On Development and Innovation: How Ecosystem Approach Differentiates Innovation in Today’s International Development

TRUE DEEP-TECH INITIATIVE, Q4/2018
On Development and Innovation
How Ecosystem Approach Differentiates Innovation in
Today’s International Development?
Development Diplomacy Case
Siripong Treetasanatavorn, Noppawat Chaisamran,
Piyakorn Pasakanon and Viranon Futrakul
1 December 2018
For Educational Purpose Only
(Copyrights of Figures from Property Owners Are Required Before Distribution)

Case: On Development and Innovation True Deep-Tech Initiative, Q4/2018
True & CP Group Page 1 of 33
Why Development Discourses Need a Better
Understanding of System Thinking?
Nature is perhaps human’s one best teacher who reminds us of indefinite sources of
lives around us. Have we ever wondered why we know so much about so many
advances that have brought mankind civilization at so many frontiers with such a
high level of sophistication, while we know so little about natural chains of causality
that allows lives to perpetuate themselves in a self-sustainable nature that becomes
meaningful in its own definition beyond space and time? Why such a discrepancy?
Conscience of the 21st century perhaps gives us just that reflection upon ourselves.
This is also perhaps why development has become such an important movement as
it makes sense not only because we start to realize that nothing will remain at our
disposal unless we take necessary steps to take care of what we have lost, but also
because it is perhaps the right thing to do. Would you start to take care of the nature
if the business-as-usual mentality still prevails unconditionally? Would you start to
think about causes, consequences and the chains that connect them if what we take
for granted is limitless? Would you start to wonder if and how nature can heal itself if
all what we undertake needs no system understanding of the nature itself?
System thinking in development is the case we intend to discuss at this junction. The
authors believe that it is worth exploring rationale and arguments to substantiate the
emergence of cause-based development initiatives all around the world, not only to
ameliorate each specific challenge on the ground, but also strengthen system-driven
rationality of how the development engagement as a whole can be improved once
rethinking about what innovation means to us. Development examples in forest and
water (TED Conferences, 2012 and 2016) can only underline the significance of a
systemic approach to so many systemic challenges of our time. Let alone a reflection
of the nature around us. Well, why couldn’t we take forest and water for granted?
System Approach to System Challenges: Understand
Development Dilemma and Applicability of System Thinking
Nothing stands on its own: This simple principle underlines the necessity of modern
developmental approach based on system thinking. What if we connect causality
chains of one development domain to another? Insights that come from cross-
disciplinary thinking possess not only potentials to address today’s dilemmas in the
development world. Such also allows a system approach to emerge as a mechanism
to bring together wisdom and practices to sustain desirable changes going forward:
• Reframe regional water use efficiency in a dialog of integrated socioeconomic
development and transformation in an extreme situation with forward-looking
implications of the ecosystem (Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, 2017);
• Reinvigorate sense energy innovation to make sense of the global landscape
in transition to encourage both market and social actors to deliver flexibility
and system compatibility from a greater variable mix of renewable sources
across the energy-electrification value chain system (Chatham House, 2018).
• Redefine sense of global food sustainability development using a scientific
approach that brings together solution spaces to improve system vulnerability
of agricultural and socioeconomic causes and simultaneously reconciliate
needs of the global population in fragile natural ecosystems (Nature, 2010).

True Deep-Tech Initiative, Q4/2018 Case: On Development and Innovation
Page 2 of 33 Edited: 2 July 2020
Idea in Brief
Development of the 21st century needs more science and innovation. On two
grounds this argument self-reinforces its legitimacy. An increasingly complex world
undoubtedly requires stronger logical fundamentals to understand how global
challenges come to forces and more importantly how they affect the world around
us. Indeed, depth and rigor of the understanding that comes with science only
allows us to grasp complexity as well as implications across perspectives with
rationality. On a deeper level, scientific methods give us powerful principles and
practices to deal with probability, uncertainty even biases in a systematic manner.
One can never emphasize such significance enough, provided an ever greater
scale and scope of system-level challenges in today’s global development world.
Examples in case of water scarcity, energy sector in transition and food security
manifest themselves how much the current world lacks not only fundamental
awareness but also a required level of understanding of why and how system
thinking on a basis of scientific rigor could make a profound difference to the
developmental bottomline. Indeed, how much neglected long-term consequences
could distort sense of meaningfulness of one’s short-run developmental policy
choices is no match to compound psychological effects that alter behavioral
perception of rationality of the people on the ground who are both actors and
victims of repeated policy failure. Still, does the world deserve a second chance?
This sense of urgency gives three argumentative substances of this discussion.
First, on rational choice-making premises, how could scientific knowledge help us
better understand developmental challenges toward behavioral shifts? Second,
toward a long-run sustainable impact, how should we better leverage science-
driven policy to orchestrate collective efforts especially when coping with diverse
local caveats and practices on the ground? And third in meaningfulness terms,
how would global innovation advance scale of changes with people on the ground?
System implications from these observations stand out. Indeed, most traditional
scenarios one has in mind only reflect dependency on future resource availability
within a realm of today’s choice architecture. What if such dependency is no longer a
prerequisite of future scenarios? Perhaps, this intellectual discourse shines the light
to what innovation practices that we can develop today could mean to us tomorrow.
What if such practical innovation alters assumptions of the system altogether? At this
junction, the authors bring forward a case to advance developmental cause by using
system innovation and challenge readers to advance this intellectual cause with us:
• Revisit challenges of the development and its central dilemma;
• Understand innovation as a mechanism to construct change assumptions and
hypotheses with that engage root-causes and chains of causality; and also
• Resolve development dilemmas based on different roles of innovation and
build structural leverages that make long-term sense for the development.
System innovation in development discourse here shall, however, never remain a
rigid tool to perpetuate its own causes only. The authors encourage readers to apply
this philosophy to practices n examples of water scarcity (see Section II), energy
transformation (see Section III), as well as food security (see Section IV) all in the
context of global diplomacy toward sustainability development and corresponding
needs to address the challenges with a better understanding of system innovation.

I. Challenges of Development Discourse:
Characterize Rationality of Our Choices
• Observe causality of system challenges: Perceive major global developmental
challenges as it is, while assessing why development is needed in the first place
• Trace back to causes by inspecting chains of causality: Frame what kind of
changes is meaningful and why it matters to system-level impact
• Structure choice architecture to address dilemma: Frame, structure and
prioritize engagement that focus on changes that self-reinforce themselves
What is one most rational step one should take when considering challenges in
development dilemma with a complex chain of cause-consequence causality? On
lands facing an extreme water scarcity challenge, why would it make sense to
introduce an engagement to save water just to allow a deteriorating level of supply to
meet an increasingly thirsty demand? Only with this simple observation, should the
equation be formulated as a function of cumulative demand only? What are other
systemic parameters that determine today’s level of sustainability that could set us
on a potential change pathway to a better tomorrow? Who are system-relevant
participants and stakeholders? What specific scenarios should we expect from a
well-orchestrated, collective effort of all of those who are directly and indirectly
involved? After all, which equilibrium should we look forward to in the long run?
Anatomy of Global Development Challenges: Implications of
Today’s Systemic Challenges under Cumulative Pressures
Climate change is inarguably a major phenomenon at a global system level as a
result of multiple cause-consequence chains that deteriorate the entire global system
to a greater level of risks that come from extreme weather system-driven events.
System changes that can be observed at the consequences are straightforward as
far as the time-series statistics can tell us. An intellectual quest at this junction is,
how we scientifically trace back to the causes and, on that basis, how we connect
and relate them and, as a consequence, reconstruct views of the entire system.
Purposes of this illustrative example should not be understood only as a method to
answer any specific questions about how to address challenges on the ground with a
better understanding of the system causality. Emphasis on a system-based approach
also gives us a new perspective of how to inspect systemic challenges of multiple
interconnected system parameters and, as a result, prioritize our actions with an aim
to alter the system in the long run rather than any specific short-run consequences
only. The latter idea gives the global development community a novel, meaningful
way of thinking that profoundly alters the development engagement realm entirely.
Concept of Perfect Storm only demonstrates how important system thinking could be
(Oxford Martin School, 2015; See background information in Box A). Rapid growth of
the global population is in a system sense not necessarily a cause that heightens
stress to the global natural system itself. It is rather human choices to the system that
make major differences. Would humans be able to cope with the tri-lemma of food,
energy and water security in the next decades? Why are these parameters singled
out as major parameters of the Storm? And how do these parameters bridge our
understanding of global system challenge back to human behavioral causes?

