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I do agree with Dame Kidu. Woman in politics has done a 2-steps back. During her time there was talk about creating seats for 22 woman reps. This was received with mixed feelings, yet there was good support from male MPs. The current parliament has three sitting female MPs. The situation for woman and girls may have stayed the same. But, the situation for woman leaders is NOT represented well by those three women MPs, don't you think? Those three woman leaders CAN change public opinion on woman leaders in the country. But they have failed miserably in this regard. I still have lots of respect for Dame Kidu. She showed how a woman can make a difference. She topped her career off with being the only opposition leader and the only member of the opposition. She stood against the idiocy of males. She is forever to be remembered as the one woman opposition. PNG needs woman like her.

The positives of the idea of complexity in development, I think, are largely therapeutic. We get so bound up in our Newtonian model of the universe, that we come to think of our billiard-ball "logic models" as actually real. We start to fetishise them, doing what they tell us, and ignore the real-world signals on the ground. The negative aspect of complexity is that it proffers yet another mechanistic model, to distract workers from the real interactions and information that's available through deep engagement with the operating environment, of which 99% can be summed in this word: people. The image, of workers scrawling equations on a blackboard, encapsulates this negative. 1. It suggests to aid workers that they respond to failure by building yet another layer of modelling, so that the workers interact yet more with models than with real people and with real situations. This is nirvana for researchers and for people in HQ, because models are their stock in trade, and if this approach to aid is furthered, the value of their stock goes up. 2. At the same time, private enterprise is moving AWAY from these mathematical models, and towards deeper engagements with their customers, suppliers, and partners as the best way to win. Oddly, this is what aid has always been fairly good at: engagement. It would be sad at this time if we started to lose our strengths in favour of approaches that other social institutions are abandoning (and with good reason, in my view.) 3. From a moral perspective, I think it's dubious to sell to the world's poor products (complexity, in this case) that the world's rich are so far refusing to buy. If we're going to see if this stuff works, let's experiment with the OECD middle class first, not with the poor in foreign lands. When I see complexity being used to ACTUALLY solve some of the West's manifest social problems, then I think it will be okay to export it. 4. There's also an empirical problem. If development means the social changes we have seen since the Enlightenment—public health, education, equality, democracy, wealth, increased life expectancy and so on—then we in the West have achieved these without "complexity thinking". The claim that "complexity thinking" is suddenly necessary for Africa requires explaining away a lot of empirical evidence (the entire history of development in Western countries to date) to justify why it's all of suddenly necessary for Mozambique.

Steven, glad it is of some clarity. It may need an update in light of the recent events/cases. Bal

Thank you for this interesting piece, particularly on the need to find culturally appropriate ways to improve gender equality in PNG. You mention the need for girls to see more women in decision-making positions. Indeed, an interesting finding from our work on service delivery in PNG (PEPE Project) is that the share of female teachers (based on Head Teachers and Grade 5 teachers) has doubled over the last decade; there are now more female Grade 5 teachers than male. Hopefully this improvement will bring about positive change in itself but I wonder if it could be leveraged more. Teachers are educated, large in number (23,000 in primary schools), widely dispersed throughout the country, and now strongly represented by women. Could the school curriculum incorporate more discussion and debate on societal change, cultural values, and their impact on the lives of mothers, sisters, and daughters? Could schools be supported to host events which bring the local community together to discuss these issues and raise awareness?

This is an insightful and important presentation by Dame Carol. I was recently in PNG. Have been working from the ground up, and a comment was sent to me by the International Red Cross reflecting much NGO work in PNG: "It was interesting to see the contrast in meeting someone like yourself working at ground level to enact change vs the 'large agencies' who are also trying to enact change. You seem to have a small footprint but big results as opposed to other international agencies that appear to have a large presence / budget but much smaller everyday effect on assisting those coping with sexual and other gender based violence." As an Aboriginal woman I work from a cultural base. Outside others don't get it.

