Making Sense of ‘Messiness’. Monitoring and measuring change in market systems: a practitioner's perspective - Ripley, Matthew; Nippard, Daniel (2014)

Making the Most of Mess: Reliability and Policy in Today's Management Challenges - Roe, Emery (Duke University Press Books, 2013)
In Making the Most of Mess, Emery Roe emphasizes that policy messes cannot be avoided or cleaned up; they need to be managed. He shows how policymakers and other professionals can learn these necessary skills from control operators who manage large critical infrastructures such as water supplies, telecommunications systems, and electricity grids. The ways in which they prevent major accidents and failures offer models for policymakers and other professionals to manage the messes they face.Throughout, Roe focuses on the global financial mess of 2008 and its ongoing aftermath, showing how mismanagement has allowed it to morph into other national and international messes. More effective management is still possible for this and many other policy messes but that requires better recognition of patterns and formulation of scenarios, as well as the ability to translate pattern and scenario into reliability. Developing networks of professionals who respond to messes is particularly important. Roe describes how these networks enable the avoidance of bad or worse messes, take advantage of opportunities resulting from messes, and address societal and professional challenges. In addition to finance, he draws from a wide range of case material in other policy arenas. Roe demonstrates that knowing how to manage policy messes is the best approach to preventing crises.

Management challenges to implementing agile processes in traditional development organizations - Boehm, B.; Turner, R. (IEEE Software, 2005)
Discussions with traditional developers and managers concerning agile software development practices nearly always contain two somewhat contradictory ideas. They find that on small, stand-alone projects, agile practices are less burdensome and more in tune with the software industry's increasing needs for rapid development and coping with continuous change. Managers face several barriers, real and perceived, when they try to bring agile approaches into traditional organizations. They categorized the barriers either as problems only in terms of scope or scale, or as significant general issues needing resolution. From these two categories, we've identified three areas - development process conflicts, business process conflicts, and people conflicts - that we believe are the critical challenges to software managers of large organizations in bringing agile approaches to bear in their projects.
Keywords: Aerospace engineering; Aerospace materials; Agile methods; Agile software development; Automatic testing; Business processes; Computer industry; DP industry; Programming; Project management; Refining; Software engineering; Software management; Software systems; development process conflicts; process integration; software development management; software industry; systems engineering; traditional development organizations

Management not models: adaptability, responsiveness, and a few lessons from football - Maclay, Christopher (Development in Practice, 2015)
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 be dynamic, adaptive, and responsive to problems and opportunities. Emphasising the role of donors, the paper presents a case study of one donor-led programme in Bangladesh doing just this.
Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2015.983460

Managing and Adapting a development program: Lessons from PRISMA - Seely, Kevin (PRISMA, 2019)
This case study is part of the AIP-Rural Learning Series. Funders and implementers of international development programs largely agree that adaptive management is industry best practice. Most development experts also broadly agree on what ‘adaptive management’ means. In this case study, we use a common definition of ‘adaptive management’, including the following features: Flexibility. Implementers create, modify and drop interventions when circumstances change or new information emerges, in order to tailor strategies to context and maximise impact. Purposeful experimentation. Implementers test different activities at the same time, monitoring them to learn what will achieve the desired impact. Since 2015, the number of publications calling for and praising adaptive management in development programs has grown fast. These publications give us an idea of the state of adaptive management in development programs. They reveal progress in some areas, such as tailoring interventions to local context and using evidence for decision-making. Yet they also reveal multiple, ongoing, real-world constraints to adaptive management. This case study explores how one development program, PRISMA, has avoided and overcome some of these constraints, whilst continuing to battle others. Four major constraints revealed in the adaptive management literature are discussed in this case study: Programs are designed in ways that make it hard to adapt interventions, target regions or sectors based on new learning or changing circumstances. Programs struggle to create an organisational culture that encourages learning and adapting. When staffing programs, recruiters prioritise sectoral expertise and length of experience over adaptive managerial competence. Program managers face pressures to spend their budgets predictably and before their program ends. Learning and testing take time and cost little, so managers feel pressure to deprioritise them. The first of these constraints is explored in the next section, ‘Design’, which looks at how the selection of target sectors and performance targets affects PRISMA implementers’ ability to manage adaptively. The third section, ‘Organisational Culture’, shares lessons on encouraging staff to test and improve interventions. Section 4, ‘Staffing’, looks at hiring adaptive managers, and freeing up their time to improve interventions. The final section summarises this case study’s key lessons. Throughout this paper, findings are based on 16 in-depth interviews with PRISMA’s junior, mid-level and senior staff, and its funders. To contextualise these findings, the authors reviewed the ‘adaptive management’ literature, and drew on their experience with development programs worldwide.

Managing Better: What All of Us Can Do to Encourage Aid Success - Honig, Dan (Center for Global Development, 2020)
Management by way of top-down controls and targets sometimes gets in the way of aid donors’ aims, undermining project success. These unhelpful controls often stem from a need to account for performance; legislatures or executive boards induce agencies to exercise tight process controls and orient projects towards what is measurable and reportable.

Managing Complexity: Adaptive Management at Mercy Corps - Mercy Corps (2015)
Managing Complexity: Adaptive management at Mercy Corps

Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis. A field guide for decision makers inspired by the Cynefin framework - Snowden, Dave; Rancati, Alessandro (Publications Office of the European Union, 2021)
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 boundaries, building informal structures, keeping options open, distributing engagement and keeping an ongoing assessment of the evolving landscape. Action items, real life examples and demonstrations complement the references to the developing theoretical framework.

Managing Facilities: a stock-take from the first 12 months - Tyrrel, Lavinia; Teskey, Graham; de Lacy, Jacqui (Abt Associates, 2017)

Managing Humanitarian Innovation: The cutting edge of aid - James, Eric; Taylor, Abigail (Practical Action Publishing, 2018)
The challenges facing humanitarian logistics are huge. Refugee camps present enormously challenging environments in which sudden spikes in demand, difficult to access locations, disruptions due to conflict or disasters, as well as normal supply chain problems are commonplace. This means that orders for medical and other supplies can take weeks and sometimes months to fulfil, severely impeding humanitarian operations. There is also a lack of or slow adoption of technology routinely used elsewhere. In addition, humanitarian logistics are also expensive. When customs clearance, transportation, storage, middlemen and administration are added in, the costs of basic items are often exorbitant. Managing Humanitarian Innovation presents a new approach that is beginning to transform the way humanitarian logistics are conducted. Innovation in logistics includes disrupting and improving supply chains through the use of technology, especially 3D printers, and engaging people to manage this approach. The book discusses what innovation is, and strategies for supporting it; it describes practical innovations and how they have been applied; and it outlines how innovation labs can be run. Finally it covers how to fund innovation and it suggests how humanitarian innovation might develop in the future. This book brings together the real experience of practitioners who have made innovation work. It is a collaborative work written by and for the community of people involved in humanitarian innovation, in particular in the making and manufacturing of humanitarian supplies. The book is full of practical and actionable points of value to the humanitarian community. Managing Humanitarian Innovation is essential reading for humanitarian practitioners as well as volunteers and others involved in humanitarian supplies provision. It is equally helpful to thought leaders, policy makers and educators.

Managing Policy Mess - Roe, Emery (Governance in Turbulent Times, 2016)
What are the conditions for political development and decay, and the likelihood of sustained political order? What are the limits of established rule as we know it? How much stress can systems tackle before they reach some kind of limit? How do governments tackle enduring ambiguity and uncertainty in their systems and environments? These are some of the big questions of our time. Governance in turbulent times may serve as a stress-test of well-known ways of governing in the 21st century. Governance in Turbulent Times discusses this pertinent challenge and suggests how governments and organizations cope with and live with turbulence. The book explores how organizations and institutions respond to precipitous, conflicting, and novel-in short, turbulent-governance challenges. This book is a comprehensive and ground-breaking endeavor to understand how governance systems respond to turbulent challenges, and how turbulent times provide excellent opportunities to investigate the sustainability of governance systems. The book illustrates how politics, administrative scale and complexity, uncertainty, and time constraints can collide to produce turbulence. Building on prior work in organization theory and political science, we argue that turbulence refers to four properties related to the interaction of demands for action: variability, consistency, expectation, and unpredictability. Turbulence occurs where the interaction of demands is experienced as highly variable, inconsistent, unexpected, and/or unpredictable.
Google-Books-ID: IYSuDQAAQBAJ
Keywords: Comparative Politics; International Relations; Political Process; Political science; Public Affairs & Administration

Managing staff transistions through CLA: preserving institutional memory as staff come and go - USAID (USAID LEARN, 2019)
This document is relevant for any position or hiring mechanism. While this document does not explicitly address what happens when someone arrives into a newly-created position, which has its own set of challenges, many of the principles, actions, and resources can be applied in that context. Section 1 offers guidance for how to set up and implement systems at Mission/OU or office to ensure that all staff help preserve institutional memory and enable continuity of relationships. This section is for any staff in a Mission/OU working to build systems that improve handovers and knowledge capture and sharing across the Mission or OU. If a Mission or OU is just beginning to develop a system to manage staff transitions, you may want to start by developing a system within an office or team and then expand it out to other offices or to the Mission/OU writ large. Section 2 includes key principles and actions individuals could consider following when arriving or departing a position, regardless of hiring mechanism and position. This includes staff new to the Mission/OU and staff who are currently in the Mission/OU and are moving into a new position. Section 3 provides a select number of resources to help you take a systematic and comprehensive approach to manage staff transitions as effectively and efficiently as possible at the individual or organizational level.

