Your search
Results 144 resources
-
This paper explores avenues for navigating evaluation design challenges posed by complex social programs (CSPs) and their environments when conducting studies that call for generalizable, causal inferences on the intervention’s effectiveness. A definition is provided of a CSP drawing on examples from different fields, and an evaluation case is analyzed in depth to derive seven (7) major sources of complexity that typify CSPs, threatening assumptions of textbook-recommended experimental...
-
This case study describes how LASER has gone about enabling systemic change and sustainable uptake of reforms that address complex institutional problems in Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somaliland and Uganda. In each of these countries LASER has designed-in a sustainable approach from the start based on: (i) local ownership and leadership of reforms based on developing country (rather than donor) priorities; (ii) use of country (rather than donor programme) systems; and (iii) an...
-
Recognising that aid and development programming takes place in complex contexts, Mercy Corps is increasingly seeking to understand how best to manage programs which iterate, adapt and respond to the consistently evolving settings in which we work. This brief Practice Paper provides some examples of what adaptive management looks like in practice on the Prospects youth employment program in Liberia. It does not seek to function as a manual or set of guidelines, but simply provides some...
-
This paper by Adinda Van Hemelrijck and Irene Guijt explores how impact evaluation can live up to standards broader than statistical rigour in ways that address challenges of complexity and enable stakeholders to engage meaningfully. A Participatory Impact Assessment and Learning Approach (PIALA) was piloted to assess and debate the impacts on rural poverty of two government programmes in Vietnam and Ghana funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). We discuss the...
-
Unexamined and unjustified assumptions are the Achilles’ heel of development programs. In this paper, we describe an evaluation capacity building (ECB) approach designed to help community development practitioners work more effectively with assumptions through the intentional infusion of evaluative thinking (ET) into the program planning, monitoring, and evaluation process. We focus specifically on one component of our ET promotion approach involving the creation and analysis of theory of...
-
Like artisans in a professional guild, we evaluators create tools to suit our ever evolving practice. The tools we use as evaluators are the primary artifacts of our profession, reflect our practice and embody an amalgamation of paradigms and assumptions. With the increasing shifts in evaluation purposes from judging program worth to understanding how programs work, the evaluator’s role is changing to that of facilitating stakeholders in a learning process. This involves clarifying purposes...
-
USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL), together with the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment’s localworks program, is pleased to announce the launch of a Learning Network focused on building the evidence base for Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA).
-
This briefing document for the GPEDC High Level Meeting in November 2016 offers a definition of multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) and shows how they are being used, where they have come from, and what the different sectors bring to the table. It provides an overview of the challenges the present, what they require from individuals and organisations, and how they get started. The report was written with the support of the PEP Initiative, and funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
-
This paper describes Global Partners Governance’s (GPG’s) approach to institutional reform and political change. Developed over the last decade of working in some of the most complex and sensitive political environments with politicians and officials in parliaments, political parties, ministries and local government, it describes the KAPE® (knowledge-application-practice-effect) methodology that we adopt to get ‘sticky’ institutional and behavioural change. Contents 1) Two dimensions of...
-
There’s an unforgettable scene in my favorite movie, Goodfellas, where Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta pay a late night visit to…
-
Sara Mizuta Seavey, M.A., is a Senior Program Officer at FHI360 for the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project, where she works with USAID’s Digital Development Team to conceive, design, and test how real-time data systems can enable a more adaptive and participatory approach to development. She is passionate about systems thinking and participatory approaches to international development. What does space travel have to do with international development?
-
LASER synthesis papers aim to help donors and other stakeholders better understand why and how to approach investment climate reform programming differently. The papers reflect emerging best practice and lessons learnt on what works and what does not work in doing development differently. The papers have been peer-reviewed by experts in the field including senior advisers at DFID, World Bank, IFC and the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (amongst others).
