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On June 24th under GLocal’s UNConference, “Co-creating our future stories of hope and action”, Jindra Cekan, Holta Trandafili, and Isabella Jean presented their work on sustainability evaluations and exit strategies via local voices. We chaired a 2-hour discussion session on the following topics: Sustainability of global development projects and exit from them, The importance of valuing local partners’ and participants’ voices, How to embed ex-post evaluation of sustainability into the...

Opportunities and challenges for local leadership

This paper probes trends in the use of big data by a community of early adopters working in monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) in the development and humanitarian sectors. Qualitative analysis was conducted on data from MERL Tech conference records and key informant interviews. Findings indicate that MERL practitioners are in a fragmented, experimental phase, with use and application of big data varying widely, accompanied by shifting terminologies. We take an in-depth...

Emerging technology is making monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) more precise and enriching data. However, this evolution is so rapid that it can be difficult to stay informed about the field overall. This paper presents examples of emerging technology that are most often used in MERL for development programs, describes the pros and cons of their use, and discusses technology and ethics concerns that practitioners should keep in mind. The paper covers new types of data...

Knowledge management strategies are important for firms’ competitive positioning. This paper examines how knowledge management codification and personalisation strategies are developed in response to environmental and organisational dynamics in an international non-governmental organisation. A longitudinal case study of the organisation’s strategic reformulation of its KM strategy over a 2.5 period is drawn upon. The research examines how pressures in the firm’s operating environment led to...

Children end up in child labour as a result of many, often unknown or hidden, interactions between multiple actors and multiple factors within households, communities, and labour systems, leading to unpredictable outcomes for children and other sector stakeholders and sometimes resulting in the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). It is a complex problem, and interventions aimed at tackling it are also, inevitably, complex and challenging. The way they influence change is non-linear,...

The development co-operation community needs to innovate to meet the global challenges ahead. Although it has an established track record for innovating partnerships, funding instruments and technologies, they are not enough to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. This report synthesises the lessons emerging from an OECD Development Assistance Committee peer learning exercise on how innovation efforts can be strengthened, individually and collectively, to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The...

Reflection on how DFID was created.

Arbie Baguios presents his ideas on how to reform the aid system

Based on its work in Sri Lanka, The Asia Foundation argues for greater attention to the local political dynamics into which digital solutions are introduced

This paper explores the peer-reviewed evidence base of “traditional” technology-enabled monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL Tech) in international development assistance from 2015 to 2019. The authors conducted a scoping review that searched seven databases, screened 3,054 reference titles and abstracts, coded 886 abstracts, and extracted and analyzed conclusions and recommendations from the full texts of 256 studies. The findings reveal the most frequently reported...

"Have you ever wondered if there might be a better way to work together? Perhaps you would like to find ways to avoid habits, or patterns of behaviour, that whilst you say you don’t like them, you seem unable to escape." Written & narrated by Cathy Sharp (Research for Real) and animated by Keira Oliver (Collective Leadership for Scotland) and her son (10yr) in an animation-sprint style (created quickly, but with care), this film summarises the ideas and practices of action inquiry. It...

Amplifying the impact of sustainability initiatives to foster transformations in urban and rural contexts, has received increasing attention in resilience, social innovation, and sustainability transitions research. We review the literature on amplification frameworks and propose an integrative typology of eight processes, which aim to increase the impact of such initiatives. The eight amplification processes are: stabilizing, speeding up, growing, replicating, transferring, spreading,...

Cooperation management facilitates the recoupling of progress toward sustainable development

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly shifted the context in which aid and development is being delivered. The global scale of the pandemic and the speed at which it is spreading mean that the ‘normal’ economic, ideological and organisational influences which shape (if not determine) aid delivery are in flux. This means that – for a relatively short-period – there is scope for aid actors to work collectively to embed more locally-led, politically-informed and adaptive forms of MERL in aid...

Few topics inspire as much confusion and debate as systemic change. What is it? How do you measure it? Does it even matter? Assessing changes in systems might be more doable than you think. This webinar explored a back-to-basics approach to assessing system change. In November 2019, thirty results measurement specialists, managers and consultants got together in Bangkok. They took part in workshops on a back-to-basics approach to assessing system changes, applying it to cases from...

Practical advice for donors and institutions responding to COVID-19

Today, software engineers need to know not only how to program effectively but also how to develop proper engineering practices to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. This book emphasizes this difference between programming and software engineering. How can software engineers manage a living codebase that evolves and responds to changing requirements and demands over the length of its life? Based on their experience at Google, software engineers Titus Winters and Hyrum Wright,...

In September of 2014, USAID’s Office of Learning, Evaluation & Research (LER) awarded the Learning and Knowledge Management (LEARN) contract to Dexis Consulting Group and subcontractor RTI International.1 This document—the End of Contract Report—captures five and half years of results and reflections for our stakeholders. Our intention is to share the good and the bad, and while this report would not be considered a “tell all,” we think we have a story worth sharing, particularly to USAID...