Managing the Journey to Scale Up Innovation in the Humanitarian and Development Sector - McClure, Dan; Gray, Ian (ThoughtWorks, 2015)

Managing to Adapt: Analysing adaptive management for planning, monitoring, evaluation, and learning - Desai, Harsh; Maneo, Gabriele; Pellfolk, Erica; Schlingheider, Annika (Oxfam, 2018)
Adaptive management is at the heart of ‘Doing Development Differently’. It emerges from stakeholders’ calls for development programmes to be more flexible and responsive to their contexts. Whether it becomes a mainstreamed practice depends on how much it is

Managing uncertainty when your brain doesn’t like it - Proud, Emma (LearnAdapt, 2020)
Over lockdown there were a lot of tantrums in our household. The tears and tussles were at a dramatic high when the schools closed, and…

Managing Upward and Downward Accountability in an International Development Project - A Case Study of a World Bank Telecommunications Infrastructure Project in Benin - Kolker, Eva; Kulldorff, Catharina (Master's Thesis, Stockholm School of Economics, 2013)
Keywords: Downward accountability; Upward accountability

Manifesto for Agile Software Development - Agile Alliance (Agile Alliance, 2001)

Manifesto for Half-Arsed Development Reforms - Ramalingam, Ben (Aid on the Edge of Chaos, 2014)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Mapping Context for Social Accountability: A resource paper - O'Meally, Sion C. (The World Bank, 2013)

Mapping the Outcomes of Citizen Engagement - Gaventa, John; Barrett, Gregory (World Development, 2012)
Summary Despite the normative beliefs that underpin the concept of participation, its impact on improved democratic, and developmental outcomes has proven difficult to assess. Using a meta-case study analysis of a sample of 100 cases, we inductively create a typology of four democratic and developmental outcomes, including (a) the construction of citizenship, (b) the strengthening of practices of participation, (c) the strengthening of responsive and accountable states, and (d) the development of inclusive and cohesive societies. We find that citizen participation produces positive effects across these outcome types, though in each category there are also important types of negative outcomes as well.
Keywords: Citizen engagement; Citizenship; Development outcomes; Participation; democratic outcomes; meta-analysis

Marine Conservation Outcomes are More Likely when Fishers Participate as Citizen Scientists: Case Studies from the Mexican Mesoamerican Reef - Fulton, Stuart; Caamal-Madrigal, Jacobo; Aguilar-Perera, Alfonso; Bourillón, Luis; Heyman, William D. (Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 2018)
Small-scale fishers on Caribbean coral reefs have exploited fish spawning aggregations (FSAs) for generations, but intense fishing has led to the loss of traditional aggregation sites. In many areas, the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of fishers has contributed greatly to the characterization of spawning aggregations and implementation of local conservation initiatives. TEK has identified more than 40 potential FSA sites along the coast of the Mexican Mesoamerican Reef. These sites have been characterised and scientifically validated, in some cases with traditional western science and in others, with a participatory citizen-science approach. The objective of this work is to compare the science and conservation outcomes at these FSA sites. We report that those FSA sites where scientific surveys were conducted without community participation remain unprotected. By contrast, the FSAs where local fishers were engaged in characterization and subsequent monitoring are now protected at the behest of the fishers themselves. Conservation initiatives to protect FSAs can be more effective through a combination of TEK, western science, and participatory citizen science involving local fishers.
Keywords: Citizen science; Fishers; Spawning Aggregation; Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Market systems change rubric - Loveridge, Donna (Oxford Policy Management, 2022)
This systems change rubric describes different performance levels according to various systems elements, such as policy (formal rules), practices and relationships and connections. Programmes can use the rubric to assess the performance of systems to help decide where and how to intervene, or during and post-implementation to conduct progress assessments, and assess the effectiveness of interventions and type, breadth and depth of systems change. Each performance level description highlights the type of data and information that needs to be collected. One analysis is completed, users can compare this to the performance descriptions to see which level best matches the analysis. This helps programmes draw conclusions about systems changes. The rubric was developed in 2020 and tested in 2021 and builds on systems change thinking and frameworks from two previous FSG publications. It can be used as: pre-intervention to conduct an assessment during an intervention to conduct progress assessments and reflect on the effectiveness of interventions to change systems and inform decision making post intervention to make judgements about whether interventions were valuable given the resources, time and effort spent Useful for: Implementation managers to determine the effectiveness of interventions, as well as by Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) teams to track progress against expected outcomes.

Market Systems Development - Operational Guidance Note - DFAT (DFAT, 2017)

Matrixing Aid: The Rise and Fall of 'Results Initiatives' in Swedish Development Aid - Vähämäki, Janet (Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, 2017)

Mayne18-Developing Useful ToCs REV3 - Mayne, John (2019)
An update on the previous September 2018 uploaded article

Meant to Keep Malaria Out, Mosquito Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In - Gettleman, Jeffrey (The New York Times, 2015)
Nets like his are widely considered a magic bullet against malaria — one of the cheapest and most effective ways to stop a disease that kills at least half a million Africans each year. But Mr. Ndefi and countless others are not using their mosquito nets as global health experts have intended. Nobody in his hut, including his seven children, sleeps under a net at night. Instead, Mr. Ndefi has taken his family’s supply of anti-malaria nets and sewn them together into a gigantic sieve that he uses to drag the bottom of the swamp ponds, sweeping up all sorts of life: baby catfish, banded tilapia, tiny mouthbrooders, orange fish eggs, water bugs and the occasional green frog

Measuring and Monitoring Adaptive Learning: A Landscape Review - LaFond, Anne; Adrian, Haley (USAID MOMENTUM Knowledge Accelerator, 2022)
This landscape review on measuring and monitoring adaptive learning highlights the learning from five adaptive programming guidelines and toolkits and one implementation science framework to inform the monitoring and evaluation of adaptive learning. The introduction of adaptive learning processes and skillsets in global health programming is part of an emerging strategy to advance a learning culture within projects and teams to improve health program performance. The monitoring and evaluation of adaptive learning is an emergent field aiming to monitor how adaptive learning processes have been introduced, how they are used, and whether they are having the intended results. Although there is a growing body of literature on adaptive programming more generally, there is a limited knowledge base on the monitoring and evaluation of adaptive learning interventions and their impacts. Unlike other implementation strategies or program management approaches, there are no standard metrics or a monitoring and evaluation framework to track the integration, implementation, and effectiveness of adaptive learning in health programming.

Measuring Efforts to Combat Wildlife Crime - A toolkit for Improving Actiona and Accountability (v.1.3) - USAID (USAID, 2017)

Measuring Governance, Advocacy and Power: A Database of Existing Indicators, Tools and Indices - Poirrier, Caroline; Tolmie, Courtney (R4D, 2020)
Measuring Governance, Advocacy, and Power is an excel sheet that brings together existing indicators, tools, and indices that may be useful to practitioners responsible for the measurement of outcomes in the field of governance, advocacy, and power in an easily accessible and filterable format.

Measuring Impact: A Learning Approach to Strengthening USAID Biodiversity Programs - Lauck, Liz (2014)

Measuring Impact. Making Use of the Portfolio: Organizational Learning at USAID - Peabody, Shawn (USAID, 2015)
This technical analysis explores previous and ongoing social learning efforts, best practices, challenges, and lessons in USAID as a foundation for improving the implementation and design of the Agency’s forestry and biodiversity programs. This analysis is particularly relevant as the Bureau of Economic Growth, Education and the Environment’s Office of Forestry and Biodiversity (E3/FAB) begins to develop a Cross-Mission Learning Program under the Measuring Impact initiative, a five-year activity to promote the adoption of best practices in the USAID program cycle among Missions using biodiversity funds. The findings reported in this document can help inform the overall design and structure of the Learning Program and provide insight into possible challenges and best practices.

Measuring Results & the DCED Standard - Tanburn, Jim (2014)
This page gives an introduction to the DCED Standard, which is a framework that helps practitioners to measure results in Private Sector Development (PSD).

Measuring the Barriers to Big Data for Development: design-reality gap analysis - Fernando Gomez, L.; Heeks, R. (Manchester University Development Informatics Working Paper Series, 2016)

Measuring Up: Evaluating the Impact of P/CVE Programs - Holmer, Georgia; Bauman, Peter (United States Institute of Peace, 2018)
This report considers the various conceptual and practical challenges in measuring the impact and value of programs designed to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE). It examines potential solutions and emphasizes the significance of efforts to assess changes in attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. The report was developed in tandem with “Taking Stock: Analytic Tools for Understanding and Designing P/CVE Programs” and seeks to help advance more rigor and sustainability in P/CVE programming.

Mechanisms of Techno-Moral Change: A Taxonomy and Overview - Danaher, John; Sætra, Henrik Skaug (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2023)
The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three domains there are six primary mechanisms of techno-moral change: (i) adding options; (ii) changing decision-making costs; (iii) enabling new relationships; (iv) changing the burdens and expectations within relationships; (v) changing the balance of power in relationships; and (vi) changing perception (information, mental models and metaphors). The paper also discusses the layered, interactive and second-order effects of these mechanisms.

Mediating Voices, Communicating Realities: Using Information Crowdsourcing Tools, Open Data Initiatives and Digital Media to Support and Protect the Vulnerable - Berdou, Evangelia (IDS, 2011)
This is the final report from a research project, supported by the UK Department for International Development, examining whether and how open ICT projects designed to support the poor can make a diff...

