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Addressing 21st century development challenges requires investments in innovation, including the use of new approaches and technologies. Currently, many development organisations prioritise investments in isolated innovation pilots that leverage a specific approach or technology rather than pursuing a strategic approach to expand the organisation’s toolbox with innovations that have proven their comparative advantage over what is currently used. This Working Paper addresses this challenge of...
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This research conducted by WaterAid, Itad and IRC aims to understand the factors that facilitate and inhibit the success of ICT-based reporting to improve rural water supply sustainability.
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An analysis of how and where Outcome Mapping has been applied, how users have experienced OM and the support options available and required for its use. This research was commissioned by the OMLC Stewards.
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This guide is a basic reference on systems thinking and practice tailored to the context and needs of the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). It is an output of the FCDO Knowledge for Development Programme (K4D), which facilitated a Learning Journey on Systems Thinking and Practice with FCDO staff during 2021 and 2022. The guide offers a common language and shared framing of systems thinking for FCDO and its partners. It explores what this implies for...
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Systemcraft is our applied framework to help leaders and organisations get started and keep going when faced with complex problems. It is built on our practical experience. It draws on a broad body of research, action and theory from the worlds of complexity thinking, systems theory, adaptive management, leadership development, social movements, development theory and beyond. Systemcraft has been designed to make systems thinking something any leader can apply when they find themselves faced...
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In Building Better Systems, we introduced four keys to unlock system innovation: purpose and power, relationships and resource flows. These four keys make up a set. Systems are often hard to change because power, relationships, and resource flows are locked together in a reinforcing pattern to serve the system’s current purpose. Systems start to change fundamentally when this pattern is disrupted and opened up. Then a new configuration can emerge, serving a new purpose. In this essay...
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This guidebook codifies the principles and methods of applying systems change and portfolio approaches to complex development challenges with practical tools and examples. It is based on the empirical learning generated from the collaborative initiatives in UNDP Country Offices in Bhutan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Viet Nam with support from Regional Innovation Centre for Asia and the Pacific.
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Key messages • This working paper introduces a set of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools and approaches, discussing their potential usefulness in supporting adaptive management in development and humanitarian programmes. It emphasises adaptive programmes characterised by complex aspects, such as: (1) they are innovative; (2) they have uncertain pathways for change; or (3) they operate in uncertain or unstable environments. • The majority of these tools have been used in international...
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The international development community has increasingly embraced the idea that finding durable solutions to complex development problems requires new ways of working that move beyond industry norms. This paper makes an important contribution to the current debate by outlining an innovative monitoring system called Strategy Testing (ST). This is the third paper in the Working Politically in Practice paper series, launched together with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
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The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique is a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. It is participatory because many project stakeholders are involved both in deciding the sorts of change to be recorded and in analysing the data. It is a form of monitoring because it occurs throughout the programme cycle and provides information to help people manage it. MSC contributes to evaluation because it provides data on impact and outcomes which can be used to help assess the...
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Capturing the impact of community-led work The Centre for Public Impact, Dusseldorp Forum, and Hands Up Mallee have been exploring how stories can be used to more effectively communicate the impact of community-led systems change work. Community-led place based initiatives are modelling new ways of working - shifting away from top down, program-focussed approaches towards an approach grounded in systems thinking and community-led innovations. However, while these stories of change are...
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The purpose of this briefing note is to add to SDC’s understanding of Theory of Change (ToC), drawing on the literature and practice to sketch out the current state of the art approach. This involves expanding on ToC beyond SDC’s current practice of using Impact Hypotheses (IH) to bridge it to operational practice and use ToC more explicitly in the project/programme cycle management (PCM) processes. Sharing the state of the art on use of ToC in the development sector, this briefing...
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This guide, created by the SROI Network in collaboration with Hall Aitken, is aimed at providing guidance to those who have never used SROI on where to begin. The guide provides practical steps to beginning the process of SROI and includes links to tools aimed at supporting its implementation. Excerpt "Most public, private and third sector organisations have a pretty good idea of the costs of what they do. Annual accounts, management accounts, budget reports and a whole accountancy...
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Stakeholder Analysis is used to identify the actors and relationships that influence project outcomes. This guidance, from IRC, can help you determine how to work and who to partner, coordinate or engage with in order to best achieve the outcome. It builds on existing stakeholder information and typically will include a participatory internal meeting or workshop.
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The Strategic Program for Analyzing Complexity and Evaluating Systems (SPACES MERL) project is an activity funded by USAID’s Global Development Lab and the Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL). This three-year activity aims to bring a variety of tools and methodologies that decision-makers can use (alone or in combination) to provide comprehensive systems analysis. The activity is being implemented from 2015 to 2018 by a consortium of organizations expert in systems and...
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The following handbook is designed to provide a step by step guide to the application of Social Network Analysis for the IRC.
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This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document is written for Small Foundation network partners. It accompanies Network Partner Evaluation Toolkit, which outlines four evaluation tools that Small Foundation is encouraging, and supporting, its network partners to use to improve their operations and, ultimately, increase their impact. This FAQ document answers typical questions about these evaluation tools and provides additional detailed recommendations for how network coordinators can...
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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...
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