Erin Beck
This is the question I struggle with the most because I am actually pretty pessimistic about policy-makers' likelihood to engage in deep learning - not because they are malicious or willfully ignorant but because they are human beings that engage in cognitive shortcuts, are influenced by their own experiences and knowledge and see the world through those eyes, and have multiple goals beyond development - including feeling like they are making a difference, keeping their jobs, attracting funding, maintaining prestige, etc. This reality makes meaningful learning difficult in the sphere of development.
There are two organisational sociology concepts that Alnoor Ebrahim uses in his work on development institutions that I leverage in my work on NGOs - single-loop and double-loop learning. Single loop learning is about learning to improve projects or standard operating procedures so they are slightly better in the next round - so failure might actually inspire more projects in the future rather than discontinuing them. Double loop learning is about questioning the underlying value of the project itself or power dynamics that are at its foundation. Development as a global industry is very good at single loop learning, but pretty terrible at double loop learning.
We need to start thinking about how to change that, but it'll be difficult because it means people admitting they might not have the expertise to address a problem, and that they should, in essence, be put out of work. That's an uncomfortable reality and a level of cognitive dissonance most people are not able to deal with. So I guess rather giving policy-makers a "fix" or concrete piece of advice, I'd like to leave them with a couple of questions with which they should grapple: How can we encourage "deep" or double-loop learning in development? When there are disappointing results or gaps between policy and practice, how can we encourage scholars and practitioners to question the value of a project’s fundamental goals, meanings, and even its existence, rather than merely ask how that project can be improved? How can we encourage funders, policy-makers, workers, and even researchers to incorporate diverse categories and modes of evaluation, derived from the multiple perspectives inevitably involved in any given development projects, as messy as this process may be - and even if it puts them out of work? How can we encourage policy-makers to realize that their knowledge, worldviews, and skills might not be relevant, as uncomfortable as that might make them?