Box A: CLIMATE CHANGE AND IMPLICATIONS TO GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT:
As depicted in the concept of Perfect Storm where food, water and energy are
described as primary system-relevant parameters that will be more and more affected
by an increasing level of vulnerability and fragility caused by greater shocks and
pressures to the globally interconnected natural resource system:
• Food: As the world’s population increases, demands for food will continue to
rise proportionately on a global level. Rise of population living in urban areas all
around the world will not only follow where the “next one billion” will be added to
the global system. Increase of the Green House Gas (GHG) emission as a result
of urban lifestyle will also put additional stresses to the global food system;
• Water: Fresh water will be in a much greater need all around the world in terms
of quantity and distribution in good quality. Warmer global climate on average
(particularly in case of business as usual) will not only put stresses on existing
resources but also cause more frequent extreme weather and distortion to
seasonality. Agricultural dependence on fresh water will also be a concern; and
• Energy: Current depletion rate of fossil sources not only deteriorates climate
system at the global level. One billion more people by 2030 particularly in
countries with weak infrastructure will only accelerate this effect. Greater
demands of coal-based energy as primary sources all around the world will be a
major concern, where better alternatives require investment in renewables.
Argued by Sir John Beddington (UK Government Chief Scientific Officer in 2008-13),
a rapid increase of global population plays an integral role that contributes to such
pressures. Most strikingly, it is not only a drastic scale of change itself, but also a
cumulative short-term act of human’s conscious and unconscious decisions without an
understanding of consequential impacts to the system that give rise to the Storm.
See also a video clip at the source: Oxford Martin School, 2015.

System Diagnosis to Understand Complex System of Causality: Fragility of
water management systems all around the world reveals itself as today’s one major
global development challenge. True, climate change exacerbates the situation, but
such a global phenomenon does not directly influence how humans collectively
manage the water management systems. Apparently, fundamental causes of the
water challenge lie elsewhere. How much do we understand impacts of our
collectively decisions related to water? How do we collectively manage cycles of this
natural resource? Which system aspects should we focus on and learn from?
Exemplary cause-based diagnostic approach as illustrated in the following unveils a
development challenge discussed in the case of water crisis at a system level in the
Middle East and North Africa (World Bank, 2018). Hereupon, the vicious cycle of
water system fragility is depicted in four steps from causes to consequences:
• Driving context: Circumstances of the vastly arid geographical areas of
limited resources with highly variable climate lead to a challenging baseline of
people’s livelihood. Increasing weather unpredictability from climate change
further deteriorates government’s capability to manage the overall situation;
• Increasing problem complexity: Cumulative challenges start to grow. While
magnitude and complexity of the challenge increase, efforts required to tackle
the problem grow even faster. Under this circumstance, even the minimal
solution demands resources and efforts that are beyond a proportionate level;
• Coupling multiple consequences: What began as a challenge in resource
scarcity only, aggravating institutional failure to manage causes heightens
risks in public trust terms that as a result lead to an increasingly unilateral,
uncooperative environment, thus worsening the overall management system;
• Compounding effects: Negative consequences across political, social and
environmental aspects amplify one another and therefore further erode
legitimacy of the government and destabilize the much needed trust-based
constructive environment required to address challenges at the root causes.
Rational Choice Architecture to Address Development Dilemma: This short
example reveals a number of outstanding challenges that exist almost universally in
the development world: Too large and too complex a challenge, too little and too
inefficient a leverage. To that end, it has been so far clear that a systemic problem
requires a systemic approach, but what are rational choices at our disposal versus at
genuine priority? What if it is up to us to structure our approach based on what is
required to decide, manage and achieve over a reasonable period of time? How
would we structure our choice based on scenario-driven forward-looking views,
mindful of potential dilemma at the horizon? What is our choice architecture?
• Immediate action, immediate impact: Our instinct often urges us to act
upon the heat of the moment. No matter how reactive it might be, why doesn’t
make sense regardless of our limited capability to address the root causes?
• Strategic action, strategic impact: How would we make sure that what we
decide to achieve in the short run would make long-term sense? To that end,
isn’t it wiser to take action based on strategic impact to the big picture?
• Rational action, rational impact: How about charting forward the course
with an evidence-based approach driven by science? If we expect rational
outcome, what would be other qualified alternatives remaining on the table?
Development dilemma as discussed so far has been demonstrated as challenges
that require attentions not only in terms of systemic implications but also potential
complex entanglement beyond the cause itself. But how does the latter really mean?

Box B: HOW SMALL CHANGES CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE: AN INTRODUCTION
TO SCIENCE-BASED POLICY-MAKING PROCESS IN THE UK:
How to make policy work? This simple question sets forth a journey that has changed
the way policy gets implemented in the United Kingdom in a radically different manner.
As quoted by London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2015 that “it
all started as a cautious experiment.” The UK’s Behavioral Insights Team or “Nudge
Unit” was established 2010 by David Cameron (a newly elected Prime Minister at that
time) to use behavioral economics to examine and as a result influence decisions by
essentially nudge citizens into making more rational decisions. What is new to this
approach is: Human psychology is at the crux of science-driven policy-making process.
How to find out which policy works? Short answer is: We achieve it by measuring
the result. However, the real challenge emerges when the process gets implemented to
the entire population. Certainly, a systemic challenge requires a systemic approach that
not only tests and learns with the dynamics in the population but also adapts to a vast
variety of human behaviors at the basis of the policy decision-making process that is
seamlessly coupled with the policy implementation process. Three process steps:
• Define desirable policy objectives with at least two alternatives to address
change to test against the randomized control group in the population;
• Set up and run experiments with a carefully designed choice architecture
driven by behavioral cues of the addressed population, and measure actual
responses in each case in comparison with those of the control group; and
• Assess the overall impact even small changes can make a difference due to
lessons learned that are necessary to adapt policy decisions and corresponding
choices of implementation upon structured data collection on the ground.
As discussed in the reference, science matters when the process takes into account
what works versus what doesn’t in order to adapt the learning process in a feedback
loop system driven by science of the randomized controlled trials (RCT) technique.
See also two video clips at the source: United Kingdom’s Cabinet Office, 2012.

II. Fundamentals of Policy Transformation:
Rationality of Policy Engagement with Science
• Explore underlying assumptions of the challenges: Learn and adapt to how
people make decisions especially when it comes to changes at a system level
• Understand logic of system innovation in practice: Engage science-driven
change process that link human psychology to implementing change policy
• Immerse to actual developmental systemic challenges: Contextualize policy-
making processes in an extreme situation in case of water resource management
No matter how much complex causality of the fragile natural ecosystems could pose
challenges to humans, our entanglement with nature exacerbates complexity of the
challenges even more. Inarguably, humans are parts of virtually all developmental
challenges. In this sense, resolving development dilemma is so much about resolving
dilemma in complex settings of the society itself. Take this logic a step further.
Complexity of any development challenges could then be formulated as a function of
how the society comes to terms with the people constituting that society itself and
how collective decisions are made, in fact, not only for one or another member but
for all in a meaningful and forward-looking manner. Indeed, this is a quest of how
humans come to terms with selves. Well, are we rational and how to find that out? All
the more, development requires us to understand no less than this fundamental.
Irrationality of Human’s Choice-Making Processes:
Fundamental Challenges of Policy Engagement
Consciousness of choices we make is fundamental not only if and how the society
evolves itself together with its people, but also why such an evolution matters at all.
This argument nests itself with two further independent logics: (a) why this choice
and not others versus (b) whether we are rational with the decision we are about to
make provided consequences that come with the decision. Of course, humans are
not always logical but when and to which extent we are susceptible to irrationality?
Richard H. Thaler, an Economic Nobel Laureate, argues that the art and science of
making choices can indeed lead the society to more rational and forward-looking
decisions (Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, 2017), primarily because humans are:
• Inclined to loss aversion since individuals are inclined to value items more
just because they already own them, such leading to predictable irrationality;
• Prone to limited self-control and self-recognition especially in complex
decision-making processes that demand a good logical command; and
• Susceptible to social preferences despite superior economic-driven merits.
Irrationality as mentioned above indeed causes systematic errors. But what if we
address this challenge by an alternative choice architecture designed to overcome
such psychological biases? Would we able to empower smarter and more rational
decisions by reinterpreting such known deficits toward a constructive end that
effectively overcomes these biases? Indeed, this is a challenge in policy terms
whether and how we should remain helpless when it comes to such human’s
psychological phenomena and, more importantly, how we should go about it.

