Harnessing Dialogue as a Social Technology for Systems Change in Development Institutions

Across global development discourse and practice can be seen a growing a recognition that deep transformation of social, economic and ecological systems cannot be achieved through new policies, data or technology alone. The capabilities needed for 21st century leadership and governance relate to the ability to create new conditions, relationships and pathways for social and moral imagination to flourish. Drawing from an in-depth case study of several interlinked initiatives of the United Nations Development Programme to build such capabilities among development practitioners, this conceptual paper elaborates the continued need for, and pathways and barriers to institutionalizing, more dialogic- and process-based approaches to systems transformation in mainstream development processes. It posits that a reconceptualization of dialogue within multilateral and government-led systems transformation frameworks in particular can help valorize the seeds of development impact that reside in the sites where culture, relationships and shared consciousness are built. Further learning is needed, however, to understand and address barriers that lie in normative perceptions, organizational culture, and accountability frameworks of these institutions, which impede the rhetorical interest in inclusive and transformative dialogue from translating to more process- and relationship-centric ways of working. As a contribution to this learning, the paper considers how conceptual frames that give weight and visibility to the role of social containers in systems change processes, with dialogue as a core technology for container-building, canhelp advance more transformative development paradigms and praxis that tend to the reciprocal relationships between inner change and societal change.