In this blog we look at complexity â not in theory, not in books, but in messy, live, reality. Hamish Wilson interviewed Jarso Guyo Mokku, a pastoralist leader from Northern Kenya, about his perspectives on the changing dynamics of peace and conflict in the region and the increasing complexity he finds himself living in
As we try and learn how to make change happen in complex systems we are seeking out the stories, experiences and advice of other pioneers (and there are lots of them).
After a decade of hard work, the foundations are in place for substantive progress within African food systems. New tangible partnerships are emerging that combine focussed intent, long-term commitment and significant ambition. For anyone asking when African agriculture will deliver its long-touted potential, these partnerships offer the best hope for change at scale.
Through 2017 and 2018, Wasafiri will be extending our work from Africa and into the UK and the USA â hereâs why:
When we set up Wasafiri, over 5 years ago now, it was because we saw a problem that we wanted to change. Between us we had been working on a variety of development issues across Africa; from climate change to conflict to agriculture – and the problem we recognised across all these different issues was less to do with the issues and more to do with the approach; and it was this approach that we wished to change.
Universal to all these very different problems was that these were not merely âtechnicalâ problems â where solutions could be engineered- but rather systemic problems, that were deeply human in their nature. The sort of problems that no one institution, however brilliant or rich, could change on their own. So Wasafiri was set up to offer a different way to approach these sorts of problems. An approach rooted in collaborative action, in multi-stakeholder engagement, in bringing together those committed to making change and together figuring out, imperfect but practical action.
Over the last 5 years we have worked with partners from DFID to USAID, from private investors to global foundations, and we have been part of some significant change; and have learnt a great deal. We have been part of Grow Africaâs ability to engage governments and the private sector in catalysing over $2 billion of investment into agriculture on the continent. We have supported countries who have wanted to access Green Climate Fund investment with developing their plans. We have worked to help those effected by violent extremism in the Horn of Africa and those funding efforts to counter violent extremism to figure out how to support community resilience. And through this work, some of which has been more effective than others, we have learnt a great deal about what it means to work in complex systems and navigate complex problems.
However, complex systems and problems are not just found in Africa, or even just in developing countries. Rather these are universal problems many of which, like climate change, transcend national boundaries. From police âcommunity relationships in the USA, to anti-microbial  resistance, to the muddle of the NHS in the UK, or the challenges of rising inequality across all wealthy countries â we live in a world of complex problems. Indeed the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals, and their explicit application to all countries underlined the universal and ongoing nature of development.
And so over the next year we at Wasafiri want to explore how we can bring the approach we have developed, and the lessons we have learnt about working in complex systems to issues outside of Africa. Initially we will be exploring opportunities in the UK and the USA â opportunities where there are not simple solutions, where many different actors need to collaborate â and where that is not easy to do. It is in these messy spaces where we have to come together and create the path by walking it.
There is no doubt that complex problems disproportionately affect the less powerful: hunger, drought, floods, and conflict all punish the poor and marginalised first. It is understandable that the less powerful feel angry at the more powerful. They may despair or rage against the injustice. âWhy me?â
The powerful may be the winners in the system â wealth, health and power accrues to them/us. They/we may have power over the less powerful, and thereby be in a position to protect the status quo. This does not necessarily mean that the powerful have much effective power over the system itself. Indeed they/we are as much a product of the system as anyone else.
As Duncan Green describes in his excellent new book âHow Change Happensâ, much effort from principled activists goes in to âspeaking truth to power.â This energy can feel like shouting in to the wind, because it is like shouting in to the wind. The systemâs dynamics are more powerful than any individual leader. Like the monsters of old, you could chop off its head but the system will grow another back. We attribute too much power to leaders, and they/we are often obliged to perpetuate this myth to secure their/our position. Letâs see how effective Trump is at fulfilling all his promises to âMake America Great Again.â
System change requires a different kind of power â a collective power that Wasafiri terms âadaptive capacityâ. This is the ability of actors in a system to know and act upon that system, so as to intentionally change it. Like other aspects of systems, the whole is not simply the sum of the parts. Collective power is not the aggregation of the power of individuals. It is a product of the social structures, behaviours and attitudes that allow collaboration and communication at a system level. The toughest âcomplexâ problems are those where adaptive capacity is inadequate to the scale of the challenge â climate change, violent extremism, food security. A classic power analysis will not miraculously identify the individuals who can wield enough influence to solve these issues.