Box C: WATER SUSTAINABILITY DIPLOMACY OF THE JORDAN RIVER BASIN:
Jordan River Basin has a long cultural history of the world with implications in social,
economic and diplomatic relations terms. In water management, the basin poses
strategic challenges since the Jordan river itself represents itself both as developmental
opportunities and challenges because the river itself also marks national borders of the
three countries. Despite current increasing supply stress, merits of scientific study and
corresponding insights of how a good practice of water resource management at the
basin could change lives of the people have never been overshadowed by the politics.
Water Resource Decoupling Concept has been introduced with an objective to chart
forward economic growth policy independent of future required level of water demand.
That is, a higher growth rate does not necessarily demand more water resources. This
simple proposition has been proved a success by taking into considering a good
management practice such as efficient use for human consumption hand in hand with a
stringent yet forward-looking implementation of agricultural and food security policy.
This research work argues that there are still rooms to extend this practice to the entire
basin. On that basis, diplomatic dialogs and knowledge transfer in terms of technology,
policy and management science would be critical to amplify existing success cases in
the past to the entire region. Mutual cooperation among the three countries is key.
System Innovation at the Water-Food Nexus poses a major strategic challenge at
this policy crossroad: Should we formulate a problem statement that asks the people to
choose how to trade off this calculus? Or should the policy makers reframe choice
architecture that allows system innovation to emerge as a mechanism to reframe the
challenge in a new way, therefore leading the people to tackle the challenge beyond
what has been achieved in the past? Three specific goals (leftmost in the table above)
are formulated as systemic drivers or leverages to manage the situation at hand in an
effort to decouple economic growth from incremental resource uses:
• Efficiency of use: Greater leeways as a result from risk diversification helps
ease water supply tension and therefore advance rationality dialogs of prudent
water use in the population with knowledge exchange and system innovation;
• Risk diversification and strategic food trade: Agricultural technology,
especially in irrigation and crop varieties, together with water-conscious trade
policy should help alleviate vulnerability of water security implications; and
• Resource recycling management: Innovation in waste water management and
water desalination while decelerating depletion of groundwater should altogether
increase water recycling rate to above 60% of the total domestic water use.
Source: Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, 2017.

Behavioral Science of Systemic Changes: Study of psychology undeniably gives
us a very useful foundation in policy-making and -implementation processes.
However, the implication of changes at the system level is non-trivial. What works to
one may not necessarily give the same effectivity and effectiveness to another. Even
more, meaningfulness of the status quo bias (that is, loss aversion) across various
contexts of limited self-control and social preferences could essentially be interpreted
and applied under a specific setting or in a well-control experimentation environment.
Given these example caveats, how should one frame, structure and prioritize one’s
policy engagement toward a desirable systemic change? In other words, which policy
elements would be essential to improve rationality of the system in practice?
Small yet meaningful behavioral changes are instrumental to a long-term success of
just about any system transformations. This concept has been brought forward early
this decade and implemented to a great effect in the United Kingdom. Novelty of this
approach does not only come from its inherently scientific approach in policy-making
processes, but also its choice of implementation toward measurable system impact
in the population. As discussed in the context of behavioral psychology, what matters
to this approach is a simple concept that enables people to make better choices for
themselves (United Kingdom’s Cabinet Office, 2012) with emphasis on the following:
• Compelling choice architecture conducive to rational decisions, driven by
selected salient and relevant information strengthening the case at hand;
• Self-descriptive impact reflecting choices at one’s disposal, often with
reference to decisions made by those under a similar circumstance; and
• Meaningful empowerment toward specific engagement of each addressee
not just because it makes sense but because he/she is also fully entitled to.
Scientific foundation of this approach has been well documented, particularly how to
define, test and customize policies toward desirable changes in the population,
particularly by considering behavioral psychology as an enabling principle. This
generic concept can indeed be applied virtually to any policy disciplines. The only
prerequisite is: Shift of human behaviors is required for the envisioned change.
See further information of this discussion with overview of the methodology in Box B.
Behavioral Shift and Implications to Science-Driven Policy
Engagement that Addresses Human Irrationality
Scientific rigor undeniably provides bedrock of a successful policy engagement
especially when such an envisioned behavioral shift is anticipated in the population
without coercive forces available to the regulatory body and the legislation. What
would be smarter, more reasonable and self-sustainable than a kind of change that
the administration does nothing else but only advocate changes from within without
any specific intervention? In view of policy makers, following three arguments could
potentially help structure science-driven policy discourse that addresses irrationality:
• Shared objectives between policy makers and populations: Do policy
makers see changes from perspectives of the people? This basic question
helps guide the discussion to the heart of the matter: (a) why such a change
makes sense, and (b) how this sense-making basis move forward the policy
discourse in the population. That is, the policy needs to encapsulate sense of
shared purposes that find meanings in the population. This is a foundation
that defines the essence of policy that engages the people inside out.

• Design of choice architecture toward impacts: Such principle should also
find practice with each specific circumstance of the population. Available
choices at hand should not only reflect both hard fact in rationality terms and
soft fact in terms of social and individual nuances. Information is undeniably
essential toward changes, but the real question we need to pose is, how we
best approach each individual with salient information that influences the
decision-making processes. Which, how and how much facts do we need to
supply in each specific case such that the information itself effectively
overcome behavioral deficits? What learning process do we need to build and
structure such that the policy could overcome system biases and adjust itself
over time as the policy discourse get implemented with the population?
• Mechanism of self-reinforcing changes: Scale and scalability are desirable
characteristics of behavioral changes that aim at system changes. This leads
to implications of individual choices that affect one’s associated groups, and
also vice versa. True, most policy changes target at each specific individual,
no matter in examples of tax incentives, social benefits or pension or
healthcare schemes. Once sense of rationality gets amplified by voices of the
people you trust, change policies that we talk about could also embark upon
social discourses that self-reinforcing changes. Still, what is the sense of
meaningful empowerment from the choices we make? How would such a
change discourse get traction in the population? What would make it last?
Successful engagements not only target at fulfilling specific policy objectives. Sense
of participative engagement shall move forward the society itself not only because
the policy makes sense, but also because the population is better aware of existing
systemic deficits such as biases, prejudgments or even irrationality. To that end,
what could be contributions of science that may help us advance this cause?
Developmental Discourse of Science-Driven Policy Engagement: Vision that
puts forward ambition, where people themselves make hard choices today for a
better future, requires more than just a good science. True, an understanding of
human irrationality gives a new light of hope where and how to engage difficult
policies with rather than against the people. Behavioral psychology could make a
difference. However, in a developmental discourse, no matter how insightful the
science of rationality could help overcome psychological barriers of the people, the
challenges on the ground may require just more than one quick win from one or
another individual in order to make a breakthrough. Collective efforts therefore
contributions from the entire society over a long period of time are often necessary
rather than just desirable in order to make developmental policy a success. A well-
defined structural approach that aims at structural changes is implied in this sense.
Water resource challenges in arid countries illustrate the case in action. In Jordan,
Israel and Palestine, water is no less than life. Even a decent level supply of water to
the population could not only rejuvenate hope of a better quality of life for all, but
potentially build a necessary diplomatic foundation between the three peoples to
cooperate in many other necessary areas that matter to long-term restoration of
much deteriorated water natural resources. Under a leadership of the Royal Scientific
Society of Jordan, the discussion points out to following objectives that require
collective policy-making engagements to engage the people in the three countries:
Efficient resource uses, management of resource recycling, risk diversification by
using technology, and also decoupling of economic growth from incremental
resource uses. See further background information of this discussion in Box C.

III. Dynamics of System Transformation:
Structural Shift of Policy, Market and Society
• Unfold dynamics of sectoral transformation: Reconstruct logical dynamics of
causality engagement in example of the global energy sector in transformation
• Structure policy for an orderly transformation: Transform challenges to
opportunities in view of the administration by means of policy and regulation
• Engage market assumptions of the change dynamics: Understand implications
of change dynamics in the midst of a major shift of the global energy transition
Paris Agreement resonates a profound recognition of the global community to the
human-driven causes and consequences of the climate change. Irreversibility and a
call for collective actions are only two representative terms among many that reflect a
rational sense of urgency. However, what are scientific explanations that urge policy
makers all around the world to come together with shared objectives to address this
challenge on behalf of the global community? On the other hand, what specific policy
rationale that urges policy makers all around the world to make a collective decision
and embark on such a long-term developmental endeavor on a global scale?
Provided interdependence of the two questions above, one could infer that one most
challenging aspect of any engagements in development require us all no less than to
construct change assumptions upfront and take collective actions on that basis in the
dynamics that advance this cause, while simultaneously proving these assumptions.
In order to demonstrate complexity of this policy discourse, this section invites the
audience to unfold today’s actual dynamics of the energy sector in transformation.
Still, are we aware of what are underlying assumptions of such transformation at all?
Dynamics of Transformation Assumptions: Implications of
Climate Change and Evolution of Global Energy Landscape
Morality of global climate action leads us to look at what we have been taking for
granted for so long and why we can no longer pursue our business-as-usual
pathways. The fact is development engagements all around the world have been
affected by deteriorated conditions of the global climate system. What could describe
interdependence of water, food and basic conditions of human welfare, would only
strengthen the case of climate action. By inspecting every rational choice of
development engagements all around the world, one shall realize that such makes
sense based on the world’s natural ecosystem dynamics that in turn unequivocally
depend on the condition of the global climate. Well, what is then our step forward?
Decarbonized future is what best characterizes sense of meaningfulness along this
line of logic. As the world came together in 2015 with a common goal stipulated by
the Paris Agreement (United Nations Climate Change, 2015), a structural approach
to transform the global energy landscape is a direct interpretation that binds the
global community together. Significance of our today’s actions toward the collective
climate goal of well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels only substantiates the
essence of our discussion of system thinking in development. In particular, the Paris
Agreement is an important step that addresses climate logic of irreversibility and
therefore causal links to ethics of global engagement. What does actually mean in
terms of rational choices toward a transformation of the global energy landscape?

