a proposal to examine, contest and own.
Real project, real images. The Panama City waterfront as it is, and the scenario proposed by youth workshop groups with UNDP Accelerator Labs. Several hundred students used the tool to picture what is at stake on the coastline they live on — which is what made it arguable.Panama City · UNDP Accelerator Labs

Imagine · UNDP Panama Accelerator Lab · 2024

Two university sessions in Panama City tested a pair of hypotheses: that AI boosts citizen participation, and that generative AI improves climate scenario planning. At the first session, 66 young people generated 531 images across three structured rounds — dystopia, utopia, open imagination — plus 49 geolocated street transformations of the Betania district, from Parque Benito Juárez to Vía Ricardo J. Alfaro. Post-workshop surveys backed both hypotheses: identification with the AI outputs scored 4.57 out of 6 and usefulness for participation 5.09 out of 6.

Who took part

Youth at Universidad de Panamá and Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá — 66 participants at the first session, 59 of them active app users.

What the tool did

A guided three-round scenario sequence in Spanish with prompt taxonomies and rating, producing a 16-page workshop report with per-round results; where participant photos fell short, UNDP’s photo bank and street imagery filled the “before” layer.

What changed

UNDP folded the Betania work into a wider social-cohesion experiment mixing students and seniors, and named the platform in its 2025 “Cities in Motion” retrospective.

Co-created scenario for Betania, Panama CitySite photo from Betania uploaded by participantsRoadside site in Betania before the intervention

Sources

Delivered together with project partners.

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