This blog post was originally published on the Website of CGAP as part of a series of blog posts on measuring change in market systems development under the title “New Funding Approaches Call for a New Way of Measuring Impact.” CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) is a global partnership of 34 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion.
The focus of financial sector development is shifting. Development organizations funding financial inclusion now operate with a vision of sustainability, resilience and impact at scale, and their goals stretch beyond building individual institutions. Now, they aim to improve the whole ecosystem for financial services, taking a facilitative rather than a direct intervention approach. Continue reading
There is a controversy brewing among systems and complexity thinkers. Is it useful to define a future goal towards which our initiatives strive? Or is it wiser instead to focus our attention on what we know we can change and trust that this will eventually lead us to a future that is better than any we could have anticipated? While the first feels intuitively right to many development practitioners, proponents of the latter argue that the absence of defined goals and targets may lead to future possibilities that are more sustainable and resilient (and that could not be fully anticipated). So the question is: can we know in advance what the best (or a good) outcome will be?