‘can help navigate a middle ground in the face of complex problems: to ensure development professionals neither have to surrender to uncertainty on the one hand nor construct convenient but false and potentially unhelpful log-frame ‘fictions’ on the other.’ But there is an issue if the answer is ‘yes’, as the ‘toolkit temptation’ is deeply rooted in the aid and development sector often unhelpfully, and could lead to unhelpful and damaging ‘complexity silver bullets’ and tick boxes.īen and colleagues reckon that this circle can be squared, and that the right complexity toolkit: If the answer is ‘oxymoron’, then we may have a problem in terms of thinking about and navigating complexity. is the whole point of complex systems that you can’t have standard approaches, only connected, agile people able to respond and improvise? Can the standard research tools for studying complex systems provide a useful toolkit for aid agencies, or is that an oxymoron? i.e. The project tries to answer a thorny question for complexity wallahs. The draft is here BestPracticetoBestFitWorkingPaper_DraftforComments_May2014 (just comment on this post, and the authors will read and reply where necessary, and make sure any non-bonkers comments are reflected in the final version). Ben Ramalingam, who wrote last year’s big book on complexity and aid ( Aid on the Edge of Chaos) has been doing some interesting work with DFID and wants comment on his draft paper (with Miguel Laric and John Primrose) summarizing the project.