Why do so many well-intentioned policies fail to deliver the outcomes they promise

Farmers live this frustration daily. Subsidies dictate which seeds to buy. Regulations demand actions “apply this fertilizer,” “reduce that herd size,” “be certified in this or that way” while ignoring the soil under our boots. Ministries measure compliance, not outcomes. NGOs enforce frameworks built in cities, not in fields. The result is not regeneration but confusion, conflict, and unintended consequences.

Last months, during an advanced training at the African Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe, I began to see the pattern more clearly. Policies are nothing more than management decisions. And all management is always of three things at once: nature, economy, and institutions. When policy forgets that, it drifts away from purpose and becomes self-protecting bureaucracy.

At Dimbangombe Conservancy, surrounded by global farmers, ranchers, educators, and policy thinkers, I witnessed a week-long conversation about how to manage better, not just land and animals, but also ethics, institutions, and policy itself.

How policy is usually made

Policy begins with a problem. Yields are falling. Rivers are polluted. Families are leaving the countryside. Institutions gather experts, convene panels, and draft laws. These laws are enforced from the top down. They focus on actions, do this, don’t do that, rather than outcomes.

This structure almost guarantees unintended consequences. Farmers are told they must be organic or conventional, but the nuance of their soil and rainfall disappears. Subsidies encourage overuse of fertilizer or lock producers into fragile monocultures. Conservation rules freeze land into inactivity, ignoring the fact that brittle environments degrade without animal impact.

In short, policy is written without context. Institutions assume they can design universal solutions. Yet land, water, and people function in wholes, not in fragments.

Institutions and the problem of drift

Every institution is born with a purpose. The church preaches love and community, yet history shows it has killed and persecuted in the name of faith. Governments vow to serve citizens, yet often defend their own power first. NGOs arise to solve problems, but soon spend more energy raising funds than working in the field.

This is not about bad people. It is about how institutions evolve. Once created, they seek survival. They circle the wagons. They defend themselves. They act without empathy. They create what systems thinkers call wicked problems, issues so entangled that every “solution” spawns new problems.

Policy created in this environment is destined to misfire. It does not flow from the land. It flows from the need of institutions to appear in control.

Zimbabwe as a living policy lab

The ACHM week gave me a different vision. We stayed at Dimbangombe Conservancy, where Holistic Management has been practiced for years. The contrast was startling. Within the conservancy, grass productivity had soared this year. Soil was covered, water infiltrated, birds filled the air. Across the fence, in the national park managed under a different set of rules, bare soil and signs of decay spread across the landscape.

Both areas were under “policy.” The park had rules: protection, exclusion, prohibition. The conservancy had a framework: manage holistically, plan grazing, test decisions against context, monitor outcomes. The difference was not management versus no management. It was top-down rules versus outcome-based feedback.

We also visited Precious and her team at iGugu Trust, where fifty families manage a shared herd of 700 cattle. Their “policy” is simple but profound: move the herd together, plan recovery, measure ecosystem processes. Instead of fragmented rules, they created a shared context. The result is visible: grass returning, water holding longer, families gaining dignity and food security.

This is policy from the bottom up. It emerges from values, not decrees. It manages outcomes, not actions.

The four ecosystem processes as the real measures

Holistic Management teaches that all land and life depend on four ecosystem processes:

1. Energy flow – the capture of sunlight by green plants.

2. Water cycle – the infiltration, storage, and movement of water.

3. Mineral cycle – the return of nutrients to living soil.

4. Community dynamics – the diversity and resilience of living organisms.

These processes are the ground truth. They do not lie. Policies that ignore them fail. Subsidies that reward fertilizer use may grow crops today but weaken mineral cycling tomorrow. Regulations that ban grazing in brittle areas may protect for a season but create bare soil over decades.

If policy instead asked: Did energy flow increase Did the water cycle improve Did the mineral cycle strengthen Did community dynamics diversify, we would move toward resilience.