Mentoring Programmes: Supporting Effective Technology Use in Transparency and Accountability Organisations - Herringshaw, Vanessa; Faith, Becky (Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 2015)
The global movement to hold governments and companies accountable is growing rapidly, and technology can play a vital role. Some actors harness this potential to brilliant effect. But many others waste precious money and staff time on technology that isn’t a good fit for their aims or capacity. Mentorships can be a really effective way …

MERL Tech State of the Field - The evolution of MERL Tech - Raftree, Linda (MERL Tech, 2020)

mHero and the Principles for Digital Development: Development Done Right | iHRIS (2016)

Micropolitics in collective learning spaces for adaptive decision making - Tschakert, Petra; Das, Partha Jyoti; Shrestha Pradhan, Neera; Machado, Mario; Lamadrid, Armando; Buragohain, Mandira; Hazarika, Masfique Alam (Global Environmental Change, 2016)
Recent advances on power, politics, and pathways in climate change adaptation aim to re-frame decision-making processes from development-as-usual to openings for transformational adaptation. This paper offers empirical insights regarding decision-making politics in the context of collective learning through participatory scenario building and flexible flood management and planning in the Eastern Brahmaputra Basin of Assam, India. By foregrounding intergroup and intragroup power dynamics in such collective learning spaces and how they intersect with existing micropolitics of adaptation on the ground, we examine opportunities for and limitations to challenging entrenched authority and subjectivities. Our results suggest that emancipatory agency can indeed emerge but is likely to be fluid and multifaceted. Community actors who are best positioned to resist higher-level domination may well be imbricated in oppression at home. While participatory co-learning as embraced here might open some spaces for transformation, others close down or remain shut.
Keywords: Co-learning; Flood management; Participatory scenarios; Politics of adaptation; Power

Mind the gaps: What's missing in political economy analysis and why it matters - Hudson, David; Marquette, Heather (A Governance Practitioner’s Notebook: Alternative Ideas and Approaches, 2015)
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 experts to speak on today’s governance issues: politics, public sector reform and stakeholder engagement. It encourages debate, charts the evolution of donor thinking, and highlights future challenges in the age of the Sustainable Development Goals. Each section introduces both technical issues and major areas of debate, providing ideas for future development support to institutional reform.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Minipublics: Designing Institutions for Effective Deliberation and Accountability - Fung, Archon (Accountability through public opinion : from inertia to public action, 2010)
“Accountability” has become a buzzword in international development. Development actors appear to delight in announcing their intention to “promote accountability”—but it is often unclear what accountability is and how it can be promoted. This book addresses some questions that are crucial to understanding accountability and for understanding why accountability is important to improve the effectiveness of development aid. We ask: What does it mean to make governments accountable to their citizens? How do you do that? How do you create genuine demand for accountability among citizens, how do you move citizens from inertia to public action? The main argument of this book is that accountability is a matter of public opinion. Governments will only be accountable if there are incentives for them to do so—and only an active and critical public will change the incentives of government officials to make them responsive to citizens’ demands. Accountability without public opinion is a technocratic, but not an effective solution. In this book, more than 30 accountability practitioners and thinkers discuss the concept and its structural conditions; the relationship between accountability, information, and the media; the role of deliberation to promote accountability; and mechanisms and tools to mobilize public opinion. A number of case studies from around the world illustrate the main argument of the book: Public opinion matters and an active and critical public is the surest means to achieve accountability that will benefit the citizens in developing countries. This book is designed for policy-makers and governance specialists working within the international development community, national governments, grassroots organizations, activists, and scholars engaged in understanding the interaction between accountability and public opinion and their role for increasing the impact of international development interventions.

Minister of International Development and La Francophonie Mandate Letter (November 12, 2015) - Office of the Prime Minister (2015)
Dear Minister:I am honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of International Development and La Francophonie. You will be part of a strong team of ministers led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

MIRADI: Adaptive Management Software for Conservation Projects (2018)

Miradi Measures Dashboard Demo - Salzer, D (2013)
Live demonstration (view in HD) of a new online measures dashboard site (http://miradi.sitkatech.com) that allows users of the Miradi Adaptive Management software (http://miradi.org) to share the progress they are making towards achieving their desired results

(Mis)communicating climate change? Why online adaptation databases may fail to catalyze adaptation action - Mitchell, Carrie L.; Burch, Sarah L.; Driscoll, Patrick A. (Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2016)
Over the last decade a plethora of action-oriented research projects has been conducted in developing countries, exploring how to effectively adapt to the anticipated impacts of climate change. Many intergovernmental agencies and development organizations have chosen to disseminate their research results via online databases. It is unclear, however, whether these databases are useful in terms of actual adaptation planning and implementation. A systematic review of online databases has found at least 64 databases and tools online related to climate change adaptation. Despite the abundance of databases, this analysis reveals that the existing body of online databases generally lack the structure and mechanics to identify, extract, and synthesize both effective and ineffective climate change adaptation practices, projects, programs, and policies. Even relatively basic information, such as identification of projects’ projected versus actual costs is absent, which are crucial decision-making criteria particularly in developing country contexts where resource constraints are significant. In this paper we evaluate these online tools with a focus on identifying features that potentially could contribute to knowledge sharing and successful exchange of climate change adaptation projects and practices within a developing country context. We conclude the paper with recommendations for how to improve efforts to communicate climate change research, such as more nuanced needs assessments of potential users of databases. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:600–613. doi: 10.1002/wcc.401 This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for Adaptation Climate and Development > Knowledge and Action in Development Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice

Mission-Based Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Platforms Assessment Report - Arntson, Laura; Giannoni, Tonya; Peek, Nancy; Saarlas, Kristin (USAID, 2017)
In 2016, the Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL) commissioned an internal stocktaking of USAID's mission-based MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning) Platforms.

MLE or MEL in adaptive programming? - Pellini, Arnaldo (Knowledge counts, 2018)

Mobilizing Accountability: A Learning Agenda for Grassroots Organizations and Social Movements Addressing State Accountability - Joyce, Mary; Halloran, Brendan (Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 2015)

Mobilizing Accountability: Citizens, Movements and the State - Halloran, Brendan; Flores, Walter (Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 2015)

Modelo HIP - Hexágono de la innovación pública - Oliván Cortés, Raúl (2021)

Models for Foresight Use in International Development - Rhydderch, Alun (IDS Bulletin, 2016)
This article sets out the components of the foresight approach that has been adopted by many governments in the developed world, and identifies elements of this 'dominant' approach that may hinder its uptake in developing countries. Instead, it suggests that a less rigid, more exploratory and normative approach may be better suited to many developing country contexts. With reference to the writings and practice of the creator of 'la prospective', Gaston Berger, it argues for an attitude that combines bold and inclusive thinking about how to create better futures with the pragmatic engagement with political and administrative systems that can help bring these about.

Modern Slavery Prevention and Responses in South Asia: An Evidence Map - Oosterhoff, Pauline; Yunus, Raudah; Jensen, Charity; Somerwell, Francis; Pocock, Nicola (DFID, 2018)
The Asia Pacific region has the highest numbers of both slavery and child labour victims in the world. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 16.5 million and 8.4 million persons were in situations of forced labour and forced marriage respectively in Asia Pacific, among 40.3 million in modern slavery globally (ILO & Walk Free Foundation 2017). Although there is a growing body of research and evaluations on specific sub-sectors and interest in the worst forms of labour exploitation, there has not yet been a systematic scoping or synthesis of studies that would help policymakers understand ‘what works’ to reduce the prevalence of “Modern Slavery”2(MS) in the countries of interest to DFID (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan). India alone is estimated to have the largest number of people in modern slavery in the world with nearly 8 million persons living in modern slavery, followed by 3.2 million, 592,000 and 171,000 in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal respectively (Walk Free Foundation 2018). While systematic reviews on interventions to reduce prevalence of trafficking, forced or bonded labour or slavery exist, these have not focused on the target countries of interest to DFID. Previous systematic reviews have focussed on particular types of MS, such as cross border sexual exploitation globally (van der Laan et al. 2011), labour exploitation in Europe (Cockbain et al. 2018) or community based interventions for safer migration programming in low and middle income countries (LMICs) (Zimmerman et al. 2016). Several systematic reviews focus specifically on health needs and post-trafficking care or interventions (Ottisova et al. 2016; Muraya & Fry 2016; Hemmings et al. 2016; Dell et al. 2017), and research methods and tools used in trafficking in persons (TIP) and health research (Cannon et al. 2018; Doherty et al. 2016). A recent global review and evidence map of MS interventions found some interventions in the target countries, but the outcomes were not specified (Bryant & Joudo 2018). In this Evidence Map, we address this gap in evidence for India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan specifically, scoping the range of Modern Slavery interventions and outcomes for specific target populations (survivors, employers, landlords, services providers, criminal justice officials) and at different levels (individual, community, state). This map is foremost targeted to DFID and its partners in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan to inform evidence-based policy making. We hope that it is also useful to academics and practitioners working to address modern slavery, or in intervention areas or locations described.

Monday morning in Kigali: what do you do when you get off the plane? Practical guidance for PDIA practitioners - LASER (DFID-LASER Programme, 2016)
In order to help enhance the effectiveness of donors and development practitioners on the ground, LASER has produced a range of practical guidance and tools. These are primarily intended for the international development community engaged in designing and implementing investment climate programmes, though can also be used more widely by other stakeholders across sectors. General guidance and tools: Monday morning in Kigali January 2016 - what do you do when you get off the plane? Practical guidance for PDIA practitioners
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

Monitoreo ciudadano en México: Participación ciudadana para mejorar la provisión de servicios públicos - Hevia, Felipe (CIDE, 2016)
Existe un amplio consenso sobre la importancia de los sistemas de monitoreo y evaluación para la mejora de políticas, programas y servicios públicos. Sin embargo, en la literatura especializada sorprende el escaso interés por analizar un tipo

Monitoring and Adaptive Management - Ossi, Damien (District of Columbia Wildlife Action Plan - 2015, 2015)

Monitoring and Evaluating Conflict Sensitivity: Methodological Challenges and Practical Solutions - Goldwyn, Rachel; Chigas, Diana (DFID, 2013)

Monitoring and evaluation: five reality checks for adaptive management - Pasanen, Tiina (ODI Insight, 2017)

Monitoring and evaluation for adaptive programming - Roche, Chris; Kelly, Linda (Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre, 2018)
Chris Roche and Linda Kelly with six take-aways on what is being tried and learnt in setting up monitoring and evaluation frameworks for adaptive programs.

