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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...

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...

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...

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...

Adaptive programmes can be accountable, rigorous and high quality in how they use evidence by taking an ’adaptive rigour’ approach. Core development and humanitarian challenges are complex, and require processes of testing, learning and iteration to find solutions – adaptive management offers one approach for this. Yet large bureaucracies and development organisations can have low tolerance for experimentation and learning, and adaptive management can be viewed as an excuse for ‘making...

The increasing popularity of adaptive programmes in the development sector in the past decade is partly a response to the complex and interconnected challenges facing many developing countries, including the impacts of climate change. The pathway to adapting to climate change is unknown, and there are many deep-rooted institutional, political, economic and social barriers. Adaptive programmes provide the flexibility to allow those delivering the technical assistance to support governments to...

The United Kingdom’s (UK) Department for International Development (DFID) is an ambitious government department that is committed to reducing poverty and conflict overseas. Many of the issues on which DFID works are complex; whether focused on climate change, gender equality, health or other priorities, simple solutions rarely exist. And to tackle these complex challenges, DFID staff must interact with unpredictable systems of political, organisational and individual behaviours and...

This training package includes 7 Training Modules and a set of Annexes (Annexes A-O). The Training Modules build on each other and should ideally be used in a sequenced way in a training setting. However, for groups with specific training needs around particular areas, modules can also be used individually, but need to be tailored by the trainers and facilitators to meet the needs of specific audiences. The annexes provide worksheets and hand-outs that can be used as resources during the training for specific modules and exercises.

Case study about the MUVA programme in Mozambique. (Maybe it "misses the point of AP which is not learning for learning. Is learning for impact. The word impact doesn’t even come up once!") Adaptive Management programming within the Foreign & Commonwealth Development Office demonstrates that the UK Government has examples of optimising for learning within its existing management practice. However, currently, the adaptive management practices are unhelpfully framed by an approach which...

Those working to advance social change in the Pacific must understand, work with and respond to the complex and changing relationships and dynamics of power that exist within such networks, and situate their work in the context of decolonisation and self-determination. But the approaches typically used by NGOs to plan our projects and programs have failed to give due attention to these dynamics. The result is that our projects fall short of achieving their promise, despite being technically...

Evaluative Tools for Improving Campaign Effectiveness Public health campaigns aim to control disease or deliver essential health services and products through time-limited and periodic channels. Many countries use campaigns to augment or replace routine service delivery, to target certain populations, or to accelerate progress towards coverage targets. The Root Cause Analysis and Rapid Evaluation, Action, and Learning toolkits present a systematic but flexible approach to identifying the...

Lessons from the market systems development approach The evaluation focuses on Sida’s management of MSD projects. The projects are applying the MSD approach with an aim to: - contribute to improved MSD programming by Sida through better management practices across the project cycle - generate recommendations on how Sida can create conducive conditions for systems approaches and adaptive programming more generally. The brief assesses Sida’s organisational capacity for adaptive management...

This paper examines adaptive approaches to aid programming in Nigeria. Through field research and desk reviews, we have investigated some of the assertions around the ‘adaptive management and programming’ approach, which has arisen in recent years as a response to critiques of overly rigid, pre-designed, blueprint and linear project plans. This is the second of three case studies in a series which explore if and how adaptive approaches, including rapid learning and planning responses, are...