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Systemcraft is our applied framework to help leaders and organisations get started and keep going when faced with complex problems. It is built on our practical experience. It draws on a broad body of research, action and theory from the worlds of complexity thinking, systems theory, adaptive management, leadership development, social movements, development theory and beyond. Systemcraft has been designed to make systems thinking something any leader can apply when they find themselves faced...

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 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...

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...

Development donors invest significantly in governance reform, including in contexts characterised by conflict and fragility. However, there is relatively little comparative study of their change strategies, and little understanding of what works and why. This paper explores the strategies of six recent DFID-funded programmes in Mozambique, Myanmar, and Pakistan with empowerment and accountability aims. Document review and field interviews are used to analyse the application of multi-scalar...

The coronavirus pandemic poses unprecedented challenges to science, policy and the interface between the two. How – and how quickly – policy-makers, practitioners and researchers react to this emerging and complex crisis is making a profound difference to people’s lives and livelihoods (WHO, 2020). But how can we ensure effective collective decision-making on the basis of emerging evidence, changing trends and shifting scientific understanding, all in the face of considerable uncertainty?...

A discussion of initial learning emerging from the SLRC ’Adaptive approaches to reducing teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone’ action research project.

This report summarises the discussions at a meeting held in September 2019 of a group of global development research and policy experts and practitioners, convened by ODI and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, to share experiences and knowledge, reflect on what we already know about working politically on gender in fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS), and identify what further evidence would be useful. Key messages: - It is important to identify, document and learn from...

• This paper looks at the experience of gender mainstreaming in the Institutions for Inclusive Development (I4ID) programme – an adaptive, politically smart governance programme in Tanzania. • When development programmes try to engage with political stakeholders and align with the priorities of wider coalitions there is a danger that gender equality is de-prioritised. • It is important that formal political economy analysis, as well as other data collection, analysis and consultation...

- This short paper draws out lessons for working effectively with and through partners, based on the experience of the Institutions for Inclusive Development (I4ID) programme – an adaptive, politically smart governance programme in Tanzania. • Cultivating effective partnerships can be a key part of delivering locally legitimate projects that have the potential to create sustainable change. Adaptive and politically informed ways of working create specific opportunities and challenges for...

Research on empowerment and accountability tends to focus on collective action and its potential for empowering citizens undertaking the action and on achieving state accountability. In fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings (FCVAS) collective action is rare and risky. So how do citizens, particularly the chronically poor and most marginalised, interact and make claims on the different public authorities that exist in these settings, and how do these interactions contribute to...

This working paper explores how donors can move towards greater Navigation by Judgment, highlighting the actions people inside and outside aid agencies can work to make change—encouraging more Navigation by Judgment on the margin, starting today.

Management by way of top-down controls and targets sometimes gets in the way of aid donors’ aims, undermining project success. These unhelpful controls often stem from a need to account for performance; legislatures or executive boards induce agencies to exercise tight process controls and orient projects towards what is measurable and reportable.

This paper proposes that pastoralist systems are better treated, in aggregate, as a global critical infrastructure. The policy and management implications that follow are significant and differ importantly from current pastoralist policies and recommendations. A multi-typology framework is presented, identifying the conditions under which pastoralists can be considered real-time reliability professionals in systems with mandates preventing or otherwise avoiding key events from happening....

What should come first? Your business plan or your business model? I strongly believe it’s option B — your business model. But so many social enterprises I’ve seen, get it backwards which means they struggle to articulate how they create, deliver and capture value. This is what first inspired me to create the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise Design in 2013. It outlined how I had used, tested and learnt about the Business Model Canvas, created by Alex Osterwalder and Yves...

Adaptive management approaches potentially offer us opportunities to deliver high quality results in circumstances where change is complex, including in fragile, unstable or conflict affected places. However, building adaptive programming continues to be a challenge for the sector. For CARE, our Department for International Development -UK Aid funded Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) programming has provided useful learning on how to operationalise adaptive approaches. In this paper we expand...

Theory of Change is thought to be very useful for learning and adaptive management of complex interventions such as advocacy. Nevertheless, the use of Theory of Change is also under critique. One common criticism is that Theory of Change is often used as a framework that fixes agreements rather than as a living, guiding tool that helps reflection and adaptation. However, while such criticism stresses forms of control, little research has looked at the way Theory of Change and advocacy...