Monitoring and evaluation for thinking and working politically - Aston, Thomas; Roche, Chris; Schaaf, Marta; Cant, Sue (Evaluation, 2022)
This article explores the challenges of monitoring and evaluating politically informed and adaptive programmes in the international development field. We assess the strengths and weaknesses of some specific evaluation methodologies which have been suggested as particularly appropriate for these kinds of programmes based on scholarly literature and the practical experience of the authors in using them. We suggest that those methods which assume generative causality are particularly well suited to the task. We also conclude that factoring in the politics of uncertainty and evidence generation and use is particularly important in order to recognize and value diverse experiential knowledge, integrate understandings of the local context, accommodate adaptation and realistically grapple with the power relations which are inherent in evaluation processes.
Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd

Monitoring and Evaluation in the Development Sector - KPMG (KPMG International, 2014)

Monitoring and evaluation of policy influence and advocacy - Tsui, Josephine; Hearn, Simon; Young, John (ODI, 2014)
Policy influence and advocacy are increasingly regarded as a means of creating sustainable policy change in international development. It is often also seen as a difficult area to monitor and evaluate. Yet there is an increasingly rich strand of innovation in options to monitor, evaluate and learn from both the successes and failures of policy influence and advocacy interventions. This paper explores current trends in monitoring and evaluating policy influence and advocacy; discusses different theories of how policy influence happens; and presents a number of options to monitor and evaluate different aspects of advocacy interventions. Case studies describe how some organisations have used these options in practice to understand their impact and improve their advocacy strategies.

Monitoring And Evaluation Tools and Approaches to Support Adaptive Management - Pasanen, Tiina (GLAM, 2019)

Monitoring and learning for country-level portfolio decision-making and adaptation - Buffardi, Anne L; Mason, Paige; Hutchings, Claire; Sharp, Samuel (ODI/GLAM, 2019)
Most measurement and adaptive management approaches were developed for and from individual projects. This briefing aims to guide measurement and management of country-level portfolios of work. It identifies potential purposes portfolio-level analyses can fulfil, types of adaptation, and the relative role of monitoring, learning and evaluation (MEL). Drawing on reviews of practice from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), guidance notes, and experiences of members of the Global Learning for Adaptive Management (GLAM) initiative, it offers recommendations and considerations that are particularly relevant for this level of analysis and management. Key messages - Portfolio-level analyses can serve eight potential purposes, each of which answers different questions, involves adaptation at different times and levels, and requires different types of evidence. Identifying the purpose(s) and how the component parts relate to each other should guide the development of monitoring and learning systems. - Portfolios are oriented more towards breadth than depth, involve more people with different perspectives, and draw on multiple sources of evidence with potentially greater variation in quality. - In practice, four activities appear to be applied most frequently at a portfolio level: alignment of indicators and aggregation of monitoring data; synthesis of multiple sources and types of information to provide a summary of outputs, outcomes, common observations and trends; periodic review and reflection sessions; and strategic planning, design or refresh of the portfolio strategy. - The extent to which evidence-informed portfolio management is facilitating learning and adaptation has not been well documented to date, and we suggest potential indicators to do so.

Monitoring and Measuring Results in Private Sector Development (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC, 2016)

Monitoring and Result Measurement for Adaptive Programming - How to Use Data to Manage a MSD Program: Lessons from PRISMA - Khan, Khaled; Seely, Kevin; Ridwan, Mustika; Mulya, Bodhiya (PRISMA, 2019)
Using monitoring data to improve interventions is harder than it seems. Decision-makers are often busy implementing activities, unclear about their roles in data collection and analysis, and uncertain what data matters most or when. PRISMA, an AUD77 million agricultural Market Systems Development (MSD) programme funded by DFAT Australia, has encountered these challenges. With the programme completing its first five year phase, this case study shares ten key lessons divided into three sections: shaping the culture, developing systems, and top management decisions. These lessons aim to help program, sector and intervention managers make better use of monitoring data to improve interventions.

Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning for Complex Programs in Complex Contexts: Three Facility Case Studies - Davda, Tara; Tyrrel, Lavinia (Abt Associates, 2019)

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning in Emergencies - Dominique Morel; Hagens, Clara (Catholic Relief Services, 2012)

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning approaches in an adaptive management context - Tsui, Josephine (EPS PEAKS, ODI, 2016)

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for Complex Programs in Complex Contexts: Three Facility Case Studies – Governance Soapbox - Davda, Tara; Tyrrel, Lavinia (Abt Associates - Governance Soapbox, 2019)

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning in NGO Advocacy - Findings from Comparative Policy Advocacy MEL Review Project - Coe, Jim; Majot, Juliette (ODI and Oxfam, 2013)
For organizations committed to social change, advocacy often figures as a crucial strategic element. How to assess effectiveness in advocacy is, therefore, important. The usefulness of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) in advocacy are subject to much current debate. Advocacy staff, MEL professionals, senior managers, the funding community, and stakeholders of all kinds are searching for ways to improve practices – and thus their odds of success – in complex and contested advocacy environments. This study considers what a selection of leading advocacy organizations are doing in practice. We set out to identify existing practice and emergent trends in advocacy-related MEL practice, to explore current challenges and innovations. The study presents perceptions of how MEL contributes to advocacy effectiveness, and reviews the resources and structures dedicated to MEL.

Monitoring for problem-solving, adaptive management, reporting and learning - Dominique Morel; Dzino-Silajdzic, Velida; Hagens, Clara (Catholic Relief Services, 2020)
Internal and external stakeholders have different information needs over a project’s life, for purposes that include adaptive management, accountability, compliance, reporting and learning. A project’s monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning, or MEAL, system should provide the information needed by these stakeholders at the level of statistical reliability, detail and timing appropriate to inform data use. In emergency contexts where the situation is still fluid, ‘informal monitoring’ has proved helpful to staff’s ongoing assessment of the broader environment in order to identify changes in the situation, in other actors’ responses, and in priority unmet needs that would require corresponding changes in the response.2 The same distinction between informal monitoring of possible changes in the project’s operating context—whether identified as project assumptions and risk factors or not—and formal monitoring of the activities included in the response and project indicators, is relevant for development contexts too. Informal monitoring: Ongoing assessment of changes in operating context Formal monitoring: Tracking progress against project activities and indicators Within formal monitoring, it is useful to further differentiate between light monitoring and rigorous monitoring: - Light monitoring aims to provide timely feedback on new activities (or new locations or target groups) or aspects of the project’s theory of change (activity-to-output or output-to-IR change) logic that staff are less confident about, to check for early signs that progress is being made and that assumptions are holding true while there is still ample time to make adjustments if necessary.3 - Rigorous monitoring aims to collect representative data for evidence-based project management, reporting and learning, not just at midterm but throughout project implementation.

Monitoring Humanitarian Innovation - Warner, Alexandra; Obrecht, Alice (ALNAP, 2017)

Monitoring in adaptive co-management: Toward a learning based approach - Cundill, Georgina; Fabricius, Christo (Journal of Environmental Management, 2009)
The recognition of complexity and uncertainty in natural resource management has lead to the development of a wealth of conceptual frameworks aimed at integrated assessment and complex systems monitoring. Relatively less attention has however been given to methodological approaches that might facilitate learning as part of the monitoring process. This paper reviews the monitoring literature relevant to adaptive co-management, with a focus on the synergies between existing monitoring frameworks, collaborative monitoring approaches and social learning. The paper discusses the role of monitoring in environmental management in general, and the challenges posed by scale and complexity when monitoring in adaptive co-management. Existing conceptual frameworks for monitoring relevant to adaptive co-management are reviewed, as are lessons from experiences with collaborative monitoring. The paper concludes by offering a methodological approach to monitoring that actively seeks to engender reflexive learning as a means to deal with uncertainty in natural resource management.
Keywords: Adaptive co-management; Collaborative monitoring; Complexity; Social learning

More accountable and responsive governance: How do technologies help make it happen? - Brock, Karen; McGee, Rosemary (2017)
The change Making All Voices Count wants to see is more responsive, accountable governance. The programme has contributed to this change by supporting tech-enabled initiatives which amplify citizen voice and nurture government responsiveness, and by building understanding of when and how the technologies help create and support change. In March 2017, partners from 34 of the programme's projects met with Making All Voices Count staff and associates in South Africa in order to share their stories of change. The learning event participants analysed their experiences using a framework that describes seven streams of tech-enabled change: the information stream; the feedback stream; the naming-and-shaming stream; the conducive innovation system stream; the connecting citizens stream; the infomediation stream and the intermediation stream.

More books on complexity than you can shake a stick at—plus a mea culpa - Algoso, Dave (Praxis, 2016)
Last month, Duncan Green was kind enough to post my overly ambitious multi-book review on complexity thinking in development on his From Poverty to Power blog. It covered three books: Ben Ramalingam’s Aid on the Edge of Chaos; Jean Boulton, Peter Allen, and Cliff Bowman’s Embracing Complexity; and Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley’s Navigating Complexity in International Development. It...

More than just luck: Innovation in humanitarian action - Obrecht, Alice; Warner, Alexandra T. (Humanitarian Innovation Fund, 2016)
In South Sudan, a new water treatment system that provides a community with more clean water at a lower cost. In Sierra Leone, a poster explaining how to prevent the...

Most egovernment-for-development projects fail: how can risks be reduced? - Heeks, Richard (Institute for Development Policy and Management, 2003)
Research on the Information Society, the Digital Divide and Information and Communication Technologies for development

MOTION HANDBOOK - Developing a transformative Theory of Change - Palavicino, Carla Alvial; Matti, Cristian; Witte, Jenny (TIPC, Utrecht University, 2022)
A step-by-step guide on how to develop a Transformative Theory of Change, for innovation projects, programmes and organisations working on systems transformation. The MOTION project was initiated with one key question in mind: how can we help projects and organisations be more transformative, using the framework and concept provided by the multi-level perspective? And what kind of tools, methods and frameworks can we co-design that translate scientific concepts into practises relevant for policy practitioners? This led us into a co-creation journey during which researchers from the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) and EIT Climate-KIC project partners experimented, reflected and learned from each other in building the approach that we share in this handbook. Through this journey, we gained a deeper understanding of what the portfolio approach means in a transformative system change context and which skills and competences are needed to facilitate processes of co-creation in the science-policy-practice interface. We had the opportunity to configure the key building blocks of our theoretical approach, the Transformative Outcomes, into practical insights and actions that can easily be applied by innovation organisations at many levels. This handbook is the culmination of the journey as it translates key learnings from the MOTION project into practical insights that are relevant to practitioners working on systems transformation.