Interesting observations Kolinio Meo considering the article had been written towards the end of 2013. It is now November, 2014 Post Fiji 2014 Election. The recent outcome of Fiji Auditor-General’s 2007-2013 Report just released gives us an inside view of what transpired Post 2006 coup up to 2013. The budget presented in 2013 for 2014 appears not to be included in the 2007-2013 Fiji Auditor Genral's report. The report is now showing clear evidence of alleged mis-spending and mis-appropriation of funds as per the Auditor General's report. I have attached some prelimiray links for your information below this comment as attachments. A Committee now tasked to look into this is led by Dr Biman Prasad M.P.. His comments alone is adequate to tell Fiji taxpayers and those with vested interests of the financial state of affairs Fiji has had post 2006 coup – 2014. It does not look promising for 2015 and beyond. Elisapeci Samanunu Links: <a href="http://www.fijileaks.com/home/khaiyums-aunty-milked-taxpayers-to-the-last-drop-regime-paid-nur-bano-ali-over-half-a-million-dollars-to-re-structure-rewa-cooperative-dairy-company-ltd" rel="nofollow">Khaiym's aunty milked taxpayers to the last drop</a>: Regime paid Nur Bano Ali's Aliz Pacific over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS to re-structure Rewa Dairy Company Ltd!~Fiji Leak 4/11/2014 <a href="http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=285417" rel="nofollow">Fiji Government ministers' salaries were paid through chartered accounting firm Aliz Pacific Limited from 2010</a> - Shalveen Chand <a href="http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=285517" rel="nofollow">Fiji Public Accounts Committee to sit for the first time to scrutinize report</a> - By NASIK SWAMI

The article is a well researched one that spells out clearly the political events that are occurring in PNG without takings sides. Keep it up Bal because most of the commentary on most social networks and pages are for one side or the other and readers are totally confused about who is telling the truth.

A lot of the discussion around (and practice of) capacity building is focused on the process, rather than the outcome. This has been touched on by Tony and Deborah. As aid practitioners, we spend a lot of our time within the process of working with our counterparts, and don't often take the time to step back and examine what it is we are actually aiming for. This is also a difficult issue for our partners, who we tend to keep occupied with a lot of consultations and esoteric project management, most of which seems to involve arranging our capacity building inputs. However the question constantly needs to be asked - "building capacity for what?" The two most successful programs that I've seen, in more than two decades of working in this area, have occurred when the aims of the intervention coincided with a policy imperative or urgent need on the part of the partner government. One case involved a partner agency adopting and implementing a particular community forestry approach because there was no financial alternative, and the other came about in bilingual primary education because the provincial governments were required to meet school enrollment targets set by the national government. The interesting thing is, once these organisations had decided upon the course of action, or been forced into it by external circumstances, latent expertise and knowledge was suddenly freed up, staff became highly motivated and domestic resources became available. Unfortunately the success of these projects was due almost entirely to good luck, rather than good planning or a coherent system of "policy engagement" or "skills transfer". The aid provider just happened to be in the right place at the right time with a good model (and the requisite technical advice), and both interventions took off with a minimal amount of persuasion or "incentivising" going on. I'm not completely sure what the lessons are from this, other than making sure that we properly understand our partners' priorities and motivations, and that we are flexible enough to respond to opportunities as they occur. This requires being much more strategic with aid resources, and perhaps being more innovative in how those resources are used. "Capacity building" might not be a standard investment, it might be more akin to venture capital.

While a simpler analytical framework to Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development (which Gibson, Andersson, Ostrom and Shivakumar used in the Samaritan's Dilemma), I enjoyed 'The Institutional Economics of Foreign Aid' by Martens, Mummert, Murrell and Seabright. They apply the principal-agent model to the question of why aid agencies rarely achieve their goals, examining incentives from the donor agency, to consultants, to recipients.

I really like April's summary. Complex adaptive systems approaches (which were one of the frameworks that informed the IAD methodology used in the Samaritan's Dilemma) are one way of improving our frameworks and theories. The problem with many social science methodologies, especially those prevalent in aid, is that they are not designed to understand and navigate complexity, but rather to reduce it. As Prof Ostrom put it in her Nobel speech: "To explain the world of interactions and outcomes occurring at multiple levels, we also have to be willing to deal with complexity instead of rejecting it. Some mathematical models are very useful for explaining outcomes in particular settings. We should continue to use simple models where they capture enough of the core underlying structure and incentives that they usefully predict outcomes. When the world we are trying to explain and improve, however, is not well described by a simple model, we must continue to improve our frameworks and theories so as to be able to understand complexity and not simply reject it."

