Your search
Results 71 resources
-
The world changes too much for anyone who is invested in social change work to imagine that this work is linear and predictable. Opportunities come and go, whether caused by a pandemic or political shifts. This much most social movement leaders and activists intuitively understand. But what can be done with this realization? How might movement groups better prepare for moments of opportunity? We want to explore how we can create the changes we want to see by responding to the changes that are outside our control.
-
Great overview of what to read on adaptive management. It’s a long one, so I’ve split it into two – second installment tomorrow. Christian Aid Ireland’s recent publication The Difference Learning Makes by Stephen Gray and Andy Carl made a bit of a splash. The study found that Christian Aid Ireland’s application of adaptive programming contributed to better development outcomes and supported more flexible delivery. The much vaunted MUVA programme in Mozambique is also coming to a close and...
-
The conversation on adaptive management has grown fast amongst development actors. These conversations often focus on designing, commissioning, and managing large-scale development programmes. Exactly how this impacts the frontline, the implementers, and day-to-day project delivery is still being debated. Yet, perspectives drawn directly from practice are often largely missing within these debates. This paper is written by two development practitioners. Through this paper, we reflect on the...
-
Terms of reference (TORs) play an outsized role in driving scalable educational programming. These procurement documents shape, constrain, and signal programme priorities and possibilities. Successful funders and implementers across the globe hold rich processual knowledge about this documentation, which they use to draft and assess TORs. This project explores such best-practice knowledge around TOR review, seeking to support the design and implementation of educational programmes that can...
-
Constituent engagement is the two-way process of involving constituents in the design, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of programmes. Constituent engagement and adaptive management together can be a powerful combination; high-quality constituent engagement can reinforce effective adaptive management, and vice versa. By highlighting stories from leading practitioners and their organisations, this paper explores how programmes ensure that constituent engagement informs meaningful...
-
Multiple aid agencies often try to support change in the same places, at the same time, and with similar actors. Surprisingly, their interactions and combined effects are rarely explored. This Policy Briefing describes findings from research conducted on recent aid programmes that overlapped in Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and from a webinar with UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) advisors and practitioners. The research found three distinct categories of ‘interaction...
-
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...
-
“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...
-
What can middle-level theory do? Middle-level theory (MLT) has several uses in development planning and evaluation. It helps predict whether a programme can be expected to work in a new setting. It offers insights into what design features are needed for success. It provides invaluable information for monitoring to see if the programme is on track and to fix problems that arise. It reveals the causal processes and related assumptions to be tested in an evaluation and helps identify...
-
A discussion of initial learning emerging from the SLRC ’Adaptive approaches to reducing teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone’ action research project.
-
Internal and external stakeholders have different information needs over a project’s life, for purposes that include adaptive management, accountability, compliance, reporting and learning. A project’s monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning, or MEAL, system should provide the information needed by these stakeholders at the level of statistical reliability, detail and timing appropriate to inform data use. In emergency contexts where the situation is still fluid, ‘informal...
-
DT Global is proud to introduce our new Guidance Note: Practical Introduction to Adaptive Management There is a growing consensus around adaptive management as an effective (even necessary) approach when programs are tackling complex development problems. While there is no standard definition of adaptive management, there is general agreement that such programs need to routinely engage with and respond to program context; constantly test what works in that context; and adjust approaches,...
-
How can we transform monitoring and evaluation (M&E) into a more adaptive, emergent process to address uncertainty and complexity in todays’ world? How do we move from compliance and accountability to learning – to support better, more timely, decisions? Join GEI Program Manager, Dugan Fraser, as he discusses these questions and others with Special Guest, Søren Haldrup, from UNDP's Strategic Innovation Unit where he manages UNDP's innovation facility and leads a new initiative called the M&E Sandbox.
-
Over the last 15 years the concept of scale has become a foundational part of the apparatus of the social and environmental change sector. A business mindset of growth has been seamlessly transferred to the social and environmental problems we are collectively trying to shift in the world. Scaling up, (influencing policy) has been considered the strategic pathway to systems change. Scaling out (spreading new models) is seen as a pathway to success. The allure of these scaling theories lies,...
