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Development is not a science and cannot be measured. That is not a bad thing

Submitted by nicko2 on 02 June 2017

Keith Ogilvie shared this interesting article by Michael Kleinman from the Guardian's Development Professionals Network.

Our obsession with measuring impact has, paradoxically, paralysed us. We focus on those interventions that promise to produce measurable results. ... The focus on measuring impact limits our willingness to take risks. We must balance a desire for certainty against the knowledge that our ability to measure impact will always be, at best, limited.

Development is not a science – it is a struggle to try to improve the human condition, but a struggle in which we are denied the ultimate reassurance of knowing whether we were successful, or not.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jun/01/development-is-not-a-science-and-cannot-be-measured-that-is-not-a-bad-thi…