Your search
Results 59 resources
-
Development cooperation has spent decades wrangling over the merits, evidence, and implications of what we may term “the learning hypothesis”: the idea that increased knowledge by development organisations must logically lead to increased effectiveness in the performance of their development activities. Organisations of all stripes have built research and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) departments, adopted a multitude of knowledge management systems and tools, and tinkered with...
-
This report is the second in a program of evaluations that the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) is conducting on the learning that takes place through World Bank projects. Learning and knowledge are treated as parts of a whole and are presumed to be mutually reinforcing.
-
On current trends, it will take decades or longer to bring basic services to the world’s most disadvantaged people. Meeting this challenge means recognising the political conditions that enable or obstruct development progress - a radical departure from the approach of the Millennium Development Goals.
-
Doing development differently rests on deliberate efforts to reflect and learn, not just about what programmes are doing and achieving, but about how they are working. This is particularly important for an action research programme like Child Labour: Action- Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA), which is implemented by a consortium of organisations from across the research and development spectrum, during a rapidly changing global pandemic. Harnessing the potential...
-
This learning paper highlights how elements of outcome mapping were used by Save the Children Sweden in a project (2018-2020) that supports adolescents, affected by the Syria crisis, to become more resilient. The paper first outlines how the spheres of influence framework has been applied to develop an actor focused theory of change. It then describes how progress markers, as an alternative to SMART indicators, were formulated to monitor the programme’s results. The paper also outlines how...
-
This paper by Adinda Van Hemelrijck and Irene Guijt explores how impact evaluation can live up to standards broader than statistical rigour in ways that address challenges of complexity and enable stakeholders to engage meaningfully. A Participatory Impact Assessment and Learning Approach (PIALA) was piloted to assess and debate the impacts on rural poverty of two government programmes in Vietnam and Ghana funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). We discuss the...
-
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...
-
Among the many principles that currently inform donor-funded development initiatives, three appear to stand out: they should be politically informed, locally led, and adaptive. There is as yet little practical guidance for aid implementers regarding how to operationalise these approaches. What will it take to shift practice away from linear and planned approaches, towards models which foster local leadership and which engage with emergent and complex systems? This paper suggests that the...
-
Demonstrating results has been a concern in international development cooperation ever since it was started and in recent years there has been an increased focus on achieving and reporting on “results”. Despite the fact that everyone involved in development cooperation wants to make a difference there has been a growing criticism from practitioners about the “results agenda” based on a concern that the approaches used are not fit for purpose. In the EBA-report, Cathy Shutt, at the...
-
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...
-
Calls for more ‘adaptive programming’ have been prominent in international development practice for over a decade. Learning-by-doing is a crucial element of this, but programmes have often found it challenging to become more learning oriented. Establishing some form of reflective practice, against countervailing incentives, is difficult. Incorporating data collection processes that generate useful, timely and practical information to inform these reflections is even more so.This paper...
-
Learning is fundamental to work on transparency and accountability in complex environments. But how can funding practices best support learning?
-
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....
-
‘Adaptive management’ is all the rage in international development circles. But to avoid yet another buzzword – we need to learn from the experience of natural resource science.
-
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?...
-
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...
-
As DFID aims to harness the Data Revolution, ensuring that data1 drive decision-making, public accountability, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ensuring that systems, processes, and skills for data are aligned with these objectives is paramount. Across sector policy teams, country offices, and various analytical and technical cadres, different strengths and weaknesses, as well as needs and ambitions exist. To inform a strategic approach to data, as framed in...
Explore
Theme
-
Adaptive Approaches [+]
- Adaptive Management
- Adaptive Learning (6)
- Agile & Lean approaches (1)
- CLA (Collaborating Learning Adapting) (1)
- Design Thinking / HCD (1)
- Doing Development Differently (2)
- MSD - Market Systems Development (2)
- Other Adaptive approaches (1)
- Systems Thinking / Complexity (9)
- TWP (Thinking & Working Politically) (2)
-
Sectors [+]
- Advocacy and Activism (1)
- Alternative Development (10)
- Cash Trasfers (1)
- Children (2)
- Citizen Engagement (2)
- Climate Change (1)
- Economic development (3)
- Environmental Management (5)
- Fragile and Conflict Aflicted Settings (5)
- Gender (6)
- Governance and Accountability (13)
- Health (2)
- Humanitarian Aid (1)
- Innovation (in Development) (1)
- Institutional Capacity & Change (3)
- Knowledge to Practice (1)
- Locally driven development (3)
- NGOs (7)
- Organizational Change (2)
- Pastoralism (1)
- Peace Building (2)
- Scaling up / Propagating (2)
- Social Accountability (9)
- Cases (15)
-
Development Actors Perspectives
(24)
- FCDO/DFID (UK) (6)
- GIZ (Germany) (3)
- ILO (1)
- Irish Aid (1)
- NGO Perspectives (5)
- Private Companies - Development Industry (1)
- USAID (4)
- World Bank (3)
-
Geography
(18)
-
Africa
(13)
- Central Africa (2)
-
Eastern Africa
(7)
- Mozambique (3)
- Tanzania (3)
- Zimbabwe (1)
-
West Africa
(8)
- Nigeria (6)
- Sierra Leone (2)
-
Americas
(1)
-
Central America
(1)
- El Salvador (1)
- Guatemala (1)
-
South America
(1)
- Colombia (1)
-
Central America
(1)
-
Asia
(8)
-
South-eastern Asia
(4)
- Myanmar (4)
-
Southern Asia
(3)
- Bangladesh (1)
- Nepal (1)
- Pakistan (2)
-
Western Asia
(2)
- Israel (1)
- State of Palestine (1)
- Syrian Arab Republic (1)
-
South-eastern Asia
(4)
-
Africa
(13)
-
MEL4 Adaptive Management
(20)
- After Action Reviews (2)
- Capacity Development (1)
- Context Monitoring (1)
- Critical Friends (1)
- Impact Oriented Monitoring and Evaluation System (1)
- Knowledge Management (1)
- MEL in International Development (2)
- Outcome Mapping (1)
- Participatory Action Research (1)
- Participatory Learning and Action - PLA (1)
- Portfolio Management (2)
- Process Tracing (1)
- Randomized Controlled Trials (1)
- Realist Evaluation (1)
- Strategy testing (1)
- Systemic Change (1)
- Systems Mapping (1)
- Theory-based evaluations (2)
- TOC (Theory of Change) (1)
- Value for Money (2)
- Networks and Communities of Practice (1)
- Practical (14)