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Development actors increasingly agree that managing programs adaptively – especially complex interventions – can improve their effectiveness. A growing body of evidence supports this claim. But what does adaptive management look like in practice? What does it require of managers and donors to make happen? How can we reconfigure incentives and success metrics to support adaptation, while remaining compliant?

Managing Complexity: Adaptive management at Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps finds adaptive management is supported by four different but interconnected elements: Culture, People & Skills, Tools & Systems, and Enabling Environment. These elements are discussed in the context of one of Mercy Corps’ complex programmes in pastoral Ethiopia.

Despite a swathe of critiques of logframes and other blueprint approaches to development over the last 30 years, most aid infrastructure continues to concentrate on the design and subsequent implementation of closed models. This article does not propose an alternative to blueprints, but challenges the inflexibility of their implementation, which is inadequate given the complex nature of social change. It proposes a supplementary management and learning approach which enables implementers to...

Adaptive management is increasingly seen as critical capability for development programmes and policies that are more effective, efficient, relevant and sustainable. There is increasing recognition that such work requires significant changes to the organizational structures, management processes, accountability and performance cultures and indivi

Climate adaptation planning provides an opportunity to enhance the adaptive capacity of stakeholders across multiple levels. However, reviews of standard top-down and bottom-up approaches indicate that the value of multistakeholder involvement is not fully recognized or incorporated into guidelines. Focusing on provinces in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea within the Coral Triangle region, we present a novel integrated top-down and bottom-up planning approach. Based on Participatory Systemic...

A capacity to adapt to change is essential for managing Australia’s natural resources. The individuals, communities and organisations who manage our natural resources all have an innate capacity to adapt to change. Changes in climate, markets and technology have shaped the way we adapt the management of natural resources in urban, rural and coastal landscapes. Some of these changes are predictable and easy to manage. Others are expected, but their timing and magnitude are uncertain. Whatever...

By Alan Hudson — November 16, 2015. I spent last week in Rio de Janeiro (tough assignment, I know), participating in the Transparency and Accountability Initiative’s third T/A Learn Annual Workshop. As the report of the second Annual Workshop, held...

On current trends, it will take decades or longer to bring basic services to the world’s most disadvantaged people. Meeting this challenge means recognising the political conditions that enable or obstruct development progress - a radical departure from the approach of the Millennium Development Goals.

ABSTRACT. We elaborate the necessary conceptual and strategic elements for developing an effective adaptive monitoring network to support Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) in a multiuser nature reserve in the Dutch Wadden Sea Region. We discuss quality criteria and enabling actions essential to accomplish and sustain monitoring excellence to support ICM. The Wadden Sea Long-Term Ecosystem Research project (WaLTER) was initiated to develop an adaptive monitoring network and online data...

New insights, opinions and perspectives on market systems development, from experts and practitioners.

Since the beginning of reforms in the late 1970s, China has developed rapidly, transforming itself into a middle-income country, raising hundreds of millions out of poverty and, latterly, developing broad-based social protection systems. The country’s approach to reform has been unorthodox, leading many to talk of a specific Chinese model of development. This paper analyses the role of innovation (chuangxin) and experimentation in the Chinese government repertoire and their contribution to...

This tool describes the five key phases of evaluation, from planning and design, to implementation and communication of results. It provides a list of the main tasks and deliverables for each phase, intended for use by anyone managing an impact evaluation. This tool was developed by Irene Guijt, Simon Hearn, Tiina Pasanen and Patricia Rogers for use in Methods Lab projects. It follows to some extent the BetterEvaluation Rainbow Framework.

The Governance Practitioner’s Notebook takes an unusual approach for the OECD-DAC Network on Governance (GovNet). It brings together a collection of specially written notes aimed at those who work as governance practitioners within development agencies. It does so, however, without attempting to offer definitive guidance – instead aiming to stimulate thinking and debate. To aid this process the book is centred on a fictional Governance Adviser. The Notebook’s format provides space for...

UK aid, at its best, makes a real and positive difference to the lives and livelihoods of poor people around the world. Ensuring the best possible performance across a large and multifaceted aid programme is, however, a complex management challenge. This report reviews ICAI’s previous 44 reports and looks at how well DFID ensures positive, long-term, transformative impact across its work.

SAVI aims to facilitate replicable and sustainable processes of citizen engagement in governance. The programme in each state is locally defined, flexible and adaptive, and results are not predictable in advance. Standardised monitoring tools are not applicable, and consequently we have evolved our tools and frameworks during the programme through processes of learning by doing....

Gender and sexuality are intimately entwined; we must not lose sight of the ways in which gender affects non-heterosexual people, transgender people and people who do not identify as either male or female. • Gender and gender-related injustice is a feature of all interventions, whatever the focus, be it agriculture, capacity building, disaster management, education, health, peace building, water, sanitation and hygiene, or other. • Showing an increase in the number of women participants in...

Multi-project programmes can serve different purposes. For instance, they may coordinate multiple implementing entities; standardise management and technical support; compare intervention approaches across different contexts; enhance leverage through joint action; or foster sustainability by building relationships among organisations. • At the same time, multi-project programmes are costly, potentially duplicate other mechanisms that fulfil similar functions, and can dilute focus and create...