Box D: TRANSITION OF THE GLOBAL ENERGY SYSTEM IN 2050:
Should Climate Change is all what mean to you, climate action is perhaps what you
need to make sense of not just because it helps advance development diplomacy of your
initiative, but also because it is perhaps a right thing to do. Global energy sector has
been in full transformation in consideration of rational choices with meaningful actions to
the natural ecosystem. But what exactly should be our globally collective way forward?
Consequential Change Dynamics in the Energy Sector has been analyzed by
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in its latest edition of a proposed
roadmap that principally substantiates the primary goal of the Paris Agreement to limit
“the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C” (Article Two, First
Paragraph). The publication depicts how to achieve this ambitious goal with a continually
successive improvement to decrease the annual greenhouse gas emission level up to
2050. Toward the end of the time axis, the expected annual emission level in 2050 shall
remain only at 70% of the current level. See below details of this projection with a mix of
potential sectoral contributions as depicted in the roadmap from today to 2050.
Six Recommendations are put forward as core pillars of the report in order to
substantiate this Roadmap 2050 to assist implementation of the Paris Agreement:
• Accelerated reform of the global, regional and national energy sector with a
stronger role of renewable energy in the dynamic of the transformation;
• Higher synergies between energy efficiency and renewable energy particularly in
assistance of the realization committed in the Paris Agreement (see chart above);
• Electrification of the energy value chain and specifically with an increasing use of
electricity in three key sectors: mobility/transport, building and industry;
• Leverage of innovation to diversify change portfolio and increase depth and
breadth of changes across transformation use cases especially at system level;
• Closer alignment between social and economic pillars of the transformation in
efforts to reconciliate adoption gap and build a sustainable change foundation;
• Policy and implementation mechanism for fair distribution and allocation of costs
and benefits that come with the transformation of the energy sector in overall.
Source: International Renewable Energy Agency, 2018

Structural Shift of the Global Energy Sector: Despite rationality implied by the
Paris Agreement, hard choices are needed to be made collectively at all levels all
around the world. Today’s energy technology that fuels civilization since the world’s
industrialization requires a drastic modernization such that further exacerbation
caused by greenhouse-gas emissions is successively reduced. An alternative energy
future implied by the agreement requires us in this context to take actions that as a
result make possible a structural shift of the global energy landscape with higher
renewable shares and stronger energy efficiency throughout the value chain. Well,
but what does this mean to us in real life? As discussed in the global transition
roadmap 2050 (see Box D), we only need to acquire basic understanding of how
energy play its part in our lives and command the change we want in our choices.
Still, are we aware of the choices we make in our daily life and their implications?
Behavioral Shift Conducive to the Energy Transition: Structural shift at the global
level can simply be translated to behavioral shift that each of us all has the power
within our own hands. Indeed, we can become agents of change who collectively
contribute to the transformation at the global level ourselves. Let us draw lessons
learned of how leaders from all around the world came together, overcame barriers
and made a collective decision to ratify from the Paris Agreement. Rationality that
provides a logical basis of the agreement as later reflected by Christiana Figueres
(Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC at the ratification of the Paris Agreement in
2015, United Nations Climate Change, 2015) emerged on the following grounds:
• Technology maturity: Renewable and energy efficiency technology have
been advanced to the level ready for immediate deployment at scale all
around the world. Availability of choices undeniably empowers a decision;
• Economic advantages: Market competition makes the case for itself as the
power of choices is further incentivized in terms of economic incentives.
Rational choices for climate action does have compelling economic attraction;
• People’s opinions: Climate change advocacy has arrived at the global stage
and people all around the world are convinced with the cause. Endorsement
by the society you identify with makes every rational choice a smart one;
• Commitment of the global community: Collective momentum in the global
community gained traction and the case at hand has become a diplomacy
that gives your nation relevance, recognition and respect on the global stage.
Four arguments from 2015 that won global leaders all around the world are also
relevant to every of us today. Rationality and meaningfulness of the choices at our
disposal are right here with us and are reflected in what and how we buy, commute,
exchange and recycle. To that end, would you be willing to make rational choices?
As the global community comes together to embark on this journey, the commitment
as such needs be translated to concrete actions. This implies policy transformation
conducive to policy reforms that altogether bring forward the change we all envision.
That is, addressees in this context are the governments. The sense of rationality and
meaningfulness as we discussed thus far requires an additional dimension in political
transformation terms at a national level with a necessary evolution of the national
system with both market and society together with the people. Considering policy
discussion in the previous section, how could we apply lessons learned from the
United Kingdom (see Box B), to shift this policy discourse? How could small changes
make a difference in the sense of innovative climate action? What could be a choice
architecture that gives a constructive sense of self-descriptive impact that empowers
people to make their choices and promote science-driven rationality?

Dynamics of the Energy Sector Transformation: Structural
Shift of Policy, Market and Society
Outcome of the Paris Agreement implies no less than consequential implementations
of the commitment by the global community. Even though structural shift of the global
energy sector has already begun long before 195 signatories signed the agreement,
there is no guarantee that global principles shall be translated to local practices
without consideration of outstanding local challenges that principally rely on policy at
a national level. At the beginning of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, the
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres therefore underlined significance
of a successful implementation of the Paris Agreement by each state member at
present in the assembly (United Nations Secretary General, 2018). Toward this
required shift, which factors constitute a necessary foundation toward this change?
Figure 1: US Energy Chain of Production and Consumption: Analytical
foundation of the entire energy value chain from sources to sinks in the US for the
entire 2015. See more at: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 2016.
In view of policy makers, how would you prioritize your national policy in order to
advance energy transformation at its causes? True, we have learned that renewable
energy and energy efficiency are two largest enablers toward a plausible scenario
2050 (see Box D), but how do local administrations all around the world translate this
recommendation to local practices? Necessary change dynamics certainly require
implementable levers to advance policy discourses, so that behavioral shift in the
population could be realized with specific climate action toward the collective goal.
Policy Shift in a Complex Discourse: Policy makers should pose investigative
questions to structure discussions toward achievable results. How much does the
country depend on fossil energy and, in that view, where should the administration
engage at priority in order to stimulate desirable changes at a structural level with
highest impact? This discussion has so much to do about choices of technology,
particularly in how such choices would enforce transition or shift of the source mix:

• Sectoral view: Every sector governs energy dynamics in its own manner;
therefore it makes sense to structure change policy based on that view. In an
example of the US energy landscape (see Figure 1), sense of how important
petroleum it is for transportation may be extended to coal and natural gas for
electricity generation for residential, commercial and industrial sectors. With
this fact, the administration may logically ask how renewable energy and
energy efficiency (see rejected energy in the same figure) could make a
difference, considering sectoral needs versus source dependency in the map.
• Security view: Source dependency gives policy implications beyond
environmental impact that comes with the climate change. How does the
administration ensure that it has all necessary means at its own disposal to
manage risks associated with the policy it chooses? Particularly, as fossil
resources are depletable thus subjected to supply uncertainty, what are
available policy options to manage and mitigate energy security risks?
• Technological view: This analysis raises three immediate questions. How
would renewables substitute other energy sources in practice? What are
underlying technical requirements that the administration needs to consider?
How to make sure that these are or will be feasible choices to be made? To
illustrate depth of this policy discourse, imagine decisive roles of innovation in
batteries and electrical grid infrastructure for electric vehicles (EV) in view of
energy transition in transportation sector. What does technology mean here?
Depth of the rational policy-making process plays out here with a complex trade-off
trilemma. What is meaningful from one policy dimension may not necessarily lead to
the same conclusion when rationalize one’s argument based on logic from another
Regardless of this discussion itself, today’s global complex dynamics also requires
an understanding of how the logic of market shift functions too. Let’s find that out.
Market Shift as Economic Incentive Grows: Transportation sector indeed plays a
strategic role in shifting momentum of the entire dialog of climate action. Inspecting
the chain of dependency as depicted in Figure 1, one could read that renewables
could gain footholds there as far as the electricity generation -- strategic secondary
source in the energy value chain -- can serve needs of the downstream. But what
explains the limit (bottleneck) of electricity services to the transportation? Well, let us
rephrase: Why your cars cannot be driven by electricity? Indeed, shift of the market
system shall require this specific policy together with other policy elements to
advance energy market transformation at least with following rational choices:
• New technologies to advance structural shift: Market development of
strategic technologies such as electric vehicles (EV) is vital to open up dialog
of value-based competition directly in the energy mix. This innovation not
only gives transportation a new option to optimize dynamics of the economic
equilibrium of the sector, but emerging transportation technologies shall also
accelerate necessary evolution of the electrical future, too. This logical bridge
connotates an emerging symbiotic energy-transportation relationship. As
economics of the electrified transportation advances, stronger incentives for
energy innovation particularly in the electricity market will only strengthen
value-based rational choices of the market in transition. On the other hand,
modernization of the electrified energy market shall in turn help accelerate
structural transformation of the transportation sector that would greet more
and more innovation in charging infrastructure and battery technologies. Now,
how would this market forces evolve electrified energy mix to a greener end?