Moving from Real-Time Data to Real-Time Programs - Lee, Panthea (Reboot, 2016)
How can we avoid drowning in data to actually make better decisions?
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Moving ICTD research beyond bungee jumping: practical case studies and recommendations - Dearden, Andy; Tucker, William (IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 2016)
The global spread of Internet and mobile communications has been accompanied by a growing interest in how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can contribute to social and economic development. There are a considerable number of such examples in developing countries. For example, M-Pesa in Kenya allows workers in the cities to send money back to families living in the countryside using SMS messages on basic mobile phones. In Ghana, the Motech project allows community health workers to use feature phones and network services to track ante-natal (and post-natal) care with the objective of improving outcomes for both mothers and babies. Other examples include Gram Vaani's (GRINS) open-source software for community radio stations, or Ushahidi's initiatives, which began with tracking post-electoral violence in Kenya in 2008 using mobile phones and Google maps. These examples illustrate different ways of leveraging ICT to improve lives and livelihoods worldwide. Such stories are inspiring many young (and not so young) researchers and innovators alike to explore how technology might support social and economic development and inclusion in global knowledge exchange

Moving Targets, Widening Nets: monitoring incremental and adaptive change in an Empowerment and Accountability programme. The experience of the State Accountability and Voice Initiative in Nigeria - Derbyshire, Helen; Barr, Julian; Fraser, Steve; Mwamba, Wilf (DFID, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

MSD Competency Framework - BEAM Exchange (BEAM Exchange, 2023)
MSD Competency Framework A catalogue of the full range of knowledge, skills and aptitudes found in high-performing teams that use the market systems approach. Useful for: Practitioners - identify personal training needs and continue your professional development Trainers - diversify your courses and refine your training / capacity-building offers Managers - strengthen your recruitment and induction processes MSD competencies Competency is a mix of knowledge, skills and attitudes demonstrated through concrete behaviours. This section explores the 17 competencies used by high-performing MSD teams. Arranged in three groups they relate to how we understand the world, make decisions and interact with others. Each competency is defined and has links to useful resources that explain or illustrate the knowledge or skills that feed it. Where available, sources of teaching and learning for that competency are included. Teaching and learning modes An exploration of the most common modes of teaching and learning that support practitioners to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes. Some modes of learning are more relevant to certain types of competency - as indicated by the box colours. Each page has a summary of the teaching mode, guidance for team leaders and trainers, and examples of how to use this mode for developing specific competencies. Assessment modes Assessing competency is important for recruitment, performance appraisal and continued professional development These pages describe distinct approaches to evaluating individuals. They include a summary of the evaluation mode, guidance for assessors, and examples tailored to specific competencies.

MSP Guide - Wageningen University (MSP Guide, 2015)
The MSP Guide Designing and facilitating effective multi-stakeholder partnerships Get started Download now The MSP Guide(EN, FR, ES) Explore the rationale, principles and process of designing and facilitating effective MSPs Get it now The MSP Tool Guide Detailed descriptions of 60 tried-and-tested tools to facilitate multi-stakeholder partnerships Get it now Reflection Methods: Practical Guide Proven…

Multi-project programmes functions, forms and implications for evaluation and learning - Buffardi, Anne; Hearn, Simon (Methods Lab, 2015)
Multi-project programmes can serve different purposes. For instance, they may coordinate multiple implementing entities; standardise management and technical support; compare intervention approaches across different contexts; enhance leverage through joint action; or foster sustainability by building relationships among organisations. • At the same time, multi-project programmes are costly, potentially duplicate other mechanisms that fulfil similar functions, and can dilute focus and create confusion. • To guide decisions on what coordination, evaluation and learning mechanisms are needed, it is helpful to articulate the intended purpose of using a programme model. Identifying the purpose(s) can help staff determine what types of knowledge sharing strategies may be most useful to the programme, and how project and programme theories of change can be sequenced

Multiple case study analysis - Stake, Robert E. (The Guilford Press, 2006)
Examining situational complexity is a vital part of social and behavioral science research. This engaging text provides an effective process for studying multiple cases–such as sets of teachers, staff development sessions, or clinics operating in different locations–within one complex program. The process also can be used to investigate broadly occurring phenomena without programmatic links, such as leadership or sibling rivalry. Readers learn to design, analyze, and report studies that balance common issues across the group of cases with the unique features and context of each case. Three actual case reports from a transnational early childhood program illustrate the author's approach, and helpful reproducible worksheets facilitate multicase recording and analysis.
Keywords: Case method; Cross-cultural studies; Education; Europe; Eastern; Research Methodology; Step by Step (Program)

Nairobi Is Organizing- Grassroots Organizing &Public Participation for Social Change - TISA (2015)
The Institute for Social Accountability

Nairobi Outcome Document (2016)

Narrowing the climate information usability gap - Lemos, Maria Carmen; Kirchhoff, Christine J.; Ramprasad, Vijay (Nature Climate Change, 2012)
Climate-change-related risks pose serious threats to the management of a wide range of social, economic and ecological systems. Managing these risks requires knowledge-intensive adaptive management and policy-making actively informed by scientific knowledge, especially climate science1. However, potentially useful climate information often goes unused1,2. This suggests a gap between what scientists understand as useful information and what users recognize as usable in their decision-making. We propose a dynamic conceptual model to address this gap and highlight strategies to move information from useful to usable to reduce climate-related risks.

Natural Disaster Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Networks: A Case Study of Data-intensive Applications upon Low-Cost Scalable Systems - Chen, Dan; Liu, Zhixin; Wang, Lizhe; Dou, Minggang; Chen, Jingying; Li, Hui (Mobile Networks and Applications, 2013)
The wireless sensor network (WSN) technology has applied in monitoring natural disasters for more than one decade. Disasters can be closely monitored by augmenting a variety of sensors, and WSN has merits in (1) low cost, (2) quick response, and (3) salability and flexibility. Natural disaster monitoring with WSN is a well-known data intensive application for the high bandwidth requirements and stringent delay constraints. It manifests a typical paradigm of data-intensive application upon low-cost scalable system. In this study, we first assessed representative works in this area by classifying those in the domains of application of WSNs for disasters and optimization technologies significantly distinguishing these from general-purpose WSNs. We then described the design of an early warning system for geohazards in reservoir region, which relies on the WSN technology inspired by the existing work with focuses on issues of (1) supporting reliable data transmission, (2) handling huge data of heterogeneous sources and types, and (3) minimizing energy consumption. This study proposes a dynamic routing protocol, a method for network recovery, and a method for managing mobile nodes to enable real-time and reliable data transmission. The system incorporates data fusion and reconstruction approaches to bring together all data into a single view of the geohazard under monitoring. A distributed algorithm for joint optimal control of power and rate has been developed, which can improve utility of network (> 95 %) and to minimize the energy consumption (reduction by > 20 % in comparison with LEACH). Experimental results indicate the potentials of the proposed approaches in terms of adapting to the needs of early warning on geohazards.
Keywords: Data-intensive application; Geohazard; Natural disaster monitoring; Scalable system; Wireless sensor network

Naturalizing sensemaking - Snowden, Dave (Informed by Knowledge: Expert Performance in Complex Situations, 2010)
The focus of this book is on how experts adapt to complexity, synthesize and interpret information in context, and transform or "fuse" disparate items of information into coherent knowledge. The chapters examine these processes across experts (e.g. global leaders, individuals in extreme environments, managers, police officers, pilots, commanders, doctors, inventors), across contexts (e.g. space and space analogs, corporate organizations, command and control, crisis and crowd management, air traffic control, the operating room, product development), and for both individual and team performance. Successful information integration is a key factor in the success of diverse endeavors, including team attempts to climb Mt. Everest, crowd control in the Middle East, and remote drilling operations. This volume is divided into four sections, each with a specific focus on an area of expert performance, resulting in a text that covers a wide range of useful information. These sections present well-researched discussions, such as: the management of complex situations in various fields and decision contexts; technological and training approaches to facilitate knowledge management by individual experts and expert teams; new or neglected perspectives in expert decision making; and the importance of ‘modeling’ expert performance through techniques and frameworks such as Cognitive Task Analysis, computational architectures based on the notion of causal belief mapping such as ‘Convince Me,’ or the data/frame model of sensemaking. The volume provides essential reading for researchers and practitioners of Naturalistic Decision Making and those who study Expertise; Organizational and Cognitive Psychologists; and researchers and students in Business and Engineering.

Navigating adaptive approaches for development programmes - Pett, Jamie (ODI, 2020)
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 multiplicity of methods and jargon. This paper aims to address some of this confusion by mapping where these approaches have come from and showing how they can be applied across the adaptive programme cycle. Armed with this knowledge, practitioners might experiment with different combinations and sequences of adaptive approaches according to the kind of problem and context faced. In turn, this may help us move beyond a siloed view of approaches linked to innovation, adaptive management or more politically smart ways of working. Key messages: • Adaptive approaches have emerged in several sectors, including software development, product and service design, technology startups and international development. • Adaptive approaches can help practitioners counteract misplaced certainty. By talking to potential users, understanding institutions, interests and ideas and investigating the root causes of a problem, practitioners applying these approaches can illuminate the underlying nature of the problem and context. • Rather than building a whole solution straight away, these approaches commonly encourage practitioners to start small and use structured cycles of testing and learning. There is scope to further consider how different approaches can be better brought together and combined. • Adaptive approaches in development provide a wider range of options for what to create and facilitate – not only products or services, but also forms of collective action. There are also alternative ways to think about scale – considering how others might take up an idea and looking for leverage, rather than quantity.

