Dr Brian Levy is a Public Sector Governance Advisor at the World Bank, andused to head up the unit responsible implementing the Bank’s governance and anti-corruption strategy. In this guest post, cross-posted from here, he explores the relevance of complexity theory insights for South Africa. A fascinating read. The edge of chaos is the balance [...]
Archive for the ‘Accountability’ Category
South Africa’s democracy: Complexity theory in action
Posted in Accountability, Economics, Evolution, Innovation, Institutions, Leadership, Public Policy, Resilience, Strategy on December 16, 2011 | 4 Comments »
What are leaders really for?
Posted in Accountability, Campaigns, Conflict and peace building, Evolution, Financial crisis, Innovation, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Networks, Self organisation on December 7, 2011 | 5 Comments »
A continuing theme on this blog has been the issue of leadership. Many reports and studies call for it, reforms are seen as impossible without it, critical challenges will not be met without it, and we are all ready to point out the lack of it (in others, at least). Despite the fact that leadership [...]
The Complexity of Scaling Up
Posted in Accountability, Evaluation, Evolution, Healthcare, Innovation, Leadership, Malaria, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Strategy on October 3, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Despite increased prominence and funding of global health initiatives, attempts to scale up health services in developing countries are failing, with serious implications for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. A new paper argues that a key first step is to get a more realistic understanding of health systems, using the lens of complex adaptive systems. [...]
Results 2.0: Towards a portfolio-based approach
Posted in Accountability, Evaluation, Healthcare, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Malaria, Meetings, Organisations, Public Policy, Strategy on June 30, 2011 | 7 Comments »
The international development sector has been in a tug of war around the ‘results agenda’ for the past few months. This post explores the tensions and suggests a way to bring the sides together by focusing on the relevance and appropriateness of different approaches.* I: The Results Tug of War Development results is one of many [...]
Success, failure and what lies between
Posted in Accountability, Economics, Evolution, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Meetings, Public Policy, Strategy on June 17, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Earlier this week Tim Harford, also known as the Undercover Economist, gave a fantastic talk at ODI on the topic of ‘Development as Trial and Error’. Drawing on his latest book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, Tim provided the audience with a compelling account of the need for a different way of thinking [...]
Whose Paradigm Counts? Guest Post 2 of 2 By Robert Chambers
Posted in Accountability, Evolution, Facilitation, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Networks, Organisations, Public Policy, Strategy, Technology on February 15, 2011 | 7 Comments »
Expanding Paradigms In my first post in this two part guest series, I presented an account of the contrast between ‘things’ and ‘people’ as it was framed in my 1997 book Whose Reality Counts? and as many people in the development sector still perceive it. As numerous responses – both here and on other fora [...]
Whose Paradigm Counts? Guest Post 1 of 2 By Robert Chambers
Posted in Accountability, Evolution, Facilitation, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Self organisation on February 10, 2011 | 11 Comments »
Last year I wrote a paper called Paradigms, Poverty and Adaptive Pluralism. In it I explored how technological advances and complexity sciences were together helping to reframe a longstanding divide between two opposing paradigms in international development. Because of the relevance of this to current debates on complexity and aid, I welcome this opportunity to share these ideas here. I warmly invite feedback from [...]
Why the Results Agenda Doesn’t Need Results, and What To Do About It
Posted in Accountability, Evaluation, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Strategy on January 31, 2011 | 15 Comments »
Update 01/02/2011: the first evaluation cited is specific to UN agencies, the second to donors. Have also clarified the specific references in the UN report. Thanks to Michael Keizer for pointing this out. One of the recurring themes of this blog is the idea that aid agencies need to become more flexible and responsive, both [...]
The paradox of aid failures
Posted in Accountability, Evaluation, Evolution, Innovation, Knowledge and learning, Organisations, Public Policy on December 13, 2010 | 3 Comments »
One of the recurring themes here on Aid on the Edge of Chaos is that the complexity of real world systems is seldom recognised and acknowledged by international agencies, leading to systemic failures in aid policy and practice. The work of renowned policy analyst Russell Ackoff provides a useful way of unpacking these issues. Drawing [...]
SciDev: Development Needs Systems Thinking
Posted in Accountability, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, MDGs, Public Policy, Strategy, Technology on November 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Last weeks editorial on SciDev, the leading source of authoritative information on science and technology for development, focused on the need for ‘holistic approaches’ in development. Specifically, it argued that developing countries need more joined-up systems thinking to promote growth and reduce poverty, and that donor agencies needed to find ways of supporting such efforts. One positive move [...]