Box E: FLEXIBLE ADOPTION TOWARD SHIFT OF ENERGY SECTOR:
Sectoral Transformation Driven by Global Rises of the Renewables: Current
progress of energy sector transformation can be witnessed all around the world. In fact,
a desirable structural shift has advanced positively thanks to a wide adoption of
technologies such as wind and solar power that offers alternatives to fossil sources
such as coal, oil and gas. Price competitiveness of the renewables substantiates the
structural shift foundation of the global uptakes, particularly in comparison to market
price of most traditional energy sources of the same unit (ie, LCOE, levelized cost of
energy in $/MWh, see map below). Governed by dynamics of the renewables, this
transformation however gives system implications across the disruptive value chains.
Behavioral Shift and Implications of System Flexibility: Argued by a recent
publication by the United Kingdom’s Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham
House), the global community needs to better come to terms with the “Power of
Flexibility” if it were to reap economic benefits of the renewable technology maturity.
Four observations are brought forward to address the challenges of how to advance
behavioral shift at the energy consumer end. In market adoption sense, this could be
one last jigsaw piece to shift balance of this much needed energy transformation:
• System nature of the renewables: Intermittency and related system
implications inherent to the renewables requires energy system solutions to
manage flexibility and enhance availability, stability and competitiveness;
• Emerging roles of flexibility enablers: Utilities will play a great role to address
this challenge, but also emerging technology such as electric vehicles (EV) and
charging infrastructure, as well as battery storages and intelligent infrastructure;
• Evolution of energy business models: This transformation also shifts how the
market will operate in future and therefore necessity to reinvent business model
to serve evolving needs in disruptive markets under distributive paradigm;
• Regulation that incentivizes flexibility: Innovative regulatory reform is
required to advance meaningful competition fostering system transformation.
Source: Chatham House, 2018.

• Adoption flexibility and implication of competitive cost of electricity:
Electrification of the energy value chains renders also merits in terms of
choices and innovation not only as discussed in the transportation sector but
also for power utilities. Dynamic of changes evolves business models of the
utilities therefore related market shifts associated with it. Electrical generation
holds a strategic key in this sense as utilities can choose to shift its mix of
energy sources with a higher share of renewables. That is, utilities can
choose to disrupt their own business model particularly to enhance adoption
flexibility at the upstream side. However, this logic would make market and
economic sense when the price is right and competitive. And precisely there,
latest researches report that the cost of electricity for most to all renewable
sources has more and less reached a market parity level. See an overview of
an example research (Chatham House, 2018) as summarized in Box E.
• System flexibility to levelize market competitive grounds: Renewables
introduce not only sustainability aspect to the energy value chains but also
new challenges in terms of intermittency (Sun does not shine 24 hours a
day!) and less predictability (No one knows if wind will blow at the same
strength next days). However, system innovation could effectively improve
this deficit. The greater the scale of the electrical system, the better chance
one would be able to neutralize and stabilize such effects. Merit as such shall
genuinely be unfolded at the market level; such that at the end of the day it is
economic rationality of the mix that should determine where and how the
energy market should evolve. See further discussions also in Box E.
Policy and market transformation of the energy sector as discussed so far can be
markedly characterized by system perspectives in motion. From a structural shift of
sectoral requirements to implications in security and technological terms, paradigm
shift of the energy system to a more distributed and electrified energy system
underlines policy governance implications in interaction with the market. At the same
time, technology evolution all across the value chain will only play an ever more
important role in system evolution and flexibility sense.
Social Shift based on Rational Choices of Consumers: Global awareness made
by the Paris Agreement opens up a forward-looking dialog at the consumer levels. In
system viewpoints, this event advances not only perception of climate change and
implications of energy transformation but also recognition of rational policy and
market shift as foundation of the transformation. By connecting these two parts of the
argument together, how do we constitute behavioral shift right in the society?
• Develop shared objectives across policy, market and populations:
Climate action requires a well-orchestrated movement that leads to real and
specific system-level impact across the society. This will happen when policy,
market and society share the same set of objectives toward the same course
of actions. First, policy could lead changes by incentivizing socially self-
reinforcing climate actions. Tax reduction from residential energy efficiency is
meaningful to behavioral shift at a household level, where residential
production of renewables may not only reduce electricity fees but also
translate overproduced amount to an immediate stream of extra income.
Second, integration of this model at a district level should form necessary
building blocks of future distributed electricity markets, where a stronger
prospect of energy sustainability could be fulfilled in a bottom-up sense.
Third, innovation toward system flexibility can be promoted hand in hand with
new business models of power utilities advanced by the policy reform.

• Design choice architecture with self-descriptive impact: How do we set
up and improve a rational decision-making process? More importantly, have
the policy and the market done everything to make available rational choices
to consumers? Climate literacy needs not only awareness but also knowledge
translatable to specific actions. For example, are we aware of carbon footprint
associated with our decisions in daily life and how do rational choices make a
difference? Integrated policy thinking at a system level could give a strong
headway to assist those decisions. Electrified future of the transportation
sector could be realized when adoption scale of electric public transports and
personal vehicles reach a critical mass, potentially facilitated by associated
infrastructure investment and market mechanism conducive to that policy
development. However, the bottomline of this thinking process should be
rounded up with a simple question: What would it take to make the public to
shift their decisions? Do the people have relevant information to make those
rational choices available to them under each specific circumstance?
• Structure social mechanisms to grow self-reinforcing changes:
Introduction of a new policy reform or technology is one, adoption at scale
that sustains itself is quite another. The administration who oversees the
entire transformation process should balance their agenda not only at the
technical but social sides that reflect individual choices and views of their
associated group in the society. True, economics of the transformation must
provide a necessary adoption ground, such that rationality is measurable,
meaningful and conducive to further decisions in the same manner. However,
changes self-reinforce when it makes social sense, too. Would today’s green
energy choices that alter climate consequences with effects in future decades
find relevance in family and healthcare insurance, employment prospect or
pension terms? What could we do to strengthen this bridge that leads to
adoption greeted not only by you but also your friends whom you trust, too?
Shift Foundation at Dynamic Equilibrium: Science of system thinking may stand
on its own success only once one harnesses the power of innovation that drives
forward an orderly and well-orchestrated transformation. Thanks to technological
advance, the world starts to see how climate action interacts with policy, economic
and social systems. However, dynamics of the system transformation still require
further transformative ideas not only to advance the global system to a new
equilibrium at economic, social, environmental and policy intersection, but also to
stabilize it in the long run. Could we take it for granted that the current market-driven,
entrepreneur-led innovation model would be qualified to serve this grand purpose? If
yes, how would you envision the future where policy, market and people act better
together for the climate? What should be a shift foundation that governs this change?
Significance of policy reform that provides a meaningful engagement foundation for
the entire transformation can’t be exaggerated. As discussed, dynamics of the
energy sector transformation unfold as market and society not only guide a forward-
looking sense toward future change scenarios, but also engage directly as actors
and stakeholders in a system-dynamic sense. For this reason, it is of paramount
importance that the foundation as such should also provide a regulatory framework
that upholds values upon rationality, proportionality and reasonableness. Such is vital
to set up a change environment conducive to market development and innovation
that allows flexibility as well as predictability at the system level. Indeed, this forward-
looking view is necessary even inevitable to allow system actors, participants and
stakeholders to adapt to the future as technology, policy, infrastructure and related
behavioral shift disrupt the traditional value chain. After all, climate action is the
matter of collective rational choices. Shouldn’t the world deserve this rationality?

