Your search

The CommunityFirst Framework is intended to be implemented by field teams at MSF. The theoretical aspects and evidence presented on the importance of community engagement are intended for all MSF staff seeking to learn more about why and how to shift the way we work with communities as humanitarians. We believe this guideline, and other tools like it (including OCA’s Person-Centred Approach Guidance07, and MSF Vienna Evaluation Unit’s Guidance for Involving Communities08), to be an important...

World expert Bent Flyvbjerg and bestselling author Dan Gardner reveal the secrets to successfully planning and delivering ambitious projects on any scale.Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant new reality. Think of how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to an enormously successful product launch in eleven months. But such successes are the exception. Consider how London’s Crossrail project delivered five years late and billions over budget....

We are a dynamic non-profit organization with a unique approach to managing change and catalyzing innovation to support global systems transformation. We know that to achieve equal, just, and safe communities, we must collectively challenge and change the systems that people rely on — especially those most vulnerable. Together, we must RE!BUILD a system's resilience and capacity to take on our biggest generational challenges. Justice, housing, health, and other systems in every country are...

Cooperation management facilitates the recoupling of progress toward sustainable development

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...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, we're open-sourcing our most effective stress- and crisis-management learning tools. We call these tools micro-VCoLs™. All of the micro-VCoLs shared here can be practiced effectively just by following the instructions.

VCoL is a cycle of goal setting, information seeking, application, and reflection. Its +7 skills include reflectivity, awareness, seeking and evaluating information, making connections, applying knowledge, seeking and working with feedback, and recognizing and overcoming built-in biases. VCoLing engages the whole learner. By this, we mean that it engages learners emotionally, physically, and intellectually, leveraging both conscious and unconscious mental processes. VCoLing ensures that...

VCoL (the virtuous cycle of learning), is designed to optimize learning while leveraging human´s natural motivational system. It’s easiest to tap into this motivational system when VCoLs are small, focused, relevant, and habitual. We call VCoLs with these characteristics micro-VCoLs. What is a micro-VCoL? Micro-VCoLs are frequently iterated learning cycles that are embedded in everyday activities. Like any VCoL, they involve setting a learning goal, gathering information, applying...

How does Doing Development Differently (DDD) and Problem Driven Iterative Adaption (PDIA) connect to core principles of the MSD approach?

This report presents the findings of an evaluation of Sida’s management of the market systems development (MSD) approach. It aims to inform thinking on how Sida can best manage its growing portfolio of MSD programs. Beyond this, it provides insights relevant to Sida’s wider support to complex and adaptive programs. The evaluation identified several factors that affect Sida’s ability to ensure that conducive conditions are in place for effective MSD programs and good development programming...

This report presents the findings of an evaluation of Sida’s management of the market systems development (MSD) approach. It aims to inform thinking on how Sida can best manage its growing portfolio of MSD programs. Beyond this, it provides insights relevant to Sida’s wider support to complex and adaptive programs. The evaluation identified several factors that affect Sida’s ability to ensure that conducive conditions are in place for effective MSD programs and good development programming...

The site seeks to accelerate the adoption of system collaboration and Collective Impact in Australia. It does so by creating knowledge, network and tools; shining a light on successful Collective Impact initiatives; and building an Australian community of practice.

Improving outcomes at scale requires a paradigm shift in how we work.

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

Working in environments characterised by a high degree of uncertainty, uncontrollability and unpredictability, development agents try to organise complex realities into manageable units. What principles influence the decision on adequate approaches and necessary steps? Through theoretical considerations and nine case studies, the GIZ traces implementation processes and identifies underlying guiding principles which provide the flexibility and adaptability that is necessary for acting in...

Unexamined and unjustified assumptions are the Achilles’ heel of development programs. In this paper, we describe an evaluation capacity building (ECB) approach designed to help community development practitioners work more effectively with assumptions through the intentional infusion of evaluative thinking (ET) into the program planning, monitoring, and evaluation process. We focus specifically on one component of our ET promotion approach involving the creation and analysis of theory of...

Payment by Results (PbR), where aid is disbursed conditional upon progress against a pre-agreed measure, is becoming increasingly important for various donors. There are great hopes that this innovative instrument will focus attention on ultimate outcomes and lead to greater aid effectiveness by passing the delivery risk on to recipients. However, there is very little related empirical evidence, and previous attempts to place it on a sure conceptual footing are rare and incomplete. This...

This briefing summarises the findings from Beneficiary Feedback Mechanisms pilots and is intended to inform organisations and their funders about the development and implementation of feedback mechanisms.