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Articles

Development and radical uncertainty

Pages 1105-1113
Received 09 Dec 2019
Accepted 06 Jan 2020
Published online: 25 May 2020
 

ABSTRACT

Development strategies, programmes and projects are designed making assumptions concerning several variables such as future prices of outputs and inputs, exchange rates and productivity growth. However, knowledge about the future is limited. Uncertainty prevails. The usual approach to deal with uncertainty is to reduce it to risk. Uncertainty is perceived as a negative factor that should and can be eliminated. This article presents an alternative approach which recognises that radical uncertainty is irreducible to risk, identifying a positive dimension of uncertainty and showing its implications for development practice.

Acknowledgements

Suggestions and comments from Prof. Jochen Runde on a previous version are gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Osvaldo Feinstein is a Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid’s Master in the Evaluation of Programs and Public Policies, a member of the International Evaluation Advisory Panel of UNDP’s Independent Evaluation Office, and senior advisor to the independent evaluation offices of IFAD and the African Development Bank. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal Evaluation and Program Planning and editor of the World Bank Series on Evaluation and Development. He was a manager and advisor in the World Bank independent evaluation department, a senior evaluator at the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and an evaluation consultant for several international, bilateral and national organisations.

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