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Key takeaways. • Development is not linear or straightforward, but rather complex, uncertain and context-specific. This calls for international development actors to work differently, in ways that are based on deliberate experimentation, learning and adaptation, to inform decisions and drive effective development. • Although it might go by different names, adaptive programming has been used in a variety of areas and fields in both the public and private sectors. Development practitioners...

The Program Cycle is USAID’s operational model for planning, delivering, assessing, and adapting development programming in a given region or country to advance U.S. foreign policy. It encompasses guidance and procedures for: 1) Making strategic decisions at the regional or country level about programmatic areas of focus and associated resources; 2) Designing projects and supportive activities to implement strategic plans; and 3) Learning from performance monitoring, evaluations, and other...

There are many definitions of the term ‘transformation’ or ‘transformational change’. The first section of the report develops a basic understanding of transformations or transitions (used synonymously) viewed from various perspectives. In this, transformations are defined as processes that use disruptive innovations to change systems into fundamentally new systems that subsequently form the new mainstream. Section two describes existing approaches to environmental and climate finance in...

There are many definitions of the term ‘transformation’ or ‘transformational change’. The first section of the report develops a basic understanding of transformations or transitions (used synonymously) viewed from various perspectives. In this, transformations are defined as processes that use disruptive innovations to change systems into fundamentally new systems that subsequently form the new mainstream. Section two describes existing approaches to environmental and climate finance in...

Pact’s Adaptive Management Guide provides practical guidance to development practitioners globally on the mindsets, behaviors, resources, and processes that underpin an effective adaptive management system. It presents an approach to managing adaptively that is rooted in complexity analysis and program theory. It draws on Pact’s global experiences and work on topics as diverse as health, livelihoods, markets, governance, capacity development, women and youth, and more. This document begins...

Reflection on how DFID was created.

Cooperation management facilitates the recoupling of progress toward sustainable development

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...

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...

Adaptive management (AM) is a programme management approach that helps international development organisations to become more learning-oriented and more effective in addressing complex development challenges. AM practices have been applied for decades within other sectors as varied as logistics, manufacturing, product design, military strategy, software development and lean enterprise. At its core, AM is not much more than common sense, as it essentially recognises that the solutions to...

“Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” --Samuel Beckett Here’s my favorite part of that quote: the ultimate goal is not a lack of failure; it’s better failures. That’s good news for CARE, because we just published round two of our Learning From Failure initiative, and…I know this will surprise everyone…we haven’t stopped failures yet. We do have some hopeful signs that we’re failing better; or at least, that we’re improving on some concrete weaknesses we identified in...

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...

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...

This past week Andy Carl and I joined the international NGO Christian Aid Ireland team in Dublin to reflect on progress in a key feature of their work - adaptive programming. This post presents what Andy Carl and I learned in reflecting this week with the international NGO Christian Aid Ireland r

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...