[Extract] In developing countries, change in environmental and socio-economic systems is occurring at unprecedented rates, driven by rapid globalisation, technological advances, modernisation and increasingly unpredictable economic and environmental shocks (Leach 2008). As a consequence, there are growing concerns that conventional international development initiatives aiming to reduce poverty, conserve or sustainably use the environment and increase resilience, are becoming less effective. Recently, Ramalingam (2013) argued that aid programs’ established assumptions of linear, simple cause-and-effect relationships which have long guided interventions and their evaluation are no longer valid. Instead, he argues for a more ‘systemic, adaptive, networked, dynamic approach ... and a fundamental shift in the mental models, strategic approaches, organisational philosophies and performance approaches of foreign aid’ (Ramalingam 2013, p. 361).