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Thinking and acting politically is central to the SAVI programme. We support staff and partners to analyse the power relations that shape change in their state, and to use this knowledge to inform their decision-making. This includes decisions made by SAVI state teams relating to the issues and partners they engage with and support, and...

SAVI aims to facilitate replicable and sustainable processes of citizen engagement in governance. The programme in each state is locally defined, flexible and adaptive, and results are not predictable in advance. Standardised monitoring tools are not applicable, and consequently we have evolved our tools and frameworks during the programme through processes of learning by doing....

SAVI state teams provide support to CS groups to become more effective agents of citizens’ voice and public accountability, through a variety of mutually reinforcing interventions. These include: hands-on support to demonstration civil society Advocacy Partnerships (APs) facilitating working partnerships between civil society APs, SHoAs, and the media brokering working relationships between all of these...

We promote attention to gender equality and social inclusion in all of our engagement with CS groups, the media and SHoAs, and in all of the issues and processes they work on. In all the states we work in, we also support partners to focus on some issues and form some partnerships and networks which...

The overall aim of SAVI engagement with the media is for media representation of citizens’ interests to become normal, and play its part in helping state governments to be more responsive, inclusive and accountable to their citizens. Media partners – individual media personnel and selected media houses – are supported to be more effective agents...

The overall aim of SAVI engagement with SHoAs is to promote lasting reforms that are not dependent on external funding and which promote an increasingly more responsive and accountable relationship between Nigerian state governments and their citizens. SHoAs are supported to be more effective agents of citizen voice and public accountability, demanding better performance from...

The Theory of Change approach demands a radical shift towards more and better learning in development thinking and practice, creating a productive and much-needed space for critical reflection.

The Sunday Times No.1 Bestseller From the Bestselling Author of BounceWhat links the Mercedes Formula One team with Google?What links Team Sky and the aviation industry?What connects James Dyson and David Beckham?They are all Black Box Thinkers.Black Box Thinking is a new approach to high performance, a means of finding an edge in a complex and fast-changing world. It is not just about sport, but has powerful implications for business and politics, as well as for parents and students. In...

Development actors increasingly agree that managing programs adaptively – especially complex interventions – can improve their effectiveness. A growing body of evidence supports this claim. But what does adaptive management look like in practice? What does it require of managers and donors to make happen? How can we reconfigure incentives and success metrics to support adaptation, while remaining compliant?

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...

The book describes what it means to say the world is complex and explores what that means for managers, policy makers and individuals. The first part of the book is about the theory and ideas of complexity. This is explained in a way that is thorough but not mathematical. It compares differing approaches, and also provides a historical perspective, showing how such thinking has been around since the beginning of civilisation. It emphasises the difference between a complexity worldview and...

The clear development gains achieved in recent decades should not deflect attention from the scale and type of challenges that remain. The strategies largely responsible for these initial gains have been technical reforms promoting economic growth and logistical systems supplying basic inputs. Today, strategies are needed that focus on enhancing the quality of implementation— for example, ensuring learning and not just building schools and enrolling students. This concern now spans numerous...

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,...

Governments and organizations invest huge sums of money in development interventions to explicitly address poverty and its root causes. However, a high proportion of these do not work. This is because interventions are grounded in flawed assumptions about how change happens -- change is rarely linear, yet development interventions are almost entirely based on linear planning models. Change is also characterized by unintended consequences, which are not predictable by planners and by power...

Donors, leaders of nonprofits, and public policy makers usually have the best of intentions to serve society and improve social conditions. But often their solutions fall far short of what they want to accomplish and what is truly needed. Moreover, the answers they propose and fund often produce the opposite of what they want over time. We end up with temporary shelters that increase homelessness, drug busts that increase drug-related crime, or food aid that increases starvation. How do...

This guide draws from our experience around the world helping government reformers achieve real change. It is a practical resource for anyone working to implement an open government initiative.

The Governance Practitioner’s Notebook takes an unusual approach for the OECD-DAC Network on Governance (GovNet). It brings together a collection of specially written notes aimed at those who work as governance practitioners within development agencies. It does so, however, without attempting to offer definitive guidance – instead aiming to stimulate thinking and debate. To aid this process the book is centred on a fictional Governance Adviser. The Notebook’s format provides space for...

The Governance Practitioner’s Notebook takes an unusual approach for the OECD-DAC Network on Governance (GovNet). It brings together a collection of specially written notes aimed at those who work as governance practitioners within development agencies. It does so, however, without attempting to offer definitive guidance – instead aiming to stimulate thinking and debate. To aid this process the book is centred on a fictional Governance Adviser. The Notebook’s format provides space for...