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Archive for the ‘Knowledge and learning’ Category

Innovation is getting a lot of attention at the moment in development and humanitarian work. Many, including myself, see this as long overdue. But, according to an article in this  weeks Economist, this attention may be misplaced. The piece makes a strong argument for the importance of imitation  in business, and its advantages over innovation. [...]

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This is the text of an article in the Washington Post by Dominic Basulto about last week’s events in the financial markets. Great stuff. When news first broke Thursday that JPMorgan’s credit derivatives portfolio had sustained a loss of $2 billion, and potentially as much as $5 billion, on trades gone awry, there was an [...]

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This is a guest post by Frauke de Weijer (pictured), policy and fragile states specialist at the excellent ECDPM think tank.  In a previous post on this blog, Ben explored the potential of complex systems research for thinking about statebuilding and fragility. In this guest post, I would like to take this discussion one step [...]

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There’s been a lot of interest in the imminent vacancy of World Bank President, with numerous suggestions of qualified individuals who should be on the list. This post looks at one particular aspect of the role which seems to be missing from most of this debate, and which should be high on the list of criteria [...]

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Influence is a complex process in the development sector. We have known this for some time – the work of the RAPID programme at ODI on understanding how evidence influences policy is very clear on this. But the wider socio-economic system within which development cooperation is embedded is no less difficult to influence.  Many corporations, especially [...]

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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 [...]

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The eurozone, like the rest of the world economy, is a complex networked system. That gives it properties economists rarely consider but which could help us understand the current crisis. This New Scientist ‘Science in Society’ Briefing examines the issues. What is a complex network? Complex networks have many interconnected components which influence each other’s [...]

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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 [...]

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The latest issue of American Scientist features some superb reflections by Robert L Dorit on the limitations of reductionist thinking in the biological sciences. They have clear parallels for social sciences and, by extension, for social policy. Selected extracts are below. Despite Descartes’ contention that we could not distinguish a well-made automaton of an ape from an actual ape [...]

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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 [...]

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