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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...

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 United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)’s standard economy, efficiency, effectiveness/cost-effectiveness and equity (4E) framework is still relevant for approaching, measuring and managing value for money (VfM) for adaptive programmes. • However, this framework needs to be reframed to capture and incentivise flexibility, learning and adaptation. • VfM appraisal and reporting should be done in a way that draws on beneficiary feedback and informs good...

The Program Cycle is USAID’s operational model for planning, delivering, assessing, and adapting development programming in a given region or country to advance U.S. foreign policy. It encompasses guidance and procedures for: 1) Making strategic decisions at the regional or country level about programmatic areas of focus and associated resources; 2) Designing projects and supportive activities to implement strategic plans; and 3) Learning from performance monitoring, evaluations, and other...

If you just remember these... If you can avoid building it, don’t build it; if you have to build it, hire a CTO, ship early, and mature long; and no matter what, draw on a trusted crew, build lean and fast, and get close to and build with your users as soon as possible. --- This guide aims to help you avoid bad projects, structure the team right, ship and learn quicker, and mature longer. The guide starts with project selection, including why the best project to select is no project at...

This field guide helps to navigate crises using the Cynefin framework as a compass. It proposes a four-stage approach through which we can: - assess the type of crisis and initiate a response; - adapt to the new pace and start building sensing networks to inform decisions; - repurpose existing structures and working methods to generate radical innovation; - transcend the crisis, formalise lessons learnt and increase resilience. The guide stresses the importance of setting and managing...

La pandemia de la Covid-19 ha brotado súbitamente en un momento de transición para las instituciones y organizaciones sociales de medio mundo. Cuando aún no se había superado la crisis de confianza de la última década entre los ciudadanos y los gobiernos, en un momento de gran impulso de las iniciativas de gobierno abierto, planes de innovación y transformación digital, para hacer más democráticas y eficientes las administraciones a través de programas políticos encaminados a configurar un...

A pandemia da Covid-19 surgiu de súbito num momento de transição para as instituições e organizações sociais de meio mundo. Antes ainda de se ter ultrapassado a crise de confiança da última década entre os cidadãos e os governos, num momento de grande impulso das iniciativas de governo aberto e de planos de inovação e transformação digital para tornar mais democráticas e eficientes as administrações através de programas políticos encaminhados para configurar um novo contrato social, verde e...

There are many definitions of the term ‘transformation’ or ‘transformational change’. The first section of the report develops a basic understanding of transformations or transitions (used synonymously) viewed from various perspectives. In this, transformations are defined as processes that use disruptive innovations to change systems into fundamentally new systems that subsequently form the new mainstream. Section two describes existing approaches to environmental and climate finance in...

There are many definitions of the term ‘transformation’ or ‘transformational change’. The first section of the report develops a basic understanding of transformations or transitions (used synonymously) viewed from various perspectives. In this, transformations are defined as processes that use disruptive innovations to change systems into fundamentally new systems that subsequently form the new mainstream. Section two describes existing approaches to environmental and climate finance in...

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...

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...

Tal vez como nunca en la historia, la democracia está siendo desafiada. A los viejos problemas, muchos no resueltos, se les agregan otros, surgidos de la incorporación de tecnología, de la emergencia de nuevos actores sociales y de una conformación de la subjetividad política cada vez más compleja e impredecible. Esta investigación pretende reactualizar algunos de los debates clásicos sobre la democracia y, al mismo tiempo, sentar una base empírica que permita pensar de qué modo la...

This working paper compares six of the most prominent adaptive approaches to emerge over the past two decades. Three come from the world of innovation, largely in the private sector (agile, lean startup and human-centred design), and three from the global development sector (thinking and working politically, forms of adaptive management and problem-driven iterative adaptation). While all of these approaches are valuable when used in the right context, practitioners may be perplexed by the...

This paper probes trends in the use of big data by a community of early adopters working in monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) in the development and humanitarian sectors. Qualitative analysis was conducted on data from MERL Tech conference records and key informant interviews. Findings indicate that MERL practitioners are in a fragmented, experimental phase, with use and application of big data varying widely, accompanied by shifting terminologies. We take an in-depth...

Emerging technology is making monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) more precise and enriching data. However, this evolution is so rapid that it can be difficult to stay informed about the field overall. This paper presents examples of emerging technology that are most often used in MERL for development programs, describes the pros and cons of their use, and discusses technology and ethics concerns that practitioners should keep in mind. The paper covers new types of data...

This paper explores the peer-reviewed evidence base of “traditional” technology-enabled monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL Tech) in international development assistance from 2015 to 2019. The authors conducted a scoping review that searched seven databases, screened 3,054 reference titles and abstracts, coded 886 abstracts, and extracted and analyzed conclusions and recommendations from the full texts of 256 studies. The findings reveal the most frequently reported...

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...

In September of 2014, USAID’s Office of Learning, Evaluation & Research (LER) awarded the Learning and Knowledge Management (LEARN) contract to Dexis Consulting Group and subcontractor RTI International.1 This document—the End of Contract Report—captures five and half years of results and reflections for our stakeholders. Our intention is to share the good and the bad, and while this report would not be considered a “tell all,” we think we have a story worth sharing, particularly to USAID...

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...