Ethics and self-interest

Ethics can sound like philosophy until you stand on bare soil with rain clouds building and watch the water run off. During the Zimbabwe training, our group kept returning to one point: ethical behavior toward the environment is in our own best interest.

Policy often assumes ethics must be enforced. But when farmers see the land respond, more grass, more water, more stability, they understand ethics as survival. Ethical policy would not demand “be organic” or “use fertilizer.” It would demand outcomes: keep soil covered, build diversity, increase water holding. How you get there is context-specific.

Family as microcosm of state

Confucius taught that the family is the model for governance. A well-ordered family builds a well-ordered state. In families, economics comes first, food on the table. Then comes survival of kin. In institutions, economics also comes first, but the next priority is the survival of the institution itself, not the citizen.

This is the core distortion. Families care for children. Institutions care for themselves. That is why policy drifts. That is why whistleblowers, though scorned, are often serving humanity, they remind institutions of their original purpose.

Policy without enforcement

One of the deepest lessons from Holistic Management is that policy does not need enforcement if it is grounded in context and outcomes. People will comply when they see their grass, water, and animals thrive. Coercion becomes unnecessary.

In Zimbabwe, no one had to “enforce” the 700-cow herd at iGugu Trust. Families saw the grass grow and food return. The policy, shared herding, was its own reward. Contrast this with European subsidy systems where compliance must be checked by inspectors and farmers often game the system just to survive.

How policy could be made differently

A holistic approach to policy would include:

• National holistic context: a shared vision of the quality of life citizens want (clean water, fresh air, stable economy, freedom, peace).

• Decision testing: every policy tested against whether it strengthens the four ecosystem processes and aligns with context.

• Feedback loops: policies monitored like grazing plans, adjusted when outcomes diverge.

• Facilitated conversations: citizens heard without being intimidated by experts. Experts isolated when necessary to prevent domination.

• Outcome-based incentives: subsidies tied to ground cover, water retention, and biodiversity, not to prescribed actions.

This would not eliminate conflict. But it would shift the ground of debate from ideology to ecology, from enforcement to feedback.

Lessons from Zimbabwe for Europe

The week at ACHM showed me that policy is not an abstract debate in parliament halls, it is management of land, economy, and institutions. Zimbabwe made visible what Europe often hides behind bureaucracy.

At Dimbangombe, planned herds regenerated brittle savanna. At iGugu Trust, shared governance regenerated dignity and livelihoods. Across the fence, action-based rules led to decay.

Europe has its own brittle regions, its own degraded soils, its own wicked problems. The same lesson applies. Policy that dictates actions will fail. Policy that sets context and measures outcomes can succeed.

My work with GrowWise

GrowWise exists to bring this lesson home. We help farmers, landowners, and institutions build clarity in complexity. We use Holistic Management not only as a grazing tool but as a governance framework. We invite communities, banks, and policymakers to test their decisions against values, context, and ecosystem feedback.

The goal is not perfection but resilience. Policy will always involve trade-offs. But with a holistic framework, trade-offs can be seen, monitored, and adjusted before they become disasters.

Conclusion

All policy is management. We always manage three things at once: nature, economy, and institutions. When policy is made top down, based on actions and divorced from context, it leads to unintended consequences. Institutions drift from their purpose, defend themselves, and create wicked problems.

Holistic Management offers another way. It reminds us that outcomes matter more than prescriptions. It grounds decisions in the four ecosystem processes,energy flow, water cycle, mineral cycle, community dynamics. It builds policy from values we all share: clean water, fresh air, stable economies, peace, freedom, and thriving communities.

What Zimbabwe showed me is that this is not theory. It is practice. Grass grows where bare soil once spread. Communities thrive where hunger once ruled. Families stay where once they fled.

Policy that serves land and people is possible. But only if it is holistic, outcome-based, and rooted in the wholeness of life itself.