Improving Aid Effectiveness under Uncertainties: Concept of Risk and Development Programming

Risk Society organization is launching a series of workshops on how to improve aid effectiveness under uncertainties. The first workshop is an introduction to the concept of risk and its implications for development planning. The second workshop is focused on the concept of risk landscape and setting strategic priorities for development interventions. The third workshop is focused on integrated risk management framework (IRM) for civil society organizations (CSOs).

Workshop 1: Concept of Risk and Development Programming

Concept of Risk

Participants will be introduced to the concepts of risk and uncertainties as well as the benefits of effective risk management for development programming. They will learn about risk classification and discuss the dual nature of risk management as both threat and opportunity management. They will explore some of the important characteristics of risk in complex versus complicated systems:

• its dynamic, social, and subjective nature;
• the limited knowledge about many of the risks, and so, our capacity to calculate them accurately in terms of probability, consequences, compensation and accountability;
• the disruption of cause-and-effect relationships in risk consideration (e.g. across generations, geographic areas, sectors, institutions, etc.).

Implications for Development Programming

During this session participants will discuss a range of implications for development programming:

indicative planning and avoiding ‘planning paradox’
• acceptance of failure and learning
• anticipative awareness
• prospective learning