The short answer is Yes!
The longer answer is that this area is still undergoing an attrition and evolution with people in the sector trying to shape what this means for them and their work. There is a real dearth of good M&E/impact evaluation support for systems thinkers in development, which makes the work harder. There are some organisations that addressing this issue head on and are moving away from M&E and towards more knowledge, learning and practice. To do this requires building the capacity within field teams, management, senior management and also, with donors.
For me, the most interesting thing is how systems thinking principles are used effectively. The aim should be to help developing countries determine what kind of system they want to have and what people will want to do in the system. A big danger to the space that in our attempts to 'bring about a better way of doing things', we determine what the system should look like *for* countries and we hard code these principles activities and behaviours *for* people. Moreover, integrative, participatory and democratic approaches for systems thinking are often just not enough because it can set up a situation where there is still a dominant thinking that others are being encouraged to conform to or align with.
In a nutshell, systems thinking for development cannot be the end-goal. It should be a starting point to think about doing development differently and better.
Originally published on Quora here
