Whatever your ideological biases about ‘the private sector’ (often weirdly conflated with transnational corporations in NGO-land), markets really matter to poor people (feeding families, earning a living, that kind of thing).  But ‘making markets work for the poor’ turns out to be really difficult and, just as with attempts to tackle corruption or improve institutions, there is a rethink going on in the aid business. Critics of conventional approaches (of which I am one) argue that systems thinking and complexity both explain why a lot of previous approaches haven’t worked that well, and suggest some new ways to tackle the problem.

To catch up on some new research on all this, I spent a fascinating afternoon at DFID last week. The ‘knowledge hub’ BEAM Exchange (they don’t like to be called a thinktank) presented a discussion paper and technical paper on ‘rethinking systemic change’, along with a warts-and-all case study from Palladium on the difficulty of trying to put this into practice in a large market development programme in Uganda. Some highlights.

The discussion and technical papers reviewed the lessons from the 3 elements of New Economic Thinking: evolutionary economics, new institutional economics and complex adaptive systems. Eric Beinhocker’s influence much in evidence. The papers draw some useful and pretty challenging conclusions:

‘The aim of development must be to enhance the evolutionary process in an economy and create access to this process for all levels of the society, both politically and economically.’

Top tip: if you’re in a meeting discussing anything to do with finance, at some point look wise and say ‘you do realize, blockchain is likely to change everything.’ Of course, there is always a terrifying chance that someone will ask what you actually mean. Worry not, because IDS has produced a handy bluffer’s guide to help you respond. Blockchain for Development – Hope or Hype?, by Kevin Hernandez, is the latest in IDS’ ‘Rapid Response Briefings’ series, (which itself is a nice example of how research institutions can work better around critical junctures/windows of opportunity). It’s only four pages, but in case even that is too onerous, here are some excerpts (aka a bluffer’s guide to the bluffer’s guide).

‘What is blockchain technology?

At its heart, the blockchain is a ledger. It is a digital ledger of transactions that is distributed, verified and monitored by multiple sources simultaneously. It may be difficult to think of something as basic as the way we keep and maintain records as a technology, but this is because record-keeping is so ingrained in daily life, albeit often invisibly. The ubiquity of ledgers is in part the reason why blockchains are held as having so much disruptive potential. Traditionally, ledgers have enabled and facilitated vital functions, with the help of trusted third parties such as financial institutions and governments. These include: ensuring us of who owns what; validating transactions; or verifying that a given piece of information is true.