This does not diminish the responsibility of leaders. They/we often hold a privileged point of view from which to perceive the system more completely. They/we certainly have convening and decision-making power that can be the basis for greater adaptive capacity and effective interventions that drive system reform. But they/we are as much part of the system as anyone else, and can feel powerless to effect change.
A family is often described as the Complex Adaptive System that is easiest to relate to. As the Dad and primary breadwinner, a pure power analysis would suggest I have most individual power in my family. Do I feel powerful as one child has a tantrum, the other refuses to do his homework, and my wife fumes? Not very.
I recently described Wasafiriâs work on system change to an old friend, expecting the usual slightly blank look followed by, âSo what exactly do you do?â. Instead she replied, âOh that sounds just like my work as a family counsellorâ. She helps whole families understand how they affect each other, and then collectively they make changes to the routines, norms and behaviours that define them. She helps increase the adaptive capacity of that family to evolve itself as a micro-system. Thatâs the help I need as a Dad. Iâm not powerful to effect change on my own. I need my whole family to be working together.
Duncan Green would describe this approach to system change as âstrategic activismâ, in contrast to âprincipled activismâ. Wasafiri uses the term âSystemcraftâ to evoke the long-term effort of simultaneously strengthening adaptive capacity within system, whilst also coordinating interventions to address complex problems.
Ubuntu: why adaptive capacity has profound value?
A few years ago, the Wasafiri team attempted to articulate our values. Our North Star was a sense of purpose that we struggled to articulate. It was broader than poverty-alleviation, less benevolent than compassion, less âus vs themâ than solidarity. It was a sense that the problems we worked on required people to work together in new ways that transcended boundaries; that their success was interconnected, even if they did not recognise it at first.
The African concept of Ubuntu was introduced and immediately resonated. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his book No Future Without Forgiveness, says: “Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language… It is to say, ‘My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.’ We belong in a bundle of life.â Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee defined it as: âI am what I am because of who we all are.â
This philosophy gives a value-base to why work on adaptive capacity is important. It emphasises the collective over the individual, or at least that the individual cannot understand or fulfil their humanity outside their relation to the collective. Our work is to evolve human systems in which we can all thrive. It is to increase human agency over structural constraints. This we can only do together, wielding collective power, not looking to mythically powerful leaders to resolve our problems as if they sat God-like above the systems.
Whether it is my family striving for a little more harmony, a village countering the rise of extremist ideologies, or the global community facing global warming; we must consider how to increase our adaptive capacity. Thatâs when power is no longer a zero-sum game, we are collectively fulfilling our humanity, and we might just counter some thorny problems along the way.
I live in Brighton, a wealthy, vibrant, liberal city; and yet I have dear friends who sometimes end the month without enough money to buy food. They have no assets to draw upon and, despite earning salaries around the national average, there seems little hope of this changing. Meanwhile, each year, I manage to get a little richer. I cannot easily explain or justify the scale of this divergence. We all work hard and purposefully. In the Monopoly game of life, in my 20s I was lucky enough to start accumulating capital whilst they never have. This arbitrary and seemingly inevitable inequality seems profoundly unfair and damaging.
In trying to understand why this disparity seems inevitable, I have concluded that rising inequality will emerge as a defining complex challenge of the 21st Century. Unless the global community acts intentionally to temper this long-term economic trend, then highly destructive social forces will emerge to do so. Wasafiriâs growing understanding of how to manage complex change offers important insights on how to turn the tide on extreme inequality.
