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Social accountability has become increasingly important to development programming since the 2004 World Development Report spearheaded its first generation of programming. In 2016, Thomas Carothers synthesized global experts’ perspectives on what became known as the second generation. With an evolving global context, new research and evaluations and tacit knowledge on how those assumptions played out in practice, the time is ripe for asking what the evidence since 2004 can tell us about what...

CLARISSA (Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia) has a participatory and child-centred approach that supports children to gather evidence, analyse it themselves and generate solutions to the problems they identify. The life story collection and collective analysis processes supported children engaged in the worst forms of child labour in Bangladesh to share and analyse their life stories. Over 400 life stories were collected from children who worked in...

Organising for Systems Innovation at Scale Our team at Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation have been experimenting with and evolving a Challenge-led Innovation Approach (based on Mission-oriented approaches developed by Mariana Mazzucato at UCL IIPP and others internationally). We are using this approach to guide the way we work internally and engage with our systems innovation partners. We’ve facilitated intensive Re:Treats, worked with government bodies, businesses and civic...

This note presents the key components of a potential next generation of social accountability programming. The key aspects outlined emerge from a review of over 150 cases as well as tacit knowledge from dozens of practitioners (Guerzovich and Aston, 2023).The main thread of social accountability 3.0 and what distinguishes it from previous generations is a focus on its contribution towards more responsive systems and accountable social contracts. In particular, social accountability should be...

There are a number of options when it comes to using software to help create a logic model. These range from generic word processing tools (Word, Powerpoint, or their Google Doc or Mac equivalents), to software that has been specifically tailored for visualising Theories of Change, like TOCO or Miradi. You should consider what resources you have to invest in software, both in terms of cost and in time to learn and use the features. If you only have a short timeframe and have simple needs,...

Check out this video to see what’s inside our new resource: Practitioners' Guidance to Assessing Systems Change, developed by MEL Managers for MEL Managers. (Check out the Guidance here https://bit.ly/MSPMELClinics.) Hear from the authors about which parts they love the most and how this guide challenges MEL managers to assess systems change as an ongoing aspect of implementation, generating feedback that teams need to better understand and catalyze change, for more impact.

This updated guide provides practical guidance to practitioners in the human rights sector and beyond on how to integrate Applied Political Economy Analysis

A resource designed to help organisations, teams and individuals manage innovation journeys responsibly and successfully. We have partnered with MIT D-Lab to develop a new resource to drive greater diversity and inclusion within project design and implementation. The Participation for Humanitarian Innovation (PfHI) toolkit sets out a robust approach to setting expectations for and monitoring the degree of participation within research and innovation projects for, with, and by people...

The conversation on adaptive management has grown fast amongst development actors. These conversations often focus on designing, commissioning, and managing large-scale development programmes. Exactly how this impacts the frontline, the implementers, and day-to-day project delivery is still being debated. Yet, perspectives drawn directly from practice are often largely missing within these debates. This paper is written by two development practitioners. Through this paper, we reflect on the...

This guide is adapted from work by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) with inputs from members of the Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice (TWP CoP). It outlines how to understand and use a set of analytical tools that are collectively known as Political Economy Analysis (PEA). The guide aims to equip practitioners to act in an informed manner, given that development objectives are invariably politically complex, and entail engaging with...

The Collaborating, Learning & Adapting (CLA) Maturity Tool has been used by USAID operating units since 2015. The tool enables staff to self-assess their current CLA practice and plan ways to improve their internal and external collaboration, organizational learning efforts, and adaptive management practices. Recently, SI built on this resource to create the CLA Maturity Tool for implementing partners (IPs) to provide a version that speaks more directly to the experience of international and local organizations. Learn more here.

This free guide aims to build the skills and confidence of people designing and facilitating participatory, productive, and engaging workshop sessions for work teams and communities of practice by providing them with a series of creative activities that can be run in-person or virtually. By the time they have gone through this guide, session leads will be able to: Describe ways in which creative activities can be of value to teams and communities of practice, Design both in-person and...

This free guide aims to build the skills and confidence of people designing and facilitating virtual meetings, including online community of practice sessions. By the time they have gone through this guide, community of practice facilitators will be able to: Design an engaging and participatory virtual session, Develop an effective, varied and realistic agenda for a virtual session, Apply a wide range of virtual facilitation techniques, and Using technology to facilitate virtual...

So you have just hear about systems thinking and systems innovation and are keen to know more, Ok sparky let's get started.We have structured all the content into four main areas that we think you ...

Effective learning is a key driver of market systems change, with the potential to enhance system competitiveness, resilience, and inclusiveness. Shifting the Locus of Learning: Catalyzing Private Sector Learning to Drive Systemic Change recently outlined a rationale for enhancing the scale and quality of learning in a system and identifying 10 strategies programs can contextualize to catalyze learning. These strategies are also backed with robust examples from 13 programs doing this work...

This document offers practical guidance for assessing the Value for Money (VfM) of government- and donor-financed programmes and policy interventions. In line with OPM’s focus and mission, it has been predominantly applied in the international development sector, but the approach upon which it is based is also used in the context of domestic public policy and programmes.1 There is increasing scrutiny on VfM in international development, but a lack of appropriate methods to support its...

How can we measure and learn when promoting systems change? It’s a challenge that has inspired Laudes Foundation to develop a rubrics-based methodology to help us, our partners and the wider field of philanthropy, understand our contribution to change, while learning and adapting to new and unforeseen circumstances. Change cannot be captured by numbers alone because metrics put the focus on what can be counted, not always what’s most important. Rubrics are a framework that set a standard...