Navigating by Judgment: Organizational Structure, Autonomy, and Country Context in Delivering Foreign Aid - Honig, Daniel (Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2015)
This dissertation examines when initiatives by International Development Organizations (IDOs) are more, and less, successful. The core argument is that allowing field-level agents to drive initiatives – what I call organizational Navigation by Judgment – will often be the most effective way to deliver aid. This inverts what a classical application of the principal agent model – the workhorse of studies of public management and bureaucracy – would predict, with better performance resulting from less control. In the delivery of foreign aid the costs of monitoring to the principal are often overshadowed by the deleterious effects of the monitoring itself. The core of the argument is that development implementation requires soft information, tacit knowledge, and flexibility that are crowded out by tight controls or an organizational navigation strategy focused on short term measurement and targets. As a result there are increasing returns to Navigation by Judgment in environments that are uncertain or difficult to understand from the outside and tasks where outputs are difficult to observe and/or poorly correlated with long term intervention goals. Insecure political authorizing environments which constrain the autonomy of IDOs prevent these organizations from Navigating by Judgment in situations where this is the best strategy. Empirically, this dissertation examines a cross-IDO dataset of projects (including over 14,000 projects over 50 years over 9 organizations), which I have assembled. It also examines eight cases of development interventions in Liberia and South Africa. These cases are matched pairs comparing the performance and navigation strategies of the US Agency for International Development (a low autonomy IDO) and the UK’s Department for International Development (a higher autonomy IDO) in capacity building and health sector interventions.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Navigating complexity: adaptive management and organizational learning in a development project in Northern Uganda - Allana, Amir; Sparkman, Timothy (Knowledge Management for Development Journal, 2014)
Adaptive management is a management paradigm for intervening in complex, unpredictable systems where continual learning and adaptation is vital for success. This management approach requires a fundamentally different set of tools, processes, and most importantly, staff behaviors and organizational culture than ‘traditional’ management. A facilitative approach to development, where the goal is creating systemic change that spreads in networks of local businesses, government, and civil society organizations, necessitates an adaptive approach. Mercy Corps Uganda’s Northern Karamoja Growth, Health, and Governance Program (GHG) has been an ongoing experiment in applying the principles of adaptive management and facilitation. This article details two examples from GHG where adaptation has occurred, and provides an analysis of the tools, processes, and organizational culture that exists. Three salient takeaways for effective facilitation are elaborated on: the importance of staff behaviors and underlying beliefs, particularly with regards to ‘failure’, flexibility to experiment, dissent & debate, and curiosity with the subject matter of their work; importance of consistent messaging from senior management with regards to the same; and tools and processes playing a support function to these behaviours, rather than being their source. Lessons and implications are drawn out from the GHG experience for funders and implementing organizations wanting to apply adaptive management in the context of development programming. These include building flexibility into budgeting and contracts, rethinking the structure and content of reports, and utilizing alternative hiring criteria to attract senior managers who are more likely to succeed at adaptive management.

Navigating complexity: Adaptive management in the Northern Karamoja Growth, Health & Governance program - Allana, Amir (MercyCorps, 2014)
Development actors increasing agree that managing programs adaptively – especially complex interventions – can improve their effectiveness. But what does adaptive management look like in practice?
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

Navigating Complexity in International Development: Facilitating Sustainable Change at Scale - Burns, Danny; Worsley, Stuart (Practical Action Publishing, 2015)
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 dynamics, which drive outcomes towards vested interests rather than real need. Development processes need to engage effectively with these sorts of complex system dynamics. This book provides a conceptual framework for this thinking, offers detail case studies of interventions which have been built on this philosophy and which demonstrate key facets of it. It articulates some clear methodological underpinnings for this work, and draws out the implications both for development, practice and practitioners.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Navigating the Evidence on Transparency, Participation and Accountability: What Insights Have Emerged? What Gaps Remain? - Terms of reference for the Consultant Author(s) - Halloran, Brendan (2015)
Example of Terms of Reference for a Report on TAP.

Navigating the landscape of conflict: Applications of dynamical systems theory to protracted social conflict - Coleman, Peter T.; Vallacher, Robin R.; Nowak, Andrzej; Bartoli, Andrea (The Non-linearity of Peace processes. Theory and Practice of Systemic Conflict Transformation, 2011)

Navigating with Action Inquiry (Collective Leadership Animations) - Keira Oliver (2020)
"Have you ever wondered if there might be a better way to work together? Perhaps you would like to find ways to avoid habits, or patterns of behaviour, that whilst you say you don’t like them, you seem unable to escape." Written & narrated by Cathy Sharp (Research for Real) and animated by Keira Oliver (Collective Leadership for Scotland) and her son (10yr) in an animation-sprint style (created quickly, but with care), this film summarises the ideas and practices of action inquiry. It introduces a set of statements designed to stretch, challenge and encourage us to talk about these ideas to find better ways to work together.

Navigation by Judgment: Why and when Top Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't Work - Honig, Dan (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Foreign aid organizations collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually, with mixed results. Part of the problem in these endeavors lies in their execution. When should foreign aid organizations empower actors on the front lines of delivery to guide aid interventions, and when should distant headquarters lead? In Navigation by Judgment, Dan Honig argues that high-quality implementation of foreign aid programs often requires contextual information that cannot be seen by those in distant headquarters. Tight controls and a focus on reaching pre-set measurable targets often prevent front-line workers from using skill, local knowledge, and creativity to solve problems in ways that maximize the impact of foreign aid. Drawing on a novel database of over 14,000 discrete development projects across nine aid agencies and eight paired case studies of development projects, Honig concludes that aid agencies will often benefit from giving field agents the authority to use their own judgments to guide aid delivery. This "navigation by judgment" is particularly valuable when environments are unpredictable and when accomplishing an aid program's goals is hard to accurately measure. Highlighting a crucial obstacle for effective global aid, Navigation by Judgment shows that the management of aid projects matters for aid effectiveness.
Google-Books-ID: GT5MDwAAQBAJ

Network Weaver Handbook - Holley, June (Network Weaver, 2012)

NetworkWeaver (NetworkWeaver, 2018)
Weaving Smart Networks

New communication technologies and citizen-led governance in Africa - Gagliardone, Iginio; Srinivasan, Sharath; Brisset-Foucault, Florence (2012)

NGO-IDEAs Impact Toolbox - Participatory Monitoring of Outcome and Impact - Gohl, Eberhard; Causemann, Bernward (Impact+, 2011)
NGO-IDEAs (NGO – Impact on Development, Empowerment and Actions) NGO-IDEAs is a cooperation of about 40 non-govermental organisations (NGOs) from South Asia, East Africa and the Philippines and 14 German NGOs working in the field of development cooperation. It identifies and develops jointly with all partners, concepts and tools for NGOs in the areas of Outcome and Impact Assessment and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E). NGO-IDEAs is further being supported by VENRO, the umbrella organisation of development non-governmental organisations in Germany as well as PARITÄT, the legal holder of the project. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has cofinanced the project. NGO-IDEAs is not just another study evaluating the impact of NGOs’ work – it combines research & development, knowledge management, learning & training as well as advice & coaching to initiate a collective learning process for all partners involved. Additionally, NGOIDEAs intends to create a valuable resource base for use by NGOs. NGO-IDEAs aims at: • Empowering community based organisations or groups and the poor among the rural communities to use and practice impact monitoring for project management • Empowering NGOs to further improve the effectiveness, impact and sustainability of their efforts • Making social changes more visible for implementing and funding NGOs, thus improving development practice • Improving public recognition of NGOs and CBOs and their contribution to development. The NGO-IDEAs “Impact Toolbox” is to enable NGOs and grassroots organisations to monitor projects together with the so called target groups involved, in a manner that will enhance positive outcomes and impacts, and reduce negative ones. It focuses on joint setting of goals, on monitoring them and finally on taking joint decisions about the further design and direction of interventions. The instruments of the NGO-IDEAs “Impact Toolbox” are simple and participatory. Simple means: setting out from people’s knowledge and know-how, therefore, easy to understand and apply. Application can easily be fitted into the “normal” activities of the NGOs or grassroots organisations. The participatory character emerges through democratic elements promoting a “Culture of Learning” that the people can assimilate

NGOs Doing Development Differently - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2017)
Report back from a meeting of international NGOs to set up a research and practice network on 'Doing Development Differently' that can complement other actors

Nigeria Public Sector Accountability and Governance Programme - Business Case - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
In May 2016, SAVI transitioned into a successor programme – the ‘Engaged Citizens Pillar’ (ECP) of a wider DFID-funded governance reform programme ‘The Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn’ (PERL). ECP is managed by the same service provider, Palladium, and the same core management team as SAVI, and many of the SAVI front line staff...

Nimble adaptation: Tailoring monitoring, evaluation, and learning methods to provide actionable data in complex environments - Serpe, Lauren; Ingram, Mason; Byom, Kate (New Directions for Evaluation, 2022)
This chapter examines good practices in implementing effective Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) systems within complex international development Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) programs, which are characterized by challenges of non-linearity, limited evidence of theories of change, and contextual and politically contingent nature of outcomes. The chapter presents three cases of MEL systems in complex projects implemented by Pact across distinct and diverse operating contexts – Zimbabwe, Cambodia, and Somalia – to illustrate those projects’ MEL approaches that enabled continuous adaptation. The authors analyze the cases to respond to two questions: (1) What are the key elements of effective adaptive management-focused MEL systems in complex environments? (2) What is practical guidance for designing and enabling complexity-responsive and effective adaptive management-focused MEL systems? The case studies illustrate three key elements: (1) Information gathering that closely links context, research, and performance data; (2) Systems for reflection that offer scheduled learning moments of varying frequency and intensity, as well as multiple feedback mechanisms; and (3) Enabling structures that promote adaptive mindsets and attitudes within project teams.
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ev.20523

No Mechanism Without Context: Strengthening the Analysis of Context in Realist Evaluations Using Causal Loop Diagramming - Renmans, Dimitri; Holvoet, Nathalie; Criel, Bart (New Directions for Evaluation, 2020)
Realist evaluation is an approach with a strong emphasis on causal mechanisms and the context in which they are triggered. However, recent reviews of published realist evaluations show that context is often understudied. This is problematic, as a thorough understanding of the relationship between context and causal mechanisms is crucial in assisting policymakers to make appropriate and targeted decisions that improve the intervention. Therefore, we set out to test whether combining realist evaluation with the “systems thinking” approach and, more specifically, causal loop diagramming, could help strengthen the analysis of context. We did this through a study of a performance-based financing (PBF) intervention in the Ugandan health care sector by the Belgian development agency, Enabel. PBF allocates funds to health workers and/or health facilities based on their performance, and introduces additional management support tools, provides extra monitoring and supervision, and promotes community participation in management issues, among other activities. In this case, we found that the proposed combined methodological approach indeed adds value to the analysis, as it leads to insights into the role played by the underlying system that otherwise may have been overlooked. Moreover, such information may provide clear directions to policymakers on how to improve the intervention in a sustainable way. Finally, causal loop diagrams help to visualize complex causal interactions and to communicate them to policymakers.

