Conclusion

This free course, Discovering development management, began by defining ‘good’ development management as that which is judged to be practical, political and ethical. The course then went on to emphasise that development management should be thought of as about ‘interaction and discovery’ rather than intervention, and that development management is a process of social change involving conflicts of goals, values and interests. This led to a particular way to frame development management – a ‘CoDE’ – using the concepts of complexity, difference and emergence. This CoDE can be helpful in the generation of insights into development management processes.

• Complexity recognises that in development management there are often mutiple and interacting parties (e.g. public, private, individuals, groups), fields (e.g. social, political, health, environment) and levels (e.g. local, national, global).

• Difference refers to interested parties coming to development management with their own histories that diverge on the basis of their interests, values, agendas, cultures and access to power.

• Emergence refers to the way development management emerges from interactions between interested parties in often unpredictable, uncertain and uneven ways, which can lead to unintended consequences. As a result, development managers need to expect the unexpected!

This short course has aimed to show that development management is important, challenging and exciting work. If it has piqued your interest in studying development management in greater detail, you may like to study T878 Capacities for managing development [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] or other related courses and qualifications offered by The Open University.