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CARE's Failing Forward initiative is sparking opportunities to showcase the ideas that don't work so we can spend more time implementing the ones that do. It's changing the conversation inside the organization, and leading to changes in the way we design and implement programs. It's also allowing us to make connections across a global portfolio of more than 900 projects, and with new and different partners to learn from their experience.

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Adaptive Management involves a dynamic interaction between three elements: delivery, programming and governance. This case study focuses on a large DfID governance project, the Institutions for Inclusive Development (I4ID), a five-year initiative in Tanzania. The study forms part of a research project to examine whether and how adaptive approaches can strengthen aid projects promoting empowerment and accountability in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings (FCVAS). The research...

Donor-funded policy reform has a long history in Mozambique, with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) efforts dating to the mid-1990s. Many laws and regulations adopted during the past quarter century are the consequence of these efforts. And yet, even with several years of robust economic growth, Mozambique has not experienced the broad economic transformation that policy reforms can trigger: per capita income in 2017 was $519 and more than 80 percent of the country...

Within DFID, there is now a commitment to more flexible and adaptive programming. This recognises that: • DFID works in contexts that continuously evolve and change, sometimes in unpredictable ways. To respond to this, the agency needs to remain flexible – to expect change and have a good understanding of context, with resources that can be adjusted and scope to change direction if needed. All DFID programmes should be able to do this. • Some DFID programmes aim to support change in...

This paper explores the nature, role and dynamics of new forms of social and political action as pathways to empowerment and accountability in fragile conflict- and violence-affected settings in Africa. Through an in-depth analysis of the case of the Bring Back Our Girls (#BBOG) movement in Nigeria and a multi-methods approach, the paper provides new knowledge that addresses evidence gaps in the following areas: (1) the multiple ways through which social and political action play out in...

The world is complex. If we want to contribute to creating positive social outcomes, we must learn to embrace this complexity. This is the New World that funders and commissioners are discovering: • People are complex: everyone’s life is different, everyone’s strengths and needs are different. • The issues we care about are complex: issues – like homelessness – are tangled and interdependent. • The systems that respond to these issues are complex: the range of people and organisations...

Fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings (FCVAS) are messy and ambiguous contexts in which to plan and implement development initiatives. To work there, external actors are increasingly adopting an adaptive approach to empowerment and accountability (E&A) programming, whatever the setting. This means using a compass rather than map, where real-time political economy analysis (PEA) in relation to context and programme monitoring and evidence-informed learning in relation to...

How does adaptive implementation work in practice? Drawing on extensive interviews and observations, this paper contrasts the ways in which an adaptive component of a major health care project was implemented in three program and three matched comparison states in Nigeria. The paper examines the bases on which claims and counterclaims about the effectiveness of these approaches were made by different actors, concluding that resolution requires any such claims to be grounded in a...

The Maturity Matrix is not a standalone tool. It is one of the three major components of the KRT Model. The Maturity Matrix is meant to be used in conjunction with the KRT Toolkit and Implementation Plan.

This document is relevant for any position or hiring mechanism. While this document does not explicitly address what happens when someone arrives into a newly-created position, which has its own set of challenges, many of the principles, actions, and resources can be applied in that context. Section 1 offers guidance for how to set up and implement systems at Mission/OU or office to ensure that all staff help preserve institutional memory and enable continuity of relationships. This section...

This BAA allows USAID Operating Units (OUs) to co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate in the research, development, piloting, testing, and scaling of innovative, practical, and cost-effective interventions to catalyze locally led development. The BAA aligns with a number of Agency priorities and policies, including the Journey to Self-Reliance, resilience, procurement innovation, and expanding and diversifying the partner base - as well as the New Partnerships Initiative and...

Accountability is rightly at the center of the conversation regarding how to improve governance systems, particularly health and education systems. But efforts to address accountability deficits often focus primarily on improving what can be counted and verified—what we term “accountingbased accountability.” We argue that introducing greater accounting-based accountability will only very rarely be the appropriate solution for addressing accountability problems. We illustrate this by...

Most measurement and adaptive management approaches were developed for and from individual projects. This briefing aims to guide measurement and management of country-level portfolios of work. It identifies potential purposes portfolio-level analyses can fulfil, types of adaptation, and the relative role of monitoring, learning and evaluation (MEL). Drawing on reviews of practice from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom Department for...

If you are involved in hiring, this tool can help you increase your chances of selecting staff members skilled in adaptive management. It will help answer the questions: Which competencies should I recruit for in order to hire more adaptive employees? Which desired qualifications should I incorporate into position descriptions to attract adaptive employees? Which interview questions should I ask to screen for adaptive employee competencies? You should use this tool when you decide to hire a...

Feedback is information about what happens as a result of what you do. Using that information to adapt what you do or how you do it creates what is called a feedback loop. A digital feedback loop uses digital technology at some stage of the feedback loop. Digital feedback loops help USAID missions improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their activities and can support partner countries on their journey to self-reliance through increased information sharing and improved government and...

How and to what degree is the World Bank putting its new institutional citizen engagement (CE) commitments into practice? This question guides an independent assessment that the Accountability Research Center (ARC) at American University has undertaken as part of the Institute of Development Studies-led Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) research programme’s investigation into how external actors can best support local processes of and conditions for empowerment and...

DFID values civil society organisations (CSOs), but its funding and partnership practices do not fully support the long-term health of the civil society sector.