Inequality is bad and rising
In developed economies, as much as poverty, it is strong inequality that drives social ills. In âThe Spirit Levelâ Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson  present strong evidence that more unequal societies have worse health, crime and social cohesion. The stress and behaviours caused by people trying to keep up economically are bad for rich and poor alike. Less equal societies are also expensive for the public purse, as the state struggles to prop people up when housing and nutritious food are less affordable; crime is higher; and communities care for each other less. More equal societies, such as Denmark, are those in which citizens are happiest. Even environmental performance is worse in less equal countries, as consumption habits are driven by materialistic pressures to keep up; and people are less willing to support concessions in favour of long-term public goods.
Meanwhile, decade on decade, inequality is rising across the developed world. In his seminal text, âCapital in the 21st Centuryâ, Thomas Picketty shows this empirically, and demonstrates that the simple mathematics of economic growth is inexorably shifting global wealth into the ownership of fewer and fewer people. In the USA, which is the most unequal developed economy, the top 10% earn close to half of total income. This compares to a third in the 1950s. Wealth inequality is even more eye-watering, with the bottom 50% owning almost no capital and the top 10% owning 75%. Whilst the USA is the most unequal major economy, all developed countries from Sweden to Australia are showing the same steady rise in inequality.
Most fundamentally, inequality is rising because the average rate of return from capital, which remains historically steady at about 5%, is greater than the rate of GDP growth achievable by developed economies over the long-term. Whilst incomes from labour are not keeping up with incomes from capital, those people who have capital will steadily accumulate more and more. This is exacerbated further by the very rich achieving higher rates of return than the merely wealthy; and inheritance ensures this wealth stays within the same families. Without significant compensatory measures in place, we have an economic system that is hard-wired to make an increasingly small elite richer, relative to the rest of the population.pay
This trend is also significant for developing economies. During their demographic and economic transition, the growth rates for population and GDP provide a countervailing trend so that inequality is more likely to reduce or remain steady; and reduction of extreme poverty will offer more significant social progress than a focus on reducing inequality. Nonetheless, the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) included a goal to reduce inequality, citing evidence that income inequality increased by 11% in developing countries between 1990 and 2010 and that, beyond a certain threshold, inequality harms growth and poverty reduction, the quality of relations in the public and political spheres, and individualsâ sense of fulfilment and self-worth. All the development rhetoric, effort and investments regarding inclusive growth will only secure temporary gains, if, as economies mature, the inevitable historic outcome is extreme inequality.
If extreme inequality is both bad and inexorably rising, then we have a problem. One does not need to believe in the need for equality, to recognise that at some point extreme inequality becomes unjust and damaging.
In the USA and Western Europe, inequality last peaked in the early 20th Century, at which point it took the disruptive impact of two World Wars and the Great Depression to diminish the extreme capital accumulation and drive socially progressive reforms such as the welfare state, access to education, and labour rights. The rise of populist and divisive rhetoric from politicians like Donald Trump, Marine le Pen and Nigel Farage, has grim echoes from a century ago. Nonetheless their messages resonate with a mass of people who feel excluded from any economic recovery; hear of CEO bonuses and multinational tax bills with resentment; and feel threatened by the forces of globalisation. Arguably, a similar sense of exclusion is a contributing factor to the rise of violent extremism
Inequality is complex
Rising inequality presents a complex challenge on a scale matched only by climate change. It is an outcome of a highly-entrenched and interconnected set of dynamics within our economic system. The problems it creates are emergent and unpredictable. The whole system is the product of the daily norms and actions that underpin the economic life of billions of people. Power lies disproportionately with those actors who benefit from inequality the most; and many of us hold a worldview that justifies inequality as the rightful outcome of aspiration, hard work and talent.
What do we know about delivering change in complex systems that might help?