IV. Scale and Sustainable Impact: Science-
Driven Global Development Agenda
• Understand implications of scale in global context: Reframe development
efforts toward causal changes considering scale of cross-sectoral dynamics
• Relate global development to local engagement: Infer meaningful actions with
an objective to contribute to shifting causality chains with collective local actions
• Underline significance of global behavioral shift: Target at systemic changes
based on a collective shift of participants toward impact of scale that lasts
Shift foundation as characterized by rational system thinking brings forward a new
dimension toward how one engages the development sector. It is impacts of small
changes that matters because only behavioral changes with cumulative impact of
rational choice-making mindsets could lead to a fundamental structural shift in the
entire society. Mindset shift as mentioned here indeed gives at least two important
implications in this context. First, transformation in development sector makes sense
only with causal changes. This is the essence of why rational choices could make a
difference particularly to systemic changes in dynamic-transformation settings.
Second, development engagements require us to take perspectives of the system
across levels. True, what always matters, is measurable impacts on the ground, but
without a good understanding of how global versus local parameters influence one
another, it is almost impossible to structure any meaningful choice architectures that
could potentially self-reinforce impacts in the long run. How would you take away
these two implications and rationalize science-driven global development agenda?
Development and Resource Interdependence: Implications of
Global Development Scale and Sustainable Impact
Causal implications of interdependent logic in development sector inevitably lead the
global community to look at purposes of the development itself. On the one hand, as
interdependence connects causality chain of one local engagement to many others,
wouldn’t it make better sense to rationalize just about any local development projects
with a common agenda on a global level? On the other hand, even if all development
projects do share an engagement ground, how would one influence each specific
causal change in a systemic sense with collective effort of local actions?
System thinking precisely from this perspective of global development agenda points
us to focusing our engagement toward scale and sustainable impact. Provided a
desirable shift foundation in place, which specific system parameters is required to
engage in order to structure one’s engagement toward scale? At the same time,
would one’s engagement be able to sustain change impact at equilibrium? Discourse
of dual forward-looking view not only connects local development engagements to
local implications of what sustainable impact means both to system scale and scope,
but also underscores significance of every local engagement itself. Take the water-
energy-food nexus as an example (see Figure 2). If food security is the primary
challenge, how would one address food causality chains such that a greater amount
of supply could better serve an increasing population without consequential impact to
water, forest and natural ecosystem as a whole? What sense of dynamic equilibrium
or balance should one’s development agenda intend to achieve at a system level?

Box F: SYSTEM THINKING OF WATER-ENERGY-FOOD DEVELOPMENT
System Approach at the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: At the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), every effort to address global food security needs to recognize
implications in terms of sustainability, where one’s decision needs to balance goals that
serve the people, the natural ecosystem and the environment. In particular, the FAO’s
Water-Energy-Food Nexus approach (see below) has been developed and adopted to
address this challenge in a dynamic setting. The key enabling principle describes nexus
interdependencies among resources, and as such characterizes not only synergies that
mutually enforce shared benefits but also constraints and tradeoff conditions. With this
view, stakeholder dialog has been put the framework core that takes into consideration
scientific evidences and dynamics of decision options and potential scenarios driven by
global parameters such as global climate change, population growth and urbanization
trend, as well as major technological, industrial and agricultural development.
Diplomacy of Resource Interdependence: System thinking made possible by this
resource nexus view allows a development of sustainability diplomacy to emerge.
Rationality as characterized by nexus links helps build a management model that
transforms a traditional decision-making process toward rationality from sustainability:
• Integrated decision-making process in both vertical (across organization and
sectors) and horizontal (across hierarchy) directions of the engagement;
• Orchestration of changes upon system logics identifiable by nexus links;
• Synergy often emerged from integrated knowledge, practicality and institutional
capacity of local organizations when it comes to tradeoff in the nexus; and
• Balance of coordination and decision-making based on facts on the ground
Sources: Food and Agriculture Organization, 2014,and Climate and Development
Knowledge Network, 2017.

Diplomacy of Resource-Nexus Mental Model: Rational policy administration
requires complex system thinking that would allow not only capability to address
mindset toward rational behavioral shift by all in the society. Sense of rationality in
this developmental context also requires a good understanding of the complex web
of causality in the natural system. This latter view as exemplified in the water-energy-
food nexus forms an inevitable rationality basis to guide forward-looking policy
decisions based on evidence-based science and informed dialogs together with
stakeholders. Essence of this approach (see Box F) can be summarized as follows:
• Mindset shift by respecting interdependence enables rational decision-
making process to advance synergy and embrace reality of tradeoff calculus;
• Policy orchestration integrates complexity across sectors and hierarchies
with focuses on knowledge-based decisions and local capabilities; and
• Forward-looking perspective sets tone, dynamic and sense of urgency in
stakeholder engagement with system-driven scenarios and decision options.
Resource-Nexus and Implications to Development Sector: Scientific thinking of
rational system engagement can’t be more relevant to global development agenda
as such resource-nexus challenge becomes apparent on a global scale. Indeed, it
has never been a question in this specific example if challenges of the global food
security could be resolved as the world’s population increases. The real challenge is
much rather about how the global community would produce enough food in future
under natural resource constraints (Nature, 2010), particularly for the global natural
ecosystem has already been continually put under stress in the past half a century.
Precisely for this argument, rational engagements here could never been defined
only in terms of scale but rather scale together with sustainable impact in the long
run. It is therefore logical to extend this sense of rationality from the global food
security to the entire global development sector. Would your development project
make sense without scale, scalability and sustainability? Would your development
project make sense without a perspective of dynamic equilibrium that indeed requires
you to identify a meaningful and proportionate sense of rationality at a system level?
Figure 2: Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Analytical map demonstrates how
development projects could engage resource causality such that values from synergy
could be advances in view of ecosystem protection. This is an example nexus drawn
from Indonesia. See more at Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2017.

Modeling Framework for Complex Global Challenges:
Discourse of System Thinking across Granularity Levels
Rationality as forces for good that drive forward causal changes lays an important
shift foundation of system thinking in development sector. On the one hand, the
discourse of behavioral shift has led us to perceive how a good understanding of
rationality could help structure decision-making process of each individual as part of
the societal shift dynamics in a bigger picture. On the other hand, the same
discourse, however, implies another sense of rationality. Perspectives of dynamic
equilibrium remind us of the importance of both scale and sustainable impact as a
logical consequence of any causal changes. One could infer that desirable sense of
rationality here also requires a system thinking process across granularity levels.
What makes sense for an individual may or may not necessarily mean the same
when taking perspectives of his/her associated geographical, demographical or any
logical groups. At this junction, how would you define a meaningful sense of
rationality that is universal for the entire population while remaining coherent yet
reasonably flexible when focusing on each specific subset across granularity views?
Dilemma of Engagement Rationality across Granularity Levels: What could a
good understanding of interdependence possibly mean to the engagement unless
this philosophy helps improve measurable impact on the ground? All the more, how
would this practical sense of rationality transcend development engagements without
enabling purposes to engage the development at causes? Two analytical axes:
• Sense-Making Perspectives across a variety of focusing lens render a
series of projections of how causal interdependence across different
granularity levels unfold depth, complexity and profundity of the systemic
challenges: How to connect one’s limited focusing view on the ground to a big
picture with a good sense of engagement rationality, as well as vice versa?
• Nuanced Perception of Rationality based on the dynamics of enabling
purposes at causes versus measurable meaningful impact helps realize one’s
complex investigative sense of rationality: How should the engagement strike
a good balance across the sense-making spectrum of behavioral shifts?
Continuum of this intellectual discourse makes sense once it unfolds one’s analytical
thinking potentials to calibrate nuances of engagement meaningfulness from cross-
perspective views. Yet, how does one connect meaningful purposes to projective
senses of achievement? What could be a reasonable basis to balance engagement
priorities, resource allocation as well as potential conflict resolution mechanisms? In
fact, this way of thinking constructs a flexible, determinating sense of rationality that
takes into account actual facts on the ground. Along this line of logic, what does it all
mean to the debate of behavioral shift? Let us take a deeper look at the example of
resource nexus. What is your sense of food security given the nexus causality?
Perspectives of Global Food Challenges: Can the planet earth feed the increasing
human population? Your thinking may lead you to wonder what this investigative
quest would mean. Should we define purpose of this discourse in view of upside food
production potential on a global level? Or should we rather assess the situation
based on specific unmet food demand in each country? But if we consider factors
such as natural ecosystem and causality to sustainable food systems, there should
be no wonder if and how this investigation would make sense without perspectives of
resource interdependence and implications to policy, market and society. At the
same time, would food challenges be met without global coordination across levels
where the poorest billion around the globe fight daily to survive with bare minimum?

