Complex Systems Approach to ‘Development Aid’

Abstract

Increasingly, the development aid sector is criticised for its failures in tackling the many problems that persist in so-called ‘developing’ countries. While billions are spent each year on aid socio-economic equity and environmental quality have often worsened. Even with the best intentions projects can have undesired rebound effects, different projects can conflict, or the efforts can be overshadowed by factors such as economic interests in trade relations. We conjecture that the persistence or slow resolution of problems over such a long period of time is caused by differences in perceived problem structure by different parties involved. We present a framework based on complex systems theory. It provides a new perspective allowing for a novel system decomposition with a distinction between environment, agents and their interactions. Using this analytical framework, development problems can be categorised in two clusters or system levels, driven by the priorities of two social groups referred to as ‘core’ (small and wealthy) and ‘periphery’ (large and poor). Sometimes well-meant core strategies do not fit the peripheral environment, and sometimes, promising peripheral developments are hampered in the dominant interests dictated by the core. This is illustrated with a model of the Northern and Southern perspectives for the case of Bangladesh