- Set a target:
The climate change response has benefitted enormously from the target of limiting temperature rises to 2%. Similarly, partners have collaborated to transform African agriculture because of an AU target to achieve 6% growth in the sector. A target becomes a rallying call to interested parties. It simply defines a compelling common ambition without people and institutions having to agree on the best way to respond. It starts the debate and holds everyone to account.
If each G8 country set a high-profile target cap for inequality, it would positively drive public discourse and inspire policy reform. Imagine that a UK Government committed that the top 20% should not earn more than ten times more than the bottom 20%. No future government would ever dare raise the target cap, and more likely they would feel compelled to lower it. At some point, as extreme inequality rose toward the target, political pressure would mount for the government to lead policy reforms that would have systemic consequence.
Tantalisingly, the SDGs have set a globally agreed target that by 2030 each country should âprogressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national averageâ. There are two problems with this target though. Firstly, it is a weak target because it only addresses the bottom end of rising inequality, so it could be achieved whilst the top 1% continue to accumulate ever greater wealth. Secondly, whilst unlike their predecessors the Millennium Development Goals, the SDGs are meant to apply globally and they are largely being ignored by developed countries. Government committees in the UK, USA, Germany and elsewhere have considered their role in achieving the SDGs; but seem to assume the goals are irrelevant domestically, or will be easily achieved through existing policy measures. Nonetheless, the SDG target could offer a starting point around which to create a movement for change and hold governments to account.
- Create an inclusive movement:
Extreme inequality is ultimately bad for everyone. Higher crime, poorer health and less cohesive communities impact all â Â and cost more to manage. Arguably, the 2008 economic crisis was precipitated by vast accumulated capital seeking returns from lending to people who did not have the incomes needed to pay for their debt. At some level of inequality, the political and economic elite cannot sustain their position without risking calamity. Tackling extreme inequality will also require leadership from them. The historical alternative is revolution. If Marie Antoinette had understood this, then perhaps she could have kept her head.
Hence building an inclusive movement is vital. Participation and leadership from across the political, economic and social spectrum will be needed. Fairness Commissions offer an interesting model that could be replicated at national level. These cross-sector leadership bodies have been formed by progressive councils in the UK and USA to identify the drivers of inequality in their areas and identify interventions that can address the worst problems. They include leaders from across the private sector, public sector, voluntary bodies and religious groups. Together they bring enough different perspectives to understand their cityâs economic and social dynamics, propose solutions and provide a mandate for action.
- Experiment:
From across the ideological spectrum, people champion very varied interventions to tackle rising inequality, for example investing in education to drive social mobility; a citizensâ income; land value tax; capping the ratio between top and bottom salaries within companies; and a global wealth tax. Sweden has comparatively low inequality because of higher taxation, whereas Japan has comparatively low inequality because of cultural norms on pay scales.
Work on complex change tells us that silver bullets are rare, and we must experiment and iterate to discover the interventions that work in any given time and place. Compelled by national targets to act, supported by a growing and inclusive movement advocating change, countries will need to learn what works and take interventions to scale at a pace that allows economic and social norms to adjust incrementally. The alternative is traumatic shocks such as economic depression, or even war, as inherent tensions build to the point where the economic system violently leaps from one state to a new more balanced one.
- Seize the moment:
The existing status quo in any system will resist change. However, there is always flux and every so often a window of opportunity opens up, during which change becomes more possible. British Eurosceptics have been shouting in the wind for decades, but the combination of Cameronâs promise of a referendum, the immigration crisis, and an empty economic recovery, all aligned for the nation to choose Brexit. Similarly, political windows of opportunity will fleetingly emerge, in which historic progress can be made to reverse the tide on rising inequality. If targets exist, if an inclusive movement has formed, and experimentation is underway, then we will be ready to seize those moments when they come.
Have hope. Be ready. My friends need not always worry about affording food in the days before pay day.