-
Achieving broad-based socio-economic development requires interventions that bridge disciplines, strategies, and stakeholders. Effective sustained progress requires more than simply an accumulation of sector projects, and poverty reduction, individual wellbeing, community development, and societal advancement do not fall neatly into sectoral categories. However, researchers and practitioners recognize key operational challenges to achieving effective integration that stem from the structures...
-
Nearly all challenges in international development tend to be complex because they depend on constantly evolving human behaviour, systems, and contexts, involving multiple actors, entities, and processes. As a result, both the discovery and scaling of innovations to address challenges in development often involve changes in system behaviour or even system-level transformation. This is rarely a linear process over time and can result in unexpected outcomes. Existing evaluation techniques...
-
Executive Summary When Christian Aid (CA) Ireland devised its multi-country and multi-year Irish Aid funded Programme Grant II (2017-2022), they opted to move away from a linear programme management approach and to explore an adaptive one. Across seven countries: Angola, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, CA and partner organisations support marginalised communities to realise their rights, reduce violence and address...
Explore
Theme
-
Adaptive Approaches [+]
- Adaptive Management
- Adaptive Learning (6)
- Adaptive Rigour (1)
- Agile & Lean approaches (2)
- Design Thinking / HCD (3)
- MSD - Market Systems Development (1)
- Other Adaptive approaches (1)
- PDIA (Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation) (1)
- PEA (Political Economy Analysis) (2)
- Results Based Management (1)
- Systems Thinking / Complexity (10)
- TWP (Thinking & Working Politically) (5)
- Cases (14)
- Development Actors Perspectives (31)
-
Geography
(19)
-
Africa
(14)
- Central Africa (3)
- Eastern Africa (10)
-
Southern Africa
(1)
- South Africa (1)
-
West Africa
(5)
- Nigeria (3)
- Sierra Leone (2)
-
Americas
(1)
-
Central America
(1)
- El Salvador (1)
- Guatemala (1)
-
South America
(1)
- Colombia (1)
-
Central America
(1)
-
Asia
(10)
- South-eastern Asia (4)
-
Southern Asia
(3)
- Bangladesh (1)
- Nepal (2)
- Pakistan (1)
-
Western Asia
(2)
- Israel (1)
- State of Palestine (1)
- Syrian Arab Republic (1)
-
Africa
(14)
-
MEL4 Adaptive Management
(28)
- After Action Reviews (2)
- Capacity Development (1)
- Context Monitoring (1)
- Contribution Analysis (1)
- Critical Friends (1)
- Impact Oriented Monitoring and Evaluation System (2)
- Knowledge Management (1)
- MEL in International Development (4)
- Most Significant Change (1)
- Outcome Mapping (1)
- Participatory Action Research (1)
- Peers/Peer-Group Review (2)
- Portfolio Management (2)
- Power Analysis (1)
- Process Tracing (2)
- Randomized Controlled Trials (1)
- Realist Evaluation (1)
- Scenario Planning (1)
- Strategy testing (1)
- Systemic Change (4)
- Systems Mapping (1)
- Theory-based evaluations (2)
- TOC (Theory of Change) (1)
- Value for Money (2)
-
Practical
(20)
- Tools (2)
-
Sectors [+]
(37)
- Agriculture (1)
- Alternative Development (6)
- Cash Trasfers (1)
- Children (2)
- Economic development (2)
- Environmental Management (3)
- Fragile and Conflict Aflicted Settings (4)
- Gender (5)
- Governance and Accountability (7)
- Health (3)
- Humanitarian Aid (1)
- Innovation (in Development) (1)
- Locally driven development (1)
- Locally led development (1)
- NGOs (1)
- Organizational Change (2)
- Pastoralism (1)
- Peace Building (1)
- Research for Development (R4D) (1)
- Scaling up / Propagating (2)
- Social Accountability (2)
- Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) (1)
Resource type
- Blog Post (9)
- Journal Article (6)
- Magazine Article (2)
- Radio Broadcast (1)
- Report (51)
- Thesis (1)
- Web Page (1)