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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 donors and grantees work together to create effective monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) practices that drive field-wide transformation?

There is an entrenched relationship between the consulting industry and the way business and government are managed today which must change.Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington show that our economies' reliance on companies such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY stunts innovation, obfuscates corporate and political accountability and impedes our collective mission of halting climate breakdown.The 'Big Con' describes the confidence trick the...

How can donors and grantees work together to create effective monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) practices that drive field-wide transformation? The Open Society Foundation’s Fiscal Governance Program found success by focusing on six key approaches, including empowering grantees and relinquishing power. In 2021, an external close-out evaluation by Intention to Impact of the program (which ran for 7 years and gave over $150 million in grants) revealed something pretty remarkable—the...

Motivation This paper explores adaptive approaches to development programmes that aim at improving service provision in underperforming sectors in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). It does this through a case study of the Integrated Maji Infrastructure and Governance Initiative for eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's (IMAGINE) public-private partnership model for water provision. Purpose The processes and decisions that culminated in IMAGINE's model emphasize the need...

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...

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...

Digitalisation is perhaps the most important strategic challenge that governance will face over the coming decade. The process is delivering digital dividends as well as new exclusions and injustices, with the rapid but uneven increase in access to mobile and internet technologies transforming how social and economic life takes place. This report highlights the key opportunities and challenges arising from digitalisation.

This chapter examines good practices in implementing effective Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) systems within complex international development Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) programs, which are characterized by challenges of non-linearity, limited evidence of theories of change, and contextual and politically contingent nature of outcomes. The chapter presents three cases of MEL systems in complex projects implemented by Pact across distinct and diverse operating...

What does governance look like ‘from below’ – from the perspectives of poor and marginalised households? How do patterns of conflict affect that? These were the questions at the heart of the Governance at the Margins research project. Over three years from 2017-2020 we worked to explore this through in-depth study in conflict-affected areas of Mozambique, Myanmar, and Pakistan. Our research teams interviewed the same people regularly over that time, finding out how they resolved problems and...

This Flagship report analyses 20 years of governance programmes in Nigeria funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in the North-western states of Jigawa (since 2001), Kano (since 2005) and Kaduna (since 2006), as well as the North-eastern state of Yobe (since 2011). The report’s main research question is whether, how, under what conditions and for whom UK-funded state-level governance programmes in Nigeria...

The 100 Questions Initiative, pioneered by the GovLab, seeks to overcome the chasm between supply and demand. It begins not by searching for what data is available, but by asking important questions about the biggest challenges societies and countries face, and then seeking more targeted and relevant data solutions. In doing this, it narrows the gap between policy makers and constituents, providing opportunities for improved evidence-based policy and community engagement in developing...

The first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was confirmed on 27 February 2020, with the first lockdown orders issued on 30 March 2020. The pandemic and resultant containment measures have had farreaching socio-cultural, economic, financial and political implications, globally as well as in Nigeria. For the Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) and its partners, the pandemic has required considerable adaptation of their strategic approach and working practices. This report reflects on...

This paper discusses how understanding the domestic political economy of climate governance is critical for developing informed strategies to build and sustain political ambition. It provides guidance and a methodology for domestic stakeholders to determine the types of institutional reforms, incentives, coalitions, and policy design that can entrench long-term political support for climate ambition. The assessment can also help users identify political barriers to more equitable climate...

The 2021 guide provides an easy-to-follow six-step approach on how to develop, implement, and sustain a CA, with respect to the reader’s local corruption landscape and potential stakeholders. The adaptive framework proposed can be used to address corruption challenges, mitigate possible business risks, and achieve optimal results.

Considerations on where and when sanctions fit into the conception of social accountability is a nudge toward better and more granular descriptions of what work is being undertaken effectively in which situations.

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...

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...

Research on empowerment and accountability tends to focus on collective action and its potential for empowering citizens undertaking the action and on achieving state accountability. In fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings (FCVAS) collective action is rare and risky. So how do citizens, particularly the chronically poor and most marginalised, interact and make claims on the different public authorities that exist in these settings, and how do these interactions contribute to...

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...