Your search

Summary There is growing recognition within the international development sector that there is a need for a new, more effective approach to engaging in public sector reform. This article builds on an emerging body of work that advocates more entrepreneurial and adaptive public sector reform programming. Drawing on knowledge and theory from public sector management, psychology and entrepreneurialism, this article aims to understand what motivates public sector workers to work...

Description

Sensors are becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, generating data at an unprecedented rate and scale. However, models that assess impacts of human activities on environmental and human health, have typically been developed in contexts where data scarcity is the norm. Models are essential tools to understand processes, identify relationships, associations and causality, formalize stakeholder mental models, and to quantify the effects of prevention and interventions. They can help to explain...

Development organizations frequently face and overcome challenges in programme delivery. But what happens when the proposed solutions fail? How can organizations adapt to changing conditions and ensure the benefits of programmes are shared as widely as possible?

Politics has become a central concern in development discourse, and yet the use of political analysis as a means for greater aid effectiveness remains limited and contested within development agencies. This article uses qualitative data from two governance “leaders” – the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the World Bank – to analyze the administrative hurdles facing the institutionalization of political analysis in aid bureaucracies. We find that programing,...

The movement of evidence-based practices (EBPs) into routine clinical usage is not spontaneous, but requires focused efforts. The field of implementation science has developed to facilitate the spread of EBPs, including both psychosocial and medical interventions for mental and physical health concerns.

Development projects aim to make a difference in communities. Funders often require that the intervention needs to last, or that it needs to effect change that will last, over an extended period of time. In short, a sustainable difference needs to be made and this is an important measure of success.  However, there are inherent drivers in the combined system of donors and beneficiaries that counter sustainability. This article explores these drivers, and identifies project design elements...

Summary Empirical evidence of tangible impacts of social accountability initiatives is mixed. This meta-analysis reinterprets evaluations through a new lens: the distinction between tactical and strategic approaches to the promotion of citizen voice to contribute to improved public sector performance. Field experiments study bounded, tactical interventions based on optimistic assumptions about the power of information alone, both to motivate collective action and to influence the state....

Although theories of change are frequently discussed in the evaluation literature and there is general agreement on what a theory of change is conceptually, there is actually little agreement beyond the big picture of just what a theory of change comprises, what it shows, how it can be represented, and how it can be used. This article outlines models for theories of change and their development that have proven quite useful for both straightforward and more complex interventions. The models...

Climate adaptation planning provides an opportunity to enhance the adaptive capacity of stakeholders across multiple levels. However, reviews of standard top-down and bottom-up approaches indicate that the value of multistakeholder involvement is not fully recognized or incorporated into guidelines. Focusing on provinces in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea within the Coral Triangle region, we present a novel integrated top-down and bottom-up planning approach. Based on Participatory Systemic...

Rigour can be reductionist or inclusive. To learn about and understand conditions of complexity, emergence, nonlinearity and unpredictability, the inclusive rigour of mixed methods has been a step in the right direction. From analysis of mixed methods and participatory approaches and methods, this article postulates canons for inclusive rigour for research and evaluation for complexity: eclectic methodological pluralism; improvisation and innovation; adaptive iteration; triangulation; plural...

During the course of a year-long knowledge exchange initiative called the Networked News Lab, a small group of Kenyan journalists and a PhD researcher from the London School of Economics and Political Science sought to identify opportunities for collaboration between newsmakers and practitioners from the field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D). In almost every instance, the project failed to promote cooperation between the two groups, though it succeeded...

Theory of Change (ToC) is an emerging methodology in the practice of development programmes, often contrasted with the dominant logical framework. This article reviews current debates around ToC before identifying five aspects that are appreciated in practice. It appears that these aspects mostly cover areas where the logical framework is not – or is no longer – meeting the needs of practitioners. Subsequently, the article analyses experiences in ToC training for NGO staff and concludes that...

Certain international agencies propose that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) allows development to be reached more efficiently and quickly. While there are success stories galore, there is acknowledgement of not all investments in ICT bringing positive effects towards development. Following the Capabilities Approach, this paper discusses how the use of ICT can promote a more effective development by studying the case of Sudotec (association for technological and industrial...

By subsidizing the costs of civic participation, the use of the Internet use is believed to stimulate participation but there are fears that intensive Internet use causes withdrawal from public life. This paper investigates the connection between the way individuals participate online and offline in authoritarian, low-income regimes, and the nature of eParticipation among citizens in authoritarian regimes such as Uganda. Based on personal interviews with 116 Internet users, the...

In this paper, we focus on participatory evaluation in the context of international development and specifically on the emerging empirical knowledge base. In a prior review and critique of research on participatory evaluation (Cousins and Chouinard 2012), we examined 121 studies, with only 21 (17 %) situated in development contexts. However, the circumstances and challenges for international development and for development evaluation are distinct from those found in developed countries and...

Despite a swathe of critiques of logframes and other blueprint approaches to development over the last 30 years, most aid infrastructure continues to concentrate on the design and subsequent implementation of closed models. This article does not propose an alternative to blueprints, but challenges the inflexibility of their implementation, which is inadequate given the complex nature of social change. It proposes a supplementary management and learning approach which enables implementers to...

International trade in wildlife is a key threat to biodiversity conservation. CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, seeks to ensure international wildlife trade is sustainable, relying on trade bans and controls. However, there has been little comprehensive review of its effectiveness and here we review approaches taken to regulate wildlife trade in CITES. Although assessing its effectiveness is problematic, we assert that CITES boasts...