Structural Choice Architecture of Engagement Rationality:
Discourse of Sustainable Food Sufficiency
Forward-looking debate in the example of global food agenda indeed requires a
better system foundation to address what really defines meaningful sense of rational
engagement and how to address a host of challenges that come with the context at
hand. The dilemma as we discussed earlier reminds us that even our best effort can
never guarantee that our approach could always make adequate sense. What if our
engagement purposes get tested by emerging practical factors on the ground or from
sense-making perspectives perceivable from different angles? In fact, the entire
dialog of rationality challenges us not only to perceive nuances of the engagement
senses in a much broader spectrum of definitions, but also to develop a mechanism
to understand and reconciliate potential disparity across views and perspectives. At
the end of the day, this analytical process would perhaps help us to structure rational
choice architecture to orchestrate engagements toward changes at a system level.
Still, what is the specific of the global food agenda? How do we define a discourse to
comprehend nuances and perspectives of such complex sense-making processes?
Implications of Sustainable Food Sufficiency to Choice Rationality: In fact, it is
no question that the complex global food agenda demands us to better understand
the sense of sufficiency of the world’s food supply at a rising demand. This, however,
brings forward a host of complex implications in terms of resource interdependence
at an ecosystem level. How would human’s choices upon how to engage the system
as a whole affect prospect of sustainable food sufficiency? In fact, this intellectual
quest could be framed, structured and rationalized by two interdependent conditions:
• Necessity Condition: Which rational choices would be required to influence
shift dynamics at a system level, considering sustainable impact to the natural
ecosystem as well as associated socioeconomic and policy and political
systems, all in complex system views across global-local perspectives?
• Sufficiency Condition: Which set of rational engagements would collectively
establish a minimum shift foundation to alter dynamics of how policy, market
and society collectively contribute to the desirable changes, such that
sustainable sufficiency impact could be achieved at a dynamic equilibrium?
Purpose-driven choice architecture and related measurable impacts should find
sense of rationality not only if and how the above dilemma could be addressed, but
also why a specific shift foundation toward a desirable dynamic equilibrium should
make sense. Of course, global food agenda is a grave concern by all certainly
because its projective view in sustainability and sufficiency terms looks uncertain. In
practical sense, this, however, means we all lack a rationality discourse of structural
shift toward a sustainable equilibrium, whereupon the dialog of measurable
impacts across global-local levels would find a solid ground-footing foundation. This
argument qualify why and how global coordination may systematically address the
world’s food challenges in quantity and quality terms, particularly as we navigate the
agenda across the world with specific challenges across advanced and developed
economies from the complex agenda considering policy, market and societal
challenges. After all, that’s perhaps where the dialog of the global food security shall
finally arrive at the corner where food security pain is the greatest: Would the
structural shift at a sustainable equilibrium meet needs of the poorest billions around
the world? How would this specific bottom-up perspective find its priority in the global
sustainability development landscape? If global food security is so defined how
would you engage sense of rationality with both market and society? That’s perhaps
where sense-making perspectives find nuances of food security rationality.

Box G: SCIENCE-BASED APPROACH TO FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGES
Science Diplomacy of Food Security: Would the world’s current agricultural practices
collectively address global food challenges with qualification in a sustainable manner?
Despite progress to enhance farming yields and other related economic metrics, the
method as such only shines more and more light to a much greater concern about
global food security that requires us to address ecosystemic sustainability as a whole.
Would it be possible to enhance farming productivity on more dense land use, yet with
less water, less (or no) fertilizer and less (or no) pesticides? Consider the scenario also
in the context of climate change that puts the entire natural ecosystem under stress.
Food diplomacy in scientific sense requires a stronger holistic approach with a much
greater sense of rationality. Consider the following approach put forward by scientists:
• Focusing on systemic vulnerability across fragile geo-locations especially for
undernourished people at poverty and particularly undernourished children, and
seeking remedy options to address socioeconomic root causes with sciences;
• Increasing sustainable intensification of global agriculture toward greater
yields with less water, fertilizer and pesticides, rather than exhausting available
farming lands and resources therefore potential impact to the ecosystem; and
• Advancing capability and protecting nature by leveraging socioeconomic and
agricultural cooperations with investment in research and development, together
with natural ecosystem stewardship particularly of water, forest and biodiversity.
Policy Discourse for Sustainable Farming Practices: How should one structure a
scientific approach that is generic enough to address challenges at a global level while
specific enough suited to diverse local practices all around the world? Truly participative
approach requires representative stakeholders related to the subject matter to come
together and agree on the sustainability development purposes with specific desirable
sustainability outcomes. This effort guides how to improve agricultural practices and
ecosystem management tools, with shared supervisory oversight as well as scientific
evaluation based on merit-based assessment. Toward that end, scientists propose a
structural approach to fulfill this potential task based on definition of metrics (see chart
above). Principal challenges stem from development goals that need be addressable
across geographical structure and local farming causality. For example, food security
means calories intake per person on average in the target group but implies practical
challenges in terms of socioeconomic deficit such as poverty and free market access.
Moreover, correlation among parameters should also be considered as caveats.
Source: Nature, 2010.

Scientific Approach to Complex System Engagement:
Discourse of Parameter-Based Farming Practices
Complex discourse of developmental shift toward a sustainable equilibrium needs be
addressed not only in terms of resource nexus and policy engagement in a balanced
manner across types of resources at an ecosystem level, but also in view of choice
rationality itself. True, global challenges require global acts in concerted efforts.
However, what is the sense of sustainable food sufficiency that shall lead the global
community to come together? How would meaningful choices and related choice-
making process that altogether define sense of engagement rationality fulfill the
necessity and sufficiency conditions with policy, market and society as part of the
engagement in the big picture? The following short example demonstrates how
science could be applied to structure a global engagement in a practical manner.
Significance of Shared Engagement Objectives: Science urges us to see the
challenge not only with our rational eyes but also with an informed critical sense.
What are our available rational choices? With the specific global farming agenda in
relation to global food security, what do we know about the current practices and
what could (and possibly should) the global community do about it? This discourse
challenges us not only how to engage but also why to do so in a collective sense:
• Balance of means and ends: Production based on current farming practices
shall suffice needs of the global population but an expense of resource
unsustainable prospect. More efficient and sustainable means are needed.
Moreover, food also has accessibility, health and knowledge dimensions;
• Conscious choices on rational courses of action: Sustainable sufficiency
requires a good understanding of the local natural ecosystem that leads one’s
to rationalize means and ends in socioeconomic, ecological and policy terms.
Systemic shift could be structured based on these complex parameters; and
• Materiality of collective efforts: Scientists advise a choice-making process
at universal and system-specific levels to trade off costs and benefits among
available choices, notably between people, planet and technology. Prospect
of sustainable food requires collective global efforts with focus on local needs.
This approach engages the global food agenda with a holistic view of how to fulfill
both necessity and sufficiency conditions based on a long-term structural shift. Yet, it
is the power of scientific evidences that inarguably brings forward the case why the
global community requires shared engagement objectives. In the example of farming
practices, scientists take a step forward to underline this course of action simply by
projecting how to advance this hypothetical collective act with shared engagement
parameters. How could the global community structure this complex undertaking with
implications across socioeconomic, policy and security dimensions? Scientific
approach only urges us to spell out the challenge! See Box G (Nature, 2010).
Significance of Shared Engagement Parameters: Prospect of sustainable food
sufficiency indeed resonates the scientific basis of behavioral shift: How to structure
changes mechanism that self-reinforces, scales and sustains itself in the long run?
This is exactly where the scientific community advises how to refocus the global farm
practices. The global orchestration effort should define and govern pivotal pillars of
the global efforts (such as health, economic growth and environment stewardship),
and simultaneously empower global engagements to respect local needs as well as
challenges. Take a reciprocal view. This parameter-based approach indeed reflects
sense-making perspectives to the local communities and challenges why global
ecosystem vulnerability and global sustainable farming also matters to them, too.

Box H: MORALITY, RIGHT AND JUSTICE OF GLOBAL FOOD
Moral Dilemma of Food: Food inadequacy is reflected as moral challenges among
humans. Are we aware of what food means to us in the society that depends on the
natural ecosystem as well as other lives? This reality has been put forward as leitmotif
of this year’s World Food Summit under the theme: “Better Food for More People” and
indeed as a challenge to our shared morality and dignity upon almost one billion people
suffering from food inadequacy. Watch clip at World Food Summit, 2018.
The Right to Adequate Food: According to the United Nations Human Rights, food is
a universal, indiscriminate and inalienable right for all. Such implies at least as follows:
• Right to adequate food means advocacy and stewardship of human dignity;
• Right to adequate food implicates legal obligation on States to overcome hunger
and malnutrition by ensuring food security of all in the population; and
• Right to adequate food also refers to food quality appropriate to each individual.
Moral Implications of Global Food Challenges: From food production to distribution,
and from food access to health development, the global community has been facing
unbalanced, unequal and unsustainable dynamics across the food value chains all
around the world. Indeed, it is children suffering from food insecurity who undeservedly
confront perverse long-term nutritional and healthcare consequences (see chart above).
What could be ways forward to address this system challenge on the global level?
• Science and technology: Crop research, climate therefore famine prediction;
• Logistics: Local storage and well-orchestrated price stabilization mechanism;
• Local food system: Minimum security guarantee for local population especially
as uncertainty increases from the climate, agricultural and market systems; and
• Policy and regulation: Governance to ensure integrity and fairness across the
food value chain and also to uphold right to adequate food within the population.
Sources: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2018; The Guardian, 2014;
United Nations Human Rights, 2010; and World Food Summit, 2018.

