I am a geek… there you go; I admit it. And when it comes to
complex systems, I am a romantic geek. I believe in the idea that in order to
“do” good market-systems development we need to embrace and understand the
paradigm of complexity; take what we can from it and adapt it to our work in
highly dysfunctional markets.
This is why I have been shocked in the last year to hear
from senior officials in large, international NGOs and leading development
agencies -some of whom I know have been pushing for the
adoption of systemic approaches- that they still doubt the value that systems
and complexity can add to what they are trying to achieve.
A recent blog by Duncan Green called Politics, economists and the dangers of pragmatism: reflections on DFID’s governance and conflict conference (14 Nov 2014) reinforced my disillusionment and prompted me to write this blog.
In his description of a DFID annual get together –where it seems that
economists are ‘getting’ the importance of politics and governance issues,
Green warns us that this moment of illumination is not complete; in fact, it
may contain the seeds of its own destruction.
