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The growing interest in systems-change initiatives sits alongside increasing pressure to demonstrate value for money (VFM), which is challenging for emergent, interconnected and often intangible work. A new way to assess the VFM of systems-change work involves considering the value of changing system conditions and the creation of potential value for future systems transformation. This innovation combines the Water of Systems Change framework with the Cycles of Value Creation to create five...

How practitioners navigate between systems and complexity thinking. Exploring structure and emergence in real-world collaboration and adaptive work.

By Robert Ricigliano and Anna Muoio

By Robert Ricigliano and Anna Muoio

Exploring two systems change mental models in philanthropy [ https://evaluationinnovation.org/publication/systems-mental-models/ ] it is an increasingly shared truth: If we want to tackle society’s worst problems, we must bring a systems lens to our social change efforts. We define “systems change” here as the practice of confronting the causes of social problems rather than treating their symptoms. Many in philanthropy are taking this stance, and are shaping their portfolios, strategies,...

Social accountability has become increasingly important to development programming since the 2004 World Development Report spearheaded its first generation of programming. In 2016, Thomas Carothers synthesized global experts’ perspectives on what became known as the second generation. With an evolving global context, new research and evaluations and tacit knowledge on how those assumptions played out in practice, the time is ripe for asking what the evidence since 2004 can tell us about what...

In early 2021 we were asked to support two initiatives in South-East Queensland by undertaking a developmental evaluation of how they collaborated across multiple partners to reduce, prevent and ultimately end homelessness. The initiatives, Brisbane and Logan Zero, started with the ‘Advance to Zero’ methodology, and adapted this as they progressed. We were asked to track how contributors collaborated to tackle the systemic nature of this challenge. This gave us the opportunity to work with...

The UNDP has been exploring new approaches to M&E to better understand and address complex systems challenges. Traditional linear project-based planning and evaluation methods are insufficient for dealing with the unpredictable nature of such systems. The UNDP’s new Strategic Plan calls for a shift in M&E practices to align with the complexity of today’s global challenges. Key points from the blog post include: Learning and Adapting: There’s a need for continuous learning and adaptation in...

Organising for Systems Innovation at Scale Our team at Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation have been experimenting with and evolving a Challenge-led Innovation Approach (based on Mission-oriented approaches developed by Mariana Mazzucato at UCL IIPP and others internationally). We are using this approach to guide the way we work internally and engage with our systems innovation partners. We’ve facilitated intensive Re:Treats, worked with government bodies, businesses and civic...

This note presents the key components of a potential next generation of social accountability programming. The key aspects outlined emerge from a review of over 150 cases as well as tacit knowledge from dozens of practitioners (Guerzovich and Aston, 2023).The main thread of social accountability 3.0 and what distinguishes it from previous generations is a focus on its contribution towards more responsive systems and accountable social contracts. In particular, social accountability should be...

Foreign aid and international development frequently bring with it a range of unintended consequences, both negative and positive. This book delves into these consequences, providing a fresh and comprehensive guide to understanding and addressing them. The book starts by laying out a theoretical framework based on complexity thinking, before going on to explore the ten most prevalent kinds of unintended effects of foreign aid: backlash effects, conflict effects, migration and resettlement...

Responses to sustainability challenges are not delivering results at the scale and speed called for by science, international agreements, and concerned citizens. Yet there is a tendency to underestimate the large-scale impacts of small-scale, local, and contextualized actions, and particularly the role of individuals in scaling transformations. Here, we explore a fractal approach to scaling sustainability transformations based on “universal values.” Universal values are proposed as intrinsic...

Research on the Information Society, the Digital Divide and Information and Communication Technologies for development

For AC practitioners, systems mapping is essential but also difficult. To lessen obstacles, Peter Woodrow proposes a scaffolded approach. An Experiment in “Fast Forwarding” Drawing upon our near-decade work on corruption, we recently decided to try an experiment: we would present “common patterns” of corruption as tentative models to adapt and add to—rather than try to teach people to do systems mapping from scratch. In this teaching experiment, each common pattern would function as a kind...

Many readers recognise and understand that complex is about as simple as it gets for major policy and management. This guide is for those unwilling in the Anthropocene to shrink back into the older platitudes about ‘keep it simple’ and ‘not to worry, we’ll scale up the analysis later on’. This guide offers key concepts, methods, counternarratives, and analogies that recast major policy and management issues in ways that do not deny their complexity but help render them more tractable for action.

Addressing 21st century development challenges requires investments in innovation, including the use of new approaches and technologies. Currently, many development organisations prioritise investments in isolated innovation pilots that leverage a specific approach or technology rather than pursuing a strategic approach to expand the organisation’s toolbox with innovations that have proven their comparative advantage over what is currently used. This Working Paper addresses this challenge of...

Large publicly funded programmes of research continue to receive increased investment as interventions aiming to produce impact for the world’s poorest and most marginalized populations. At this intersection of research and development, research is expected to contribute to complex processes of societal change. Embracing a co-produced view of impact as emerging along uncertain causal pathways often without predefined outcomes calls for innovation in the use of complexity-aware approaches to...

Nearly all challenges in international development tend to be complex because they depend on constantly evolving human behaviour, systems, and contexts, involving multiple actors, entities, and processes. As a result, both the discovery and scaling of innovations to address challenges in development often involve changes in system behaviour or even system-level transformation. This is rarely a linear process over time and can result in unexpected outcomes. Existing evaluation techniques...