Non-Violent Communication in everyday life - Aktar, Afrin; Goon, Swmaranika; Pal, Ujjal; Zaman, Thahina (CLARISSA, 2021)
In March, members of the team in Bangladesh (Community Mobilisers and Lead Community Mobilisers) participated in a training course in non-violent communication (NVC). NVC is a communication technique that prioritises listening over speaking. It aims to improve communication by achieving a deeper understanding of our emotions and values and what we observe in the behaviour of others. The training was facilitated by Paul Kahawatte, a UK-based mediator, facilitator and trainer, Roufun Naher, a lecturer at the University of Dhaka and NVC practitioner in Bangladesh, Neil Howard, co-lead of Social Protection for CLARISSA and Jiniya Afroze, CLARISSA Country Coordinator in Bangladesh. The aim of the training was to support the community mobilisers to explore and practice different ways of communicating and facilitating. This will help them support communities to come together and build their collective power for the social protection ‘cash plus’ pilot. Lemon Roy, a community mobiliser was grateful for the experience; “I had little knowledge about Non-Violent Communication before participating in the training. I didn’t know that passive listening and the communication gap between two people could lead to conflict. I have learned about tools and techniques in conflict mediation and the importance of understanding the feelings and needs of other people.”.

Not everything that connects is a network - Hearn, Simon; Mendizabal, Enrique (ODI, 2011)
In the public policy context, networks have been predominant factors in policy formulation, innovation and global governance. While not a new phenomenon in the development landscape, networks are becoming increasingly prevalent. Donors, for example, are turning to networks to deliver aid interventions, NGOs are working through networks for collective advocacy and researchers collaborate across networks for greater policy influence. But are networks always the most appropriate vehicle? Where they are appropriate, how can we make the best use of them? This Background Note argues for a more rigorous understanding of their nature, particularly their value (and costs), and presents a revised Network Functions Approach as a model for rationalised investment in networks.

Notes to Accompany ALPS - ActionAid (ActionAid International, 2001)

Nuru Kenya transition from Nuru International, Kenya - Dillan, Haley; Ouma, Joel; Yamron, David (What Transformation Takes - Evidence of Responsible INGO Transitions to Locally Led Development Around the World, 2020)
This case study is an example of a phased transfer of ownership and responsibility from INGO Nuru International to Nuru Kenya, including the exit of all international staff. Post-transition, Nuru Kenya is managed entirely by Kenyan staff, although it continues to receive financial support from Nuru International. A lot of the elements described are aligned with Adaptive Management ways of working.

Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly - Kay, John (Penguin Books, 2010)
"John Kay tells a fast-paced detective story as he searches for the surprising secret to success...Brilliant." -Tim Harford, author of The Logic of Life In this revolutionary book, economist John Kay proves a notion that feels at once paradoxical and deeply commonsensical: the best way to achieve any complex or broadly defined goal, from happiness to preventing forest fires, is the indirect way. We can learn how to achieve our objectives only through a gradual process of risk taking and discovery-what Kay calls obliquity. The author traces this seemingly counterintuitive path to success as it manifests itself in nearly every aspect of life, including business, politics, sports, and more.

OECD Development Assistance Committee Peer Review of Canada - OECD (OECD, 2018)

Old Wine in New Bottles? 6 ways to tell if a programme is really ‘doing development differently’ - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2018)
Some top adaptive management exponents give their top tips on how to distinguish spin from reality, when looking at an avowedly AM programme

On the Right Tack: Reflections on Coalition-Building Initiatives across The Asia Foundation - Nixon, Nicola; Yates, Peter; Saluja, Sumaya; Yi, Su Lae; Lucas, Miranda; Bain, Katherine (The Asia Foundation, 2023)
Coalitions—groups of organizations and individuals that work together to pursue a common policy goal or reform—are crucial to development. Some of The Asia Foundation’s longest-standing and most successful development programs and portfolios have used coalition-building as an implementation modality. This paper examines successful initiatives in Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Timor-Leste. By delving into each of these, we shed light on this coalition-building modality, sharing insights about how externally supported coalitions emerge and function and contributing ideas about how such support can be adapted to other contexts. We hope that this paper and these case studies contribute to innovations in contemporary development theory and help practitioners use and move beyond some formulaic and technocratic modalities, such as traditional capacity development, knowledge transfer, and technical assistance. People, relationships, and working partnerships can then take center stage, and sustained cooperation will gain primacy over short-term outputs and deliverables.

On understanding software agility: A social complexity point of view - Pelrine, Joseph (E:CO, 2011)
Over the last decade, the field of so-called Agile software development has grown to be a major force in the socio-economic arena of delivering quality software on time, on budget, and on spec. The acceleration in changing needs brought on by the rise in popularity of the Internet has helped push Agile practices far beyond their original boundaries, and possibly into domains where their application is not the optimal solution to the problems at hand. The question of where Agile software development practices and techniques make sense, and where are they out of place, is a valid one. It can be addressed by looking at software development as a complex endeavour, and using tools and techniques from the Cynefin method and other models of social complexity.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

One step back, two steps forward: CARE’s journey towards doing development differently - Aston, Tom (Care Insights, 2017)
The Doing Development Different (DDD) community emerged in August 2014 and advocates that (a) the barriers to development are as much political as tec...

One step to a thousand miles: building accountability in Liberia - Gilberds, Heather (Accountability Lab Liberia, 2017)
Lessons for enabling accountability and integrity in Liberia

Online Learning and collaborative platform for systems thinking and systems change - SI (Systems Innovation, 2021)

Open data: Empowering the empowered or effective data use for everyone? - Gurstein, Michael B. (First Monday, 2011)
Keywords: e-Government; open access; open data

Open Governance Research Exchange - OGRX (Your hub for quantitative and qualitative research on innovations in governance, 2017)
Your hub for quantitative and qualitative research on innovations in governance.

Open Policy Making toolkit - gov.uk (2016)
This manual includes information about Open Policy Making as well as the tools and techniques policy makers can use to create more open and user led policy.

Open Policy Making toolkit - Low cost tools - GOV.UK (2016)

Opening Governance: What have we learned and how do we translate into better practice? - Halloran, Brendan (Politics, Governance and Development, 2016)
In their introductory essay to the recent IDS Bulletin on Opening Governance (the entire issue is open access), Duncan Edwards and Rosie McGee critically appraise developments in the open governmen…

Opening the black box: the contextual drivers of social accountability - Grandvoinnet, Helene; Aslam, Ghazia; Raha, Shomikho (World Bank Group, 2015)
Keywords: Social accounting

Operationalizing the Science of Delivery Agenda to Enhance Development Results - Gonzalez Asis, Maria; Woolcock, Michael (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015)
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 domains of professional practice (especially health) and has entered World Bank discussions framed as the “science of delivery.” At the World Bank, the Global Delivery Initiative (GDI) is an operational manifestation and extension of these ideas. To date, the GDI has prepared a number of different case studies across numerous sectors on ways in which innovative teams solve particular problems during project implementation. On the basis of the initial case studies, the authors outline five key principles of how high-quality implementation occurs and invite others to add to this growing storehouse of knowledge. Specifically, task teams are encouraged to develop “live” case studies by and for their staff, documenting how, in real time, implementation challenges are being met. Projects must “learn” more rapidly and systematically how to solve the myriad range of complex implementation challenges they inevitably encounter, since most of these (by definition) cannot be anticipated ex ante. Delivery challenges of this kind will only intensify in the coming years as citizens demand effective responses to ever-more complex—and contentious—policy domains, such as justice, regulation, and taxation.

OPM’s approach to assessing Value for Money - King, Julian; OPM (Oxford Policy Management, 2018)
This document offers practical guidance for assessing value for money (VfM) in international development programmes. Since 2016, evaluation expert Julian King has been working with OPM to develop and deploy a robust approach to VfM assessment. The approach combines cutting-edge evaluation practice with concepts from economic evaluation to respond to donor requirements for accountability and good resource allocation, as well as to support reflection, learning, and adaptive management.

Opportunities and challenges for DAC members in ‘adapting to context’ - Sharp, Samuel; Wild, Leni (2021)
Key Messages New principles for OECD DAC members on ‘Managing for Sustainable Development Results’ emphasise tailoring result management approaches to different contexts; balancing internal compliance with empowerment at ground level; and adapting implementation in the pursuit of long-term outcomes. However development organisations face numerous challenges in aligning with these principles in practice. Reporting and evidence collection processes do not consistently encourage adaptive practice, reflecting their orientation towards accountability over learning. Context analysis is common during programme design, but used less on an ongoing basis. Popular tools –such as logical frameworks and theories of change - are often intepreted in linear ways, not as ‘living documents’ that react and change over time. Organisations need to meaningfully empower staff to work adaptively, including examining incentives and cultures that can make staff more comfortable with traditional results management. Even when senior leadership is supportive of adaptive ways of working, they can lack a clear understanding of the resourcing required and appropriate governance and management processes. Development organisations and their partners have attempted to address these challenges through the use of different monitoring and evaluation tools and methods, changes to reporting frameworks and templates, and initiatives to create positive incentives and motivate staff, leadership and partners at different levels.
Keywords: _tablet

Opportunities for Using Complexity-Aware Approaches to Theory of Change - Goodier, Sarah; Apgar, Marina (IDS, 2018)
The purpose of this briefing note is to review opportunities for using complexity aware approaches to Theory of Change (ToC) to inform the SDC approach. It provides an overview of complexity-aware approaches and then focuses on demonstrating how complexity thinking can support programming by building on the frameworks currently being used in the project/programme cycle management (PCM) processes. It is aimed at SDC staff, in particular Programme Officers and staff of partner organisations involved in the management of SDC interventions.

