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Meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require adapting or redirecting a variety of very complex global and local human systems. It is essential that development scholars and practitioners have tools to understand the dynamics of these systems and the key drivers of their behavior, such as barriers to progress and leverage points for driving sustainable change. System dynamics tools are well suited to address this challenge, but they must first be adapted for...

when it was reduced to a subsidiary internal service lacking all kind of political attributions. The work done in those years had been formidable, but too many things had passed since, especially the 15M Spanish Indignados Movement, the raise of technopolitics… and the raise of populism and fascism all across Europe. We urgently needed a theoretical framework in which to substantiate our political strategy, so I came up with a Theory of Change of citizen participation (see Figure 1) which...

In this highly insightful analysis of Western and Chinese concepts of efficacy, Francois Jullien subtly delves into the metaphysical preconceptions of the two civilizations to account for diverging patterns of action in warfare, politics, and diplomacy. He shows how Western and Chinese stategies work in several domains (the battle-field, for example) and analyzes two resulting acts of war. The Chinese strategist manipulates his own troops and the enemy to win a battle without waging war and...

Collaborate and Newcastle University Business School Publish Research into Complexity-Friendly Funding

October 22-23, 2014 A workshop on Doing Development Differently Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA Hosted by the Building State Capability (BSC) program at the Center for International Development at Harvard University, and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) with funding from the Governance Partnership Facility.

When accountability is understood as reporting on pre-deined deliverables, it is often considered to be irreconcilable with learning. This conventional wisdom inhibits an appreciation of their connection. In this chapter, Irene Guijt exposes the laws and traps in reasoning that keep accountability and learning apart. She provides practitioners with principles and basic good ideas that open up prospects for accountability and learning to complement each other.

Accountability, the obligation of those in power to take responsibility for their actions, is a process involving relationships between different actors (in state and society) and mechanisms, and is influenced by many contextual factors. Using the lens of an accountability ‘ecosystem’ focuses our attention on the complexity of accountability processes. An ‘ecosystem’ perspective suggests that simple ideas about accountability – such as citizen feedback reaching decision-makers ensures more...

This article challenges a normative assumption about accountability in organizations: that more accountability is necessarily better. More specifically, it examines two forms of “myopia” that characterize conceptions of accountability among service-oriented nonprofit organizations: (a) accountability as a set of unconnected binary relationships rather than as a system of relations and (b) accountability as short-term and rule-following behavior rather than as a means to longer-term social...

The wide-reaching consensus around the normative and instrumental value of accountability, transparency, participation, and inclusion remains less solid than enthusiasts of these concepts might wish.

Climate change is increasingly altering the pattern of climate-related risks. Developing countries and in particular least developed countries will be among the most severely impacted by climate change. These risks can seem remote in comparison with more immediate threats and needs, but if climate change is not considered upfront in existing planning and policymaking processes today, decision makers risk locking-in future impacts that may prove irreversible or much more costly and difficult...

Diverse approaches to promoting disability inclusive employment aim to transform workplaces into truly inclusive environments, usually with intervention strategies targeting two main groups: employers and jobseekers with disabilities. However, they do not always consider other relevant stakeholders or address the relationships and interactions between diverse actors in the wider social ecosystem. These approaches often neglect deeper ‘vexing’ difficulties which block progress towards...

This paper examines the role of developmental leadership in two major reforms introduced in the Philippines in 2012: the passage into law in December of excise tax reform which significantly raised taxes on cigarettes and alcohol – generally referred to as the Sin Tax Reform – and, in July, the re-registration of voters in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). These reforms have a) strengthened government finances and healthcare; and b) improved the quality of elections and...

Summary In 2016-17, the Department for International Development (DFID) spent £1.4 billion, or 14% of its budget, through commercial suppliers on contracts ranging from school construction to family planning services and the delivery of humanitarian aid. The quality of its procurement and contract management – how it engages and manages commercial firms to support the delivery of aid programmes on time, to budget and at the appropriate quality – is a key driver of value for money for UK...

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) of tomorrow is one in which the Agency enables partner countries to plan, resource, and manage their own development through strengthened capacity and commitment — this is the essence of the Journey to Self-Reliance. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2018, the Agency obligated over 80 percent of its programmatic funding — a total of $17 billion — through acquisition and assistance (A&A) mechanisms. Partnering and procurement are central to how we do...

This working paper explores how donors can move towards greater Navigation by Judgment, highlighting the actions people inside and outside aid agencies can work to make change—encouraging more Navigation by Judgment on the margin, starting today.

This four-module course by +Acumen and Adaptive Change Advisors on adaptive leadership, which is a practical leadership framework developed at Harvard Kennedy School for driving systemic change, particularly during times of uncertainty or when there are no easy answers.