Change processes

From an IDRC publication on Outcome Mapping

"As Peter Senge points out,

Seeing interrelationships, not things, and processes, not snapshots. Most of us have been conditioned throughout our lives to focus on things and to see the world in static images. This leads us to linear explanations of systemic phenomenon. (Senge 1990: 15)


International development programs are particularly prone to excluding themselves from the system in which development change occurs. By separating themselves from development processes (i.e., something “we” help “them” accomplish) and explaining change using linear reasoning, programs lose the opportunity to explore their full potential as change agents."

In other words, change processes in basins are implemented by people. The trick is to ask "what people?" and "how can research outputs improve the process?". The simple response to this might be to consider where processes can be improved by reducing uncertainties. Such uncertainties might include:
- lack of data on water balances within a particular sub-basin
- ignorance about impacts of change on specific aquatic environments
- unequal representation of specific groups of people
- ignorance about the dependence of specific groups on water