If developing individuals and teams is the goal within such agencies, I wonder what would happen if support to Treasury, for example, was provided by way of personnel with minimal technical economic/finance skills, but high levels of skills in, well, developing individuals and teams? Executive coaches and suchlike. There are some amazing people out there who are real coaches, mentors, educators, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists and suchlike. A different skill set to the economists, lawyers, public policy, HR and ICT experts who currently populate the adviser landscape. People, people. Absolutely no disrespect to the authors and other technical experts, there is a strong and real need for their input but to my mind not in a capacity development role unless they have some of the qualities above on top of their vast and specific experience. Reason being, the problems are accepted as often very human and cultural. The culture of the organisation as well as the national culture. If the aim of support is to assist individuals and teams to become more efficient, effective operators and agents of positive change – then someone constantly in their ear about why they let that person walk all over them … what are they doing about the team leader who never comes to work? How will they get their idea through the various committees? How they can motivate their team? How can they forms their plans then execute them. Are they providing good leadership … how’s the recruitment going, we’re still only at 50% of our staff establishment … the list goes on. If specific technical capacity is lacking then the choice is to bring in the technical expert, or to train existing staff – or both. A technical expert in a line position with actual management power would have an effect on team capacity, you would think, and put some teeth into their role. Closer examination is needed about why this is rarely an option. Perhaps not sustainable – but that too is a much over used word. What is, in this changing world? We could focus on creating change as quickly as possible and then work on the sustainability. It sometimes seems the other way around and kind of meaningless. We really set our advisers up to fail if they are tasked with changing people and teams by building capacity when they have other skills. The point about maintaining relationships is an interesting one. As is the long term approach. Both great in an ideal world but the greatest relationship is where it is strong enough to have honest conversations – not when we need to back off for fear of spoiling things. Which so often seems to be the case, especially at the higher levels. We’ve seen how changes in government in both donor and recipient countries can have immediate changes in development policy. I’ve been associated with two 10-year programs that changed direction half-way through due to political imperatives more so than development priorities. The departments and divisions are often very fluid in terms of personnel and change constantly which also makes it difficult to understand how a long term design can predict the future context without an organic element founded on some strong principles. Trouble is, those principles will also change with governments. I also wonder about how far we need to incorporate a national culture into a workplace. The workplace systems of “doing business” are often founded on western values and ways of doing things so really our job is to educate on what these are, if it’s going to work, and how they can be applied in a given context. I’m pretty sure “the people” who want the services that governments in a Westminster system are there to deliver would prefer they play the game according to some long standing ways of doing things. Time being the obvious example. Very difficult to run a department, or any business, on Melanesian time. Understanding the national culture is important in understanding what motivates people, what leadership styles work best, how to handle conflict, best ways of communicating etc. but not with the goal of turning the workplace into an example of the national culture. When Dame Carol Kidu was tackling this question in her department in PNG, she symbolised this by asking her officers to “leave their bilum at the door” which was an attempt to explain to staff that a different mindset was required to make the department a success. I agree that “the capacity might already be there” in many cases. The secret to success for a donor program is how to unlock it – if it is in fact their role to build capacity. And we could probably do this a lot more creatively.

Thanks April, That's a great comment. And I think you may be right that new aid workers are acculturated into thinking into a particular - Newtonesque - way. That said, I still think that if the overarching political (or private suburban donor) incentives were different this would be much more easily remedied, and that good old fashioned social science would be sufficient for *much* of the subsequent intellectual task of change making. I completely agree with you that we have far too little analysis of how and why aid agencies work the way they do. I have a slightly biased view on this matter as my wife (who is a fan of Ramalingham's work) is currently doing her PhD on the forces that have changed NZ ODA in recent years and as she can tell you, the literature is scarce (there are more books than The Samaritan's Dilemma though). What I am not so sure of is why in the first instance this means we need a new type of social science to study how aid is given. Surely in the first instance we might just be able to try using the existing tools? Something we've done too little of to date? Thanks again for the comment Terence