Choices of Global Diplomacy: Meaningful and Representative
Development Discourse of Morality and Justice
Development discourse of science-driven policy engagement fundamentally unfolds
on a resonance basis that brings together policy makers, related institutions as well
as the people. Efforts in this view are necessary because the agenda that targets at
sustainable development impact at scale needs more than just a good science. But
how would the behavioral shift be orchestrated to yield impact from collective efforts
of the change dynamics? This final discussion shall give readers three views of how
to develop and advance diplomacy discourse of your development engagement:
• Meaningful Choices: How should multifaceted perspectives of rationality
transport sense of meaningfulness? Could the sense of balanced justice be
developed from sense-making perspectives from reality of, for and by all?
• Representative Choices: How would global-local interdependent dynamics
be orchestrated and transcended such that representative dialogs be
structured by using multilateral sense of shared engagement objectives?
Science is indeed most powerful when it comes to elucidating simplicity with self-
evident choices that are incontestable, meaningful and also relevant to the context at
hand. Its values are, however, often overlooked just because most sense-making
processes of science require more than just an ensemble of obvious facts but rather
a deep understanding of which chains of logic would suffice and how to interpret
various complex senses of rationality across cause-consequence chains that explain
how one action relates to others, and vice versa. Once a development project of your
focus is well-grounded on that logic, how would you project that sense of scientific
rationality to meaningful developmental engagements with forward-looking senses?
Diplomacy of Meaningfulness: Nuanced sense of rationality as developed from the
perspectives of global food challenges remind us that a meaning engagement
requires a well-defined balance between sustainable impact and underlying causes
of that impact itself. The nuance modeling framework as discussed earlier associates
this logical process to a system view of how to develop sense-making perspectives
with a variety of focusing lenses. Could your choices address causal changes that
are large enough to sustain change dynamic of the ground? On the other hand,
should your engagement focus more on immediate needs of the people in dire need
of your larger engagement framework? The diplomacy that would best help you
facilitate the orchestration of both views must considering moral choices of science.
Necessary shift of public mindsets, however, challenges every notion of how to look
at the development with a compassionate sense of meaningfulness. Logical drive
toward impact scale not only poses us questions in terms of how’s but also why’s.
Indeed, the sense of engagement meaningfulness leads us to define the shift of
mental model based on morality of the engagement itself. As we aspire to structure
and orchestrate an informed dialog toward behavioral shift of the public, are we
aware of implied messages that come with choices we tender to the public? Global
food example rightly attracts global attention because of the challenges in morality,
right and justice terms and because this subject matter challenges us how to
understand food security not just in sufficiency and scale but also in equality and
entitlement terms (See Box H). This discourse makes further points in terms of how
science and technology shall meet challenges of current unsustainable food
industrialization as socioeconomic, healthcare and environmental concerns grow.
What should be a balanced diplomacy that engages this dynamics such that
rationality and meaningfulness come together at the most constructive end?

Diplomacy of Multilateralism: Every principle needs be met by practices that
respect causes and consequences of development conditions on the ground. In that
view, collective behavioral shifts could lead to a sustainable change if and only if the
well-orchestrated effort also takes into account forward-looking view and prospect of
the change dynamics itself. But what is the developmental challenge in reality?
• Dynamic Partnership Dialogs: How could choice architecture integrate
multilateralism to policy, market and public engagement with the sense of
rationality and meaningfulness? What should be prospect of this effort that
resonate global-local interdependence thus causality with a good balance?
• Dynamic Shift Equilibrium: How would rational choices engage both market
and society such that flexible, compatible and constructive changes are well-
orchestrated along multiple dynamic global-local pathways to an equilibrium?
Science of behavioral shift indeed provides us a well-structured method to engage
changes that is inherently orchestrated at a system level. Also, rationale of science at
this junction is not more complex than an interpretation of relevant facts, conducive
to decisions that make sense on their own terms. This basis of shift foundation
implies an evolving process of self-learning and self-adaptation in the population
according to the dynamics that resonate across policy and technological as well as
market and societal domains. However, adoption of changes by the people is only
one aspect of the global development discourse. How should the diplomacy of
science-drive system thinking help structure a large-scale shift and transformation?
Paris Agreement demonstrates an exemplary leadership discourse with implications
of a large-scale shift at a system level. Shared commitment by the global community
paves collective, multilateral pathways forward with shared engagement objectives
and dynamic development pathways. Indeed, climate change discourse provides
sense-making perspectives that help construct forward-looking scenarios useful to
transform the energy sector with implications of global and local shift in market and
societal terms. The story of how policy shift incentivizes value-based competition with
renewable alternatives in the source mix only provides a rational foundation for
both market and society to come together and advance green innovation across
the value chain. Unfold this process in iteration, and the shift foundation would only
grow the entire transformation that incrementally self-reinforces itself, in fact, all in
the sense of dynamic transitional pathways with market and society in driver’s seats.
Evolutionary ecosystem is another system-relevant characterization of this discourse.
Causal interdependence that is a challenge of the change engagement process
should in turn provide a rational prospect of multilateral dialogs among a wide
range of stakeholders. Ambition toward shift scale and sustainable impact grounds
itself not only on the basis of orchestration technicality but also multilateral materiality
especially in view of difficult dialogs in terms of how to advance engagement synergy
across global, regional and local levels. Despite such a complexity, potential
cooperations in this view should, however, not be merely seen as a means that
serves its own purpose. True sense of multilateral diplomacy as witnessed in the
energy transformation example is directly related to advancing system engagement
momentum from shared objectives to shared parameters among partners. This,
however, does not imply a necessity to align change dynamics across levels of
focusing views. Quite the opposite, science of rational choices rather empowers and
promotes flexibility of choices dependent on availability, relevance and priority of
each stakeholder, as observable from the development of technologies that facilitate
energy electrification, evolution of energy business models, or promulgation of policy
and regulation to broaden breadth and depth of sources. These cases substantiate
multilateralism toward strategic shift of the global-local ecosystem (See in Box E).

Diplomacy of Justice: Sense of urgency caused by compounding fragility of the
people-planet-policy system complex requires not only our attention to root causes
and corresponding chains of causality, but also our collective conscience of how we
choose to address the challenge at hand in a certain manner. Development sector
matters to us not just because the world needs us to come together and find best
possible ways forward for so many urgent needs, but particularly because the
morality of our choices also matter to us as members of the global community:
• Shared Values: What could best characterize the sense of justice as we try
to strike a fair balance when rationalizing causal dilemma unless that same
sense of justice represents our own raison d’être to the same extent?
• Shared Dignity: How else should the morality of justice upon our conscious
choices be defined to serve both developmental means and ends unless the
justice of our collective efforts aim at no less than upholding others’ dignity?
Behavioral science lends us rigor, elegance and simplicity of how to overcome
development challenges with rationality, not because the sense of rationality itself
can make a difference in its own terms but rather because sciences gives us
necessary rational focuses that help develop an informed sense of balanced justice
across people, planet and policy realms. On the one hand, scientific critical sense
guides empiricists and practitioners to understand complex causal dilemma with
impartial eyes. On the other hand, collective efforts across levels among a vast
variety of stakeholder groups could be built once all parties get a good grasp of the
essence of why and how interdependent challenges shall be overcome. Justice is no
less than an existential rationale of the engagement itself. Example of water crisis in
North Africa and the Middle East can neither be overemphasized nor ignored. To the
same extent, this sense of justice can’t be more unequivocal when the morality of
this qualification is rational only once the world focuses on the most vulnerable.
Jordan River Basin is best representative on this diplomacy discourse. Compounding
challenge of the water resources has been unnecessarily caught hostage in a fragile
system complex. True, indisputable facts tell us the obvious about the fact that the
climate change constantly stretches geo-location factors where a cumulative view
thereof exacerbates every effort to uphold prospect of sustainable natural resources.
The reality, however, reveals further perspectives that complicate the case at hand:
• Collective Diplomacy: How much does the climate change influence
diplomatic climate of how stakeholders manage shared resources for the
people with policy and diplomatic dimensions in collective dialogs of justice?
• Collective Conscience: How much would fragile natural resource systems
bring stakeholders together with the people to focus on collective rational
conscience based on shared values and shared dignity with impartiality?
Participatory approach is a necessary foundation to bring all to the focus on what
matters to the case with a qualified sense of balanced justice. First, natural resource
engagement requires a well-informed policy discourse based on science instead of
political interest. Ambition toward growth and progress must be met with balanced,
rational policy choices to address immediate resource needs with a prospect of
long-term basin-wide resource governance system. Second, the latter principle
requires complementary action plan driven by collective diplomacy. Improved rigor of
every domestic water-resource policy in the basin shall strengthen collective political
will toward constructive cooperations once rational diplomatic ground is established,
managed and perpetuated with scientific impartiality of the shared resources. Third,
reciprocity of shared dignity must be nurtured as conscience across generations.

On Development and Innovation: How Ecosystem Approach Differentiates Innovation in Today’s International Development

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