Systems Thinking

This edition titled, Innovative Practices for Systems Transformations, of the Social Innovations Journal is sponsored by the Transformations Community, a generative space and catalyzing force for sustainability research and practice. This global community of transformation “pracademics” (both practitioner and researcher) is responding to a growing recognition that we need new approaches to address climate change and other existential threats to social-ecological systems.

This article explores the notion of the need to decolonize systems thinking and awareness. Taking a specifically Indigenous approach to both knowledge creation and knowledge sharing, the authors look at awareness based systems change via a Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) two row visual code. The authors explore the sacred space between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of thinking and knowing, to identify pathways for peaceful co-existence of epistemologies.

This report provides guidelines for evaluators, evaluation and programme managers, policy makers and funding agencies on how to take advantage of the rapidly emerging field of big data in the design and implementation of systems for monitoring and evaluating development programmes.