Organisational Learning in NGOs: Creating the motive, means and opportunity - Britton, Bruce (Intrac, 2005)
OCLC: 474871294

Organisational Performance Index - The Kenya Institute of Management (2014)
The OPI Business Excellence Model exists to help organizations improve their performance and succeed in the competitive global marketplace. We are dedicated to improving African organizations regardless of sector, size or structure. The OPI was developed in response to feedback from organization participating in Company of the Year Award (COYA) and SME of the Year Award (SMOYA), who called on the Kenya Institute of Management (KIM) to refine the assessment methodology in order to emphasize the relationship between instilling smart business processes and generating strong business results. Whilst there are numerous management tools and techniques commonly used, the OPI Excellence Model is a practical, non-prescriptive framework which provides a holistic view of the organisation and it can be used to determine how these different methods fit together and complement each other. The Model can therefore be used in conjunction with any number of these tools, based on the needs and function of the organisation, as an overarching framework for developing sustainable excellence. We also administer the Annual Company of the Year Awards (COYA) and the SME of the Year Awards (SMOYA). Our key services are to identify and recognize role-model organizations, share best management practices, and help organizations achieve best-in-class performance levels. The OPI is an excellence model that generates a rating between 1 and 10, which sets a minimum score that an organisation must attain to remain competitive. The attainment of a minimum Organisation Performance Index ( OPI) demonstrates that organisations have applied an organisational strategy that drives effectiveness and competitiveness; failure to attain the minimum OPI demonstrates the organisation has not engaged the processes required to enable world class organisational performance.

Organizational Performance Index (OPI) Handbook: A practical guide to the OPI tool for practitioners and development professionals - Pact (Pact, 2015)
This handbook is intended to help development practitioners understand how to use and what can be achieved by Pact’s Organizational Performance Index (OPI) tool. This document will provide practitioners and managers with information on how the Pact OPI works and how best to incorporate it in their country strategy or program.

Our priorities in international assistance - GAC (GAC, 2018)
For Global Affairs Canada, development innovation includes new or improved business models, policy practices, approaches, technologies, behavioral insights or ways of delivering products and services that benefit and empower the poorest and most vulnerable people in developing countries.

Outcome Harvesting - Wilson-Grau, R. (Better Evaluation, 2015)
Outcome Harvesting collects (“harvests”) evidence of what has changed (“outcomes”) and, then, working backwards, determines whether and how an intervention has contributed to these changes. Outcome Harvesting has proven to be especially useful in complex situations when it is not possible to define concretely most of what an intervention aims to achieve, or even, what specific actions will be taken over a multi-year period.

Outcome Harvesting - Wilson-Grau, Ricardo; Britt, Heather (Ford Foundation, 2012)
Outcome Harvesting was developed by Ricardo Wilson-Grau with colleagues Barbara Klugman, Claudia Fontes, David Wilson-Sánchez, Fe Briones Garcia, Gabriela Sánchez, Goele Scheers, Heather Britt, Jennifer Vincent, Julie Lafreniere, Juliette Majot, Marcie Mersky, Martha Nuñez, Mary Jane Real, Natalia Ortiz, and Wolfgang Richert. Over the past 8 years, Outcome Harvesting and has been used to monitor and evaluate the achievements of hundreds of networks, non-governmental organizations, research centers, think tanks, and communitybased organizations around the world. This brief is intended to introduce the concepts and approach used in Outcome Harvesting to grant makers, managers, and evaluators, with the hope that it may inspire them to learn more about the method and apply it to appropriate contexts. Thus, it is not a comprehensive guide to or explanation of the method, but an introduction to allow evaluators and decision makers to determine if the method is appropriate for their evaluation needs. Where possible, we have included examples to illustrate how Outcome Harvesting is applied to real situations. For each case story, organizations were asked to provide a description of the outcome and a summary of the role played by the organization. Sometimes they added other information such as the outcome’s significance. Some details and identifiers were redacted for confidentiality purposes. A draft of this brief was graciously commented on by Bob Williams, Fred Carden, Sarah Earl, Richard Hummelbrunner and Terry Smutylo. The final text is, of course, the sole responsibility of the authors and editor.

Outcome Harvesting. Understanding social change results in complex circumstances - outcomeharvesting.net (2018)
This website is a source of applications, events and resources to support the development of a community of practitioners of Outcome Harvesting. BetterEvaluation is one of three sister sites of OutcomeHarvesting.net

Outcome Mapping - Better Evaluation (Better Evaluation, 2013)
Outcome mapping (OM) is a methodology for planning, monitoring and evaluating development initiatives in order to bring about sustainable social change. As the name suggests, its niche is understanding outcomes; the so-called ‘missing-middle’ or ‘black box’ of results that emerge downstream from the initiative’s activities but upstream from longer-term economic, environmental, political or demographic changes. At the planning stage, the process of outcome mapping helps a project team or program be specific about the actors it intends to target, the changes it hopes to see and the strategies appropriate to achieve these. For ongoing monitoring, OM provides a set of tools to design and gather information on the results of the change process, measured in terms of the changes in behaviour, actions or relationships that can be influenced by the team or program.

Outcome mapping: A method for tracking behavioural changes in development programs - Smutylo, Terry (2005)
This guide published by the Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) Initiative provides a detailed overview of using outcome mapping as an evaluation tool. Contents Expressing results as changes in behaviour Outcome mapping terms The three stages of outcome mapping Figure 1. The three stages and twelve steps of outcome mapping Stage 1. Intentional design Figure 2. The four basic questions of the intentional design stage Stage 2. Outcome and performance monitoring Stage 3. Evaluation planning Using outcome mapping The Ceja Andina Project The Agro-industry and Market Development project for Arracacha

Outcome Mapping: Building Learning and Reflection into Development Programs - Earl, Sarah; Carden, Fred; Smutylo, Terry; Patten, Michael Quinn (IDRC Books, 2001)
"Outcome Mapping provides not only a guide to essential evaluation map-making, but also a guide to learning and increased effectiveness, and affirmation that being attentive along the journey is as important as, and critical to, arriving at a destination." - Michael Quinn PattonMore and more, development organizations are under pressure to demonstrate that their programs result in significant and lasting changes in the well-being of their intended beneficiaries. However, such "impacts" are often the product of a confluence of events for which no single agency or group of agencies can realistically claim full credit. As a result, assessing development impacts is problematic, yet many organizations continue to struggle to measure results far beyond the reach of their programs. "Outcome Mapping" recognizes that development is essentially about people relating to each other and their environment. The originality of this approach lies in its shift away from assessing the products of a program to focus on changes in behaviour, relationships, actions, and activities in the people, groups, and organizations it works with directly. In doing so, "Outcome Mapping" debunks many of the myths about measuring impact. It will help a program be specific about the actors it targets, the changes it expects to see, and the strategies it employs and, as a result, be more effective in terms of the results it achieves. This publication explains the various steps in the outcome mapping approach and provides detailed information on workshop design and facilitation. It includes numerous worksheets and examples.

Outcome Mapping FAQs - Outcome Mapping Learning Community (Outcome Mapping, 2018)
FAQ resource produced by IDRC's Evaluation Unit, with contributions from Kaia Ambrose, Sarah, Earl, Jan Van Ongevalle and Julius Nyangaga. We've added it here to answer some of your OM related questions.

Outcome mapping for health system integration - Tsasis, Peter; Evans, Jenna; Forrest, David; Jones, Richard Keith (Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 2013)
Health systems around the world are implementing integrated care strategies to improve quality, reduce or maintain costs, and improve the patient experience. Yet few practical tools exist to aid leaders and managers in building the prerequisites to integrated care, namely a shared vision, clear roles and responsibilities, and a common understanding of how the vision will be realized. Outcome mapping may facilitate stakeholder alignment on the vision, roles, and processes of integrated care delivery via participative and focused dialogue among diverse stakeholders on desired outcomes and enabling actions. In this paper, we describe an outcome-mapping exercise we conducted at a Local Health Integration Network in Ontario, Canada, using consensus development conferences. Our preliminary findings suggest that outcome mapping may help stakeholders make sense of a complex system and foster collaborative capital, a resource that can support information sharing, trust, and coordinated change toward integration across organizational and professional boundaries. Drawing from the theoretical perspectives of complex adaptive systems and collaborative capital, we also outline recommendations for future outcome-mapping exercises. In particular, we emphasize the potential for outcome mapping to be used as a tool not only for identifying and linking strategic outcomes and actions, but also for studying the boundaries, gaps, and ties that characterize social networks across the continuum of care.

Outcome mapping: learning brief - Buell, Stephanie; Malallah, Haneen; Mason, Paige (ODI/GLAM, 2020)
Adaptive programmes recognise that certain changes, particularly in behaviours, are complex, non-linear and difficult to measure. This briefing note explores the use of outcome mapping (OM) as a monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) approach to track behavioural change and inform adaptation for two programmes: the Pathways to Resilience in Semi-arid Economies (PRISE) research consortium and the Accountability in Tanzania programme (AcT I and AcT II). It discusses the implementation of OM, the ways in which it has enabled adaptation and enabling contexts in order to identify key considerations for MEL specialists and programme managers as they determine whether OM may be the right fit, and how best to use the approach. Key messages OM has a number of different benefits as a MEL approach, including unpacking different uses of information at different levels of programme implementation; helping to develop a common language around progress markers; and going beyond monitoring to inform adaptation throughout implementation. These benefits are important aspects of monitoring, evaluation and learning for adaptive management (MEL4AM), as they provide richer evidence for decision-making at a frequency that could mean real-time learning and change. OM works best when it is embedded throughout the organisation, and as part of programme and organisational culture, rather than tasked to a MEL unit or individual.

Outcome Measurement in Local Governance Programmes: a Power Dimension - McGee, Rosemary