Your search

Background: Addressing today’s sustainability challenges requires adopting a systemic approach where social and ecological systems are treated as integrated social-ecological systems. Such systems are complex, and the international development sector increasingly recognises the need to account for the complexity of the systems that they seek to transform. Purpose: This paper sketches out the elements of a complexity-aware monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for international...

Track to Change homepage

The Evaluation Handbook – 2025 Edition reflects the European Commission’s steadfast commitment to promoting a culture of results, accountability, and learning across the EU’s external action. As one of the world’s leading development and international cooperation actors, the European Commission bears a particular responsibility to ensure that its interventions are informed by robust evidence, deliver tangible results, and represent the highest standards of transparency and effectiveness in...

Many education systems in low- and middle-income countries are experiencing a learning crisis. Many efforts to address this crisis do not account for the system features of education, meaning that they fail to consider the ways that interactions and feedback loops produce outcomes. Thinking through the feedback relationships that produce the education system can be challenging. The RISE Education Systems Framework, which is sufficiently structured to give boundaries to the analysis but...

The world changes too much for anyone who is invested in social change work to imagine that this work is linear and predictable. Opportunities come and go, whether caused by a pandemic or political shifts. This much most social movement leaders and activists intuitively understand. But what can be done with this realization? How might movement groups better prepare for moments of opportunity? We want to explore how we can create the changes we want to see by responding to the changes that are outside our control.

Over the last 15 years the concept of scale has become a foundational part of the apparatus of the social and environmental change sector. A business mindset of growth has been seamlessly transferred to the social and environmental problems we are collectively trying to shift in the world. Scaling up, (influencing policy) has been considered the strategic pathway to systems change. Scaling out (spreading new models) is seen as a pathway to success. The allure of these scaling theories lies,...

The first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was confirmed on 27 February 2020, with the first lockdown orders issued on 30 March 2020. The pandemic and resultant containment measures have had farreaching socio-cultural, economic, financial and political implications, globally as well as in Nigeria. For the Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) and its partners, the pandemic has required considerable adaptation of their strategic approach and working practices. This report reflects on...

Evaluation processes that facilitate learning among advocates must be nimble, creative, and meaningful while transcending putative performance and accountability management. This article describes the experience, lessons, and trajectory of one such approach, Simple, Participatory Assessment of Real Change (SPARC), that a transnational HIV prevention research advocacy coalition pilot-tested in sub-Saharan Africa. Inspired by the pioneering work of the outcome harvesting (OH) and participatory...

Audience This guidance is primarily aimed at development and humanitarian professionals who design or manage monitoring and evaluation processes to support design and implementation of qualitative monitoring using Most Significant Change (MSC), Outcome Harvesting (OH), or Outcome Mapping (OM), which are participatory, outcome-focused qualitative methods. Purpose This guidance is a resource to strengthen qualitative monitoring, specifically addressing commonplace gaps or weakness in the...

The Asia Foundation and the Australian Embassy in the Philippines today released a new publication, Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines. Written by London School of Economics and Political Science Professor John T. Sidel and The Asia Foundation’s Jaime Faustino, the book examines the first phase of the Coalitions for Change program (2012-2018) and the contributions to key development policy reforms in the Philippines. The book is a...

USAID maintains staff and operations in more than 80 countries around the world, all of which the COVID-19 pandemic will disrupt. USAID remains committed to protecting the health and safety of our staff, while continuing appropriate oversight of our programs and ensuring the accountable and effective use of U.S. taxpayer funds. In the current operating environment, USAID and implementing partners face new challenges in implementing activities, monitoring progress, collecting data, and...

The United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) aimed to address global challenges to achieve the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals through 12 interdisciplinary research hubs. This research documents key lessons learned around working with Theory of Change (ToC) to guide Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) within these complex research for development hubs. Interviews and document reviews were conducted in ten of the research...

The present literature review was conducted in order to investigate the role of Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) in modern public administration. We use data from different academic articles to decompose the value within the framework of this theoretical perspective. In addition to explaining how extend, Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) is crucial in the “information age” and its main factors will be the main priorities of the study. Traditional top-down conceptions of leadership are at...

Advocacy for public accountability aims to produce certain reactions from government officials or service providers. However, the reactions can be many and diverse, and it is not always clear to advocates how to interpret them and decide on next steps—whether to intensify efforts or back off; continue the same strategy or make adjustments. This paper presents a framework to help accountability advocates and practitioners interpret government reactions to their efforts and move forward...

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...

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...

Planning for and assessing system change is a strategic management issue. It is critical for everything from developing a strategy and designing interventions, to adapting strategy, improving implementation and reporting impact. But many programmes get stuck when it comes to assessing system change. The private sector development field has struggled to agree on an approach that programmes can implement and stakeholders can understand. However some mature programmes are starting to assess...

Planning for and assessing system change is a strategic management issue. It is critical for everything from developing a strategy and designing interventions, to adapting strategy, improving implementation and reporting impact. But many programmes get stuck when it comes to assessing system change. The private sector development field has struggled to agree on an approach that programmes can implement and stakeholders can understand. However some mature programmes are starting to assess...

The Si Network is an online platform for building the developing of systems innovation - connecting people around the world to learn and apply the ideas and methods of systems innovation towards addressing complex challenges and building better systems that work for all. Not sure what systems innovation is? Systems innovation is a new approach to innovation that tries to tackle complex social and environmental challenges through the use of more holistic & innovation driven approaches. It is...