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. [...]
Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category
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 »
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 [...]
Six Theories of Policy Change
Posted in Campaigns, Evaluation, Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Strategy on April 20, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Many of us working in foreign aid struggle with the idea of theories of change. The ubiquitous logical framework has an implicit theory of change that we recognise to be flawed, or at the very least, extremely limited. But alternatives are thin and often poorly articulated. A new briefing from Organisation Research Services sets out [...]
How do aid agencies deal with wicked problems?
Posted in Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Public Policy, Strategy on April 5, 2011 | 5 Comments »
The term ‘wicked problem’ was used here last week to describe the challenges of humanitarian coordination. This post is a response to a number of requests to explain a little more about this concept. The term ‘wicked problem’ was originally proposed by two American urban planners, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, in the 1970s. The term [...]
Philippines turns to complexity science to strengthen disaster preparedness
Posted in Climate change, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Natural disasters, Networks, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on March 15, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Following the Japanese earthquake, the Philippines government have announced plans to explore the use of complexity science in better understanding disaster vulnerability and risk. The effort is to be taken forward by the Congressional Commission on Science Technology and Engineering, in collaboration with the Philippine Disaster Science Management Center. Senator Edgardo Angara, Chair of Congressional Commission [...]
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 | 9 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 [...]
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 [...]
