In international development, failure is often whispered about—buried in project reports or softened into “lessons learned”. But if we’re serious about improving outcomes, we need to talk honestly about what doesn’t work—and why.

Here are five common pitfalls we’ve seen across countries, sectors, and initiatives.

1. Designing Without Context

Too many interventions start with a solution in search of a problem. A tool that worked elsewhere. A reform model backed by global best practices. But what’s missing is a grounded understanding of this place, this system, this political moment.

Effective development starts with deep contextual insight—not assumptions. Without it, even well-funded programs falter.

2. Mistaking Activity for Progress

Workshops held. Reports written. Dashboards launched.

But were services improved? Were people better served? Did anything actually shift?

Development often rewards activity over impact. We celebrate the visible outputs, while systemic change—the kind that lasts—is slower, messier, and harder to measure.

3. Underestimating Politics

Every reform is political. Yet technical teams still try to navigate reform landscapes without mapping power, incentives, or institutional resistance.

Ignoring politics doesn’t make it go away. If anything, it makes failure more likely. Durable change requires political strategy, not just technical plans.

4. Overengineering, Under-Executing

Logframes grow dense. Consultations multiply. Toolkits expand.

But delivery suffers—not because there’s a lack of planning, but because the plans become too rigid, too complicated, or too far removed from operational realities.

Successful reform is rarely about perfect design. It’s about disciplined, adaptive execution.

5. Thinking in Projects, Not Systems

Too much of development is still projectized—short-term, donor-driven, disconnected from national systems. This creates fragmentation, overloads governments, and undermines long-term capacity.

If we want scale and sustainability, we need to work through systems, not around them. That means aligning with government priorities, using local infrastructure, and building delivery muscle from within.

What This Means for the Sector

We don’t need more glossy success stories. We need honest assessments of what’s not working—and why. That means funders embracing adaptive approaches, governments making space for experimentation, and implementers prioritizing learning over perfection.

How Lapnos Approaches This Work

At Lapnos, we help governments and development partners design reforms that are grounded in context, politically informed, and focused on execution. We’re not afraid to ask: what might go wrong here? Because learning from failure isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a path to stronger, smarter delivery.

What about you?
What pitfalls have you encountered in your work—and how have you responded?

Let’s talk about it.