-
First installment of reflections on my US trip. This is on the rise of adaptive management approaches in USAID, and some of the questions it raises
-
Great things can happen at the frontier of theory and practice. When Feedback Labs worked with USAID’s Global Development Lab to bring together leaders in adaptive management at the White House on June 15th, we were pleased that we were able to move past the ongoing conceptual conversations toward discussing what we could do in concrete terms to implement adaptive management in practice.
-
Recognising that aid and development programming takes place in complex contexts, Mercy Corps is increasingly seeking to understand how best to manage programs which iterate, adapt and respond to the consistently evolving settings in which we work. This brief Practice Paper provides some examples of what adaptive management looks like in practice on the Prospects youth employment program in Liberia. It does not seek to function as a manual or set of guidelines, but simply provides some...
-
After 3 years in DFID headquarters, championing adaptive approaches to the delivery of aid and development programmes, I am back in an…
Explore
Theme
-
Adaptive Approaches [+]
- Adaptive Learning (9)
- Adaptive Management (53)
- Adaptive Rigour (2)
- Agile & Lean approaches (14)
- CLA (Collaborating Learning Adapting) (7)
- Design Thinking / HCD (16)
- Doing Development Differently (8)
- Global Delivery Initiative (1)
- MSD - Market Systems Development (1)
- Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (3)
- Other Adaptive approaches (4)
- Other sectors (2)
- PDIA (Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation) (5)
- PEA (Political Economy Analysis) (3)
- Positive Deviance & 2 loops model (2)
- Systems Thinking / Complexity (22)
- TWP (Thinking & Working Politically) (15)
- Cases (22)
- Courses (1)
-
Development Actors Perspectives
(10)
- FCDO/DFID (UK) (7)
- ILO (1)
- World Bank (2)
-
Geography
(16)
-
Africa
(13)
-
Eastern Africa
(2)
- Kenya (1)
- Rwanda (1)
- Somaliland (1)
- Tanzania (1)
- Uganda (2)
-
West Africa
(12)
- Liberia (2)
- Nigeria (9)
- Sierra Leone (1)
-
Eastern Africa
(2)
-
Asia
(5)
-
Eastern Asia
(1)
- China (1)
- South-eastern Asia (2)
-
Southern Asia
(2)
- Bangladesh (1)
- Nepal (1)
-
Eastern Asia
(1)
-
Africa
(13)
-
MEL4 Adaptive Management
(20)
- Evaluating Multi-project programmes (2)
- Impact evaluation (1)
- Indicator-based approaches (1)
- Innovation System Analysis (1)
- Mapping Visualization Methods (1)
- Most Significant Change (1)
- Narrative Based Approaches (1)
- Network Analysis (1)
- Outcome Harvesting (1)
- Outcome Mapping (1)
- Participatory Action Research (1)
- Political Economy Analysis (3)
- Portfolio Management (2)
- Rigour (1)
- Scenario Planning (1)
- SenseMaker (1)
- Stakeholder Feedback (1)
- Systemic Change (3)
- Theory-based evaluations (1)
- TOC (Theory of Change) (2)
- Value for Money (2)
- Networks and Communities of Practice (5)
- Practical (14)
-
Sectors [+]
(27)
- Advocacy and Activism (1)
- Alternative Development (5)
- Citizen Engagement (3)
- Economic development (2)
- Environmental Management (2)
- Gender (1)
- Governance and Accountability (2)
- Innovation (in Development) (2)
- Institutional Capacity & Change (2)
- NGOs (3)
- Peace Building (1)
- Scaling up / Propagating (4)
- Social Accountability (1)
-
Technology (in Development)
(8)
- Appropriate Tech (1)
- Waste Management (1)
Resource type
- Blog Post (25)
- Book (8)
- Book Section (1)
- Conference Paper (3)
- Journal Article (18)
- Magazine Article (4)
- Newspaper Article (1)
- Presentation (1)
- Report (74)
- Web Page (9)