This paper explores the principles of social engineering that underpin the work of international development agencies. By presenting an ethnographic account of a training at the London headquarters of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, I will explore the logical thinking expected from programme officers when designing log-frames for projects. I argue that the chronic failure of projects, generally attributed to the unfamiliarity of partners with the tools that apply logical thinking to the solution of social problems, derives in fact from the temporality that underlie projects. They suppose a social vaccum and a sequence of events that never takes place as laid down on paper, since contingencies of everyday life experienced by partner organizations who work directly with beneficiaries create a mismatch between the fixed composition envisioned in the project and the ephemeral compositions that emerge during its implementation.
development; international agencies; projects; social engineering
