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 [...]
Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category
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 | 6 Comments »
A Q&A on Positive Deviance, Innovation and Complexity
Posted in Evaluation, Evolution, Facilitation, Innovation, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Public Policy, Resilience, Self organisation, Strategy on February 8, 2011 | 12 Comments »
Positive deviance (PD) is a fascinating approach, a decade and a half old, and the focus of growing interest in health, education and numerous other sectors in domestic public policy. Interestingly, given PD saw first widespread application in an aid programme, it is still less well known than it should be across the international community. This post [...]
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 [...]
How do you solve a problem like Malaria?
Posted in Biology, Campaigns, Evaluation, Evolution, Healthcare, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Malaria, Public Policy, Strategy, Uncategorized on January 27, 2011 | 9 Comments »
Big thanks to Alanna Shaikh and Bill Brieger for feedback and comments. Debates about malaria eradication in the aid blogosphere, along with recent scientific evidence, highlight the urgent need to improve our understanding of the complex dynamics of this terrible affliction and to use it to adapt ongoing eradication programmes. A nearly hopeless case? According [...]
Scan HIV-AIDS Globally, Reinvent Approaches Locally
Posted in Evolution, Healthcare, Innovation, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Public Policy, Strategy on December 2, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Huge thanks to Alanna Shaikh for peer review comments and edits Back in 1997, Robert Chambers argued that top-down attempts to manage complex processes of change have not worked in development aid. …Development projects can be paralysed by overloads at their centres of control…[generating] dependency, resentment, high costs, low morale and actions which cannot be sustained’ [...]
The simplicity on the far side of complexity
Posted in Biology, Conflict and peace building, Knowledge and learning, Networks, Public Policy, Strategy on November 13, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Most readers will know this image, now iconic for all the wrong reasons (and blogged about here earlier this year) We shouldn’t groan when we see such images, we should be excited. A three minute TED talk by ecologist Eric Berlow explains why, using approaches from his work in natural systems. The presentation left me reflecting [...]
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 [...]
Owen Barder on “What can development policy learn from evolution?”
Posted in Evolution, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Public Policy, Strategy on October 27, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Another fantastic presentation from Owen, he very kindly cites Aid on the Edge of Chaos on the opening slide… http://www.owen.org/blog/4018
Land is not Linear: Towards the Brown Revolution
Posted in Agriculture, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Public Policy, Resilience, Self organisation, Strategy on October 22, 2010 | 1 Comment »
This year’s Buckminster Fuller Prize winner, Operation Hope, has seen the transformation of 6,500 acres of parched and degraded grasslands in Zimbabwe into healthy pastures despite extended periods of drought. The story behind Operation Hope is an inspiring one with real insights on how complexity science concepts can help transform development practices on the ground. First, the background to the [...]
War on cancer, war on poverty
Posted in Healthcare, Innovation, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, MDGs, Public Policy, Strategy on October 7, 2010 | 1 Comment »
This weeks presentation is a 2009 TedMed talk by David Agus on the application of complexity science to cancer research. The talk focuses on the limitations of trying to understand cancer using reductionist thinking and how this limits potentially significant advances. Agus illustrates this dramatically, showing that since 1950, after more than half a century of [...]
