A systemic evaluation of an agricultural development project : a focus on the worldview challenge

At a time in life when the golf course looks attractive, Richard constantly shuttles between the US, Australia and India. In this chapter, Richard reveals what is behind the journey - the desire to encourage a nation's farming sector to think differently about what it does. He argues that using systems ideas is not an elite game, but something that can be played out by ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things. Mirroring Gerald Midgley's ideas, and drawing directly on Dan Stufflebeam's categorization of evaluation approaches, he describes the task in both systems and evaluation terms. On the way he lays down the following challenge to systems and evaluation practitioners as well as funders of programs. Can we expect people to think and act differently if we are not prepared to do so ourselves?