Ian Randall
September, 2016
https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level
Here in the UK we are living in complex times. Last month we voted to leave the EU; it turns out if being in the EU was complicated, leaving is the definition of complexity.
In the hours following the vote there was profound shock, particularly amongst those of us that voted remain. Certainly I had never imagined this result, though neither perhaps had many that voted leave. The post-mortems are mounting and if no one saw it happening, everyone can now explain why it did. Duncan Green, on his âPoverty to Powerâ Oxfam blog, offers a great summary of contributing factors and avoids any sort of simplistic explanation. For my own reflections (once past the shock and anger), I try looking through the lens of âcomplex adaptive systemsâ. These are systems that, as Wasafiri, we seek out to work in, and of course unsurprisingly, find that we also live in. One of the clues to understanding such systems is to look for power; where it moves, where it pools, where it stagnates: âIdentifying types of power and where they are located is an essential factor in understanding complex social systemsâ (1)
Well, in the EU referendum many of us saw power in all the normal places; with the business leaders, with the economists, with the analysts of political and economic impact, with our political leaders. Yet BREXIT was voted for in large numbers by those that live outside of London, by working class voters, by older voters, and above all by people who have, politically and economically, been marginalised for a long time; and it turns out however marginalised individually, collectively they held a power that few truly appreciated, at least for this vote.
And now, from the press to the school playground when I pick up my kids, our conversations are dominated by the what ifs, the maybes and the impossible to knows. What we can know is that we are part of a complex adaptive system; one that right now we are trying to change. Like all complex adaptive systems the issues are emerging and changing; they are too complex for any one person or institution to fully understand; and no one body can control, determine or even âleadâ, let alone predict, exactly what will happen.
So what might BREXIT mean for the UKâs international aid programme? On paper, the value of our aid budget has just dropped by about $1.4 billion(2). This is due to the drop in the value of the pound and the corresponding drop in the value of our aid budget. But in the coming months, as the pound (hopefully) strengthens, or (terrifyingly) drops further, this number will prove to be what it is â a projection. More significantly, though still off somewhere in a post UK Europe, is that the UK contributes about 2 billion Euros to the EU aid budget â though whether this money âdisappearsâ from international aid, or appears in a different form is, as yet, unknowable. Beyond the money there is also the issue of influence. We already see, in many of the countries in Africa where we work, that the UK government has no monopoly on political influence; we compete for space with other national governments, with the boom in Chinese trade and with regional agendas and bodies. As we leave the EU and cease to be part of that substantial infrastructure of delegations, funding and political access, we may have more freedom to âsing our own tuneâ but we will be singing it on our own, and not as part of a choir of 27 states.
However, as much as many of us didnât want or vote for BREXIT, and however much we believe it is wrong for our country, we now have it. We will leave the EU. And we need to work out how to do it well. Doing it well means that the process as well as the outcome matter; and that they are actually one and the same. It means working with the emergent nature of the issues; it means engaging across all the stakeholders â those in our country and beyond â Â however contradictory their views, needs and experiences; it means not pretending that any one person or institution can control, predict or, however brilliant they are, âsaveâ the process. It means recognising that we are living in a complex adaptive system and we had better not underestimate the consequences.
References
(1)
http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/Connecting-the-dots
(2)
p://www.humanosphere.org/opinion/2016/06/brexit-causes-value-of-u-k-foreign-aid-to-drop-by-1-4-billion/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36618843
If there is one thing Iâve learned recently, it’s that violent extremism is a complex problem. Here in the Horn of Africa, a vast number of potential causal factors exist to incite someone to violence and the connections between them are often hard to see.
And yet, despite the complexities, we (the international community) often fall into the trap of trying to design responses to such threats using tools and approaches built for simpler, more conventional problems. This is fraught with risk.
On our quest to learn more about how complexity theories can be applied to real-world problems such as violent extremism, weâve been grappling with the question of how to construct more adaptive tools (such as theories of change and results frameworks) for CVE.
In doing so, weâve drawn heavily from thinkers such as Ben Ramalingman, Duncan Green and Marcus Jenal who have broken new ground in the field. Below we offer a compilation of (mostly their) thoughts to stimulate more discussion. Let us know what you think – we would love to hear your thoughts!
A number of problems with conventional approaches to creating theories of change and results frameworks
- They assume that causal pathways are known in advance of implementation. The assumption that there is sufficient knowledge about the chain of results can be highly dangerous when applied to the uncertainties of violent extremism (VE).
- They over-simplify messy realities that then become entrenched in implementation. Defining the causal pathway at the outset ignores the dynamic interactions among various parts of the VE problem.
- They assume the problem can be treated in reductionist ways. Conventional approaches risk assuming that the problem can be separated into its component parts and that solutions can be applied in a replicable and reproducible fashion.
- They typically engage with contextual factors in delivery only, rather than in design. They can often assume certainty about the design of an intervention from the outset, which is nigh on impossible in relation to the nature of VE.
- They reduce the willingness to adapt the design over time. They create strong incentives to stick to and report on what was agreed from the outset.
- They impose limitations on capturing unexpected outcomes. Further to the point above, these can impede the ability of CVE programmes to explicitly look for wider outcomes and results.
Some thoughts on creating an âadaptive Theory of Changeâ[i]
- A Theory of Change (ToC) is only useful if it actually informs decision-making. Sounds self-evident, however many Theories of Change gather dust once they have been created to sell the concept of a project.
- A ToC can never be perfect or fixed, at least for CVE programmes. A ToC should be an idea that is alive and dynamic. A ToC has, in the first place, to be useful for the people who work with it. It is a tool to discuss, debate, experiment, learn, change.
- We may never figure out how change will happen in complex systems. Not only can we not know the pathways, we are also unable to predict the exact shape of how the change will look. In some cases we might even not know what a good outcome would look like before we see it. Complex systems can only be understood if we interact with them.
- We may need to start with, and test, multiple Theories of Change. For complex problems such as VE, there may be multiple competing hypotheses of how the intended change could be achieved, or what it could look like. The available evidence may support different and even competing perspectives.
- A well-designed ToC cannot change complexity. The complexity of VE cannot be simplified or reduced with a nice, neat, logical model or theory. Recognise the dangers that any ToC is a potentially dangerous simplificiation of the real world.
- In a complex system, different people will have different perspectives about how things work, which may not be amenable to analysis with a single, simple model. On the contrary, it is important to understand where there is agreement on causalities among the stakeholders and where there is not â this gives us important insights on the complexity of specific links in the logical chain.
- The ToC needs to be presented as an overarching framework that explains how the programme intends to work, but without detailing the specific mechanisms of change (i.e. interventions). This will help ensure the theory of change remains valid even if individual interventions are adapted, closed down, or scaled up.
- Mini Theories of Change may be required to allow adaptation and testing. In conditions of significant uncertainty, an adaptive, learn-as-you-go approach is essential. It makes sense for programmes to include a range of exploratory interventions that can be scaled up, or brought to an end. These projects may run independently of each other, and each should be thought through with its own mini ToC.
- Design it to evolve over time based on new evidence. Recognise that any Theory of Change is just that â a theory. Given the (a) lack of data and (b) debate over what data there is in the world of CVE, we should expect current theories to evolve, and quickly. We must apply this thinking to the ToC from the outset.
- Its possible that the most important goal may be about how responsive the programme is to the local system. Given the outcomes of intervening in a complex system may be unknowable, it is worth considering that the actual goal of the intervention itself may be the extent to which it is responsive to the problem (rather than defining the impact it will have).
Adapted from Essays on complexity and Theories of Change. Marcus Jenal. 2016 https://marcusjenal.wordpress.com/
Also see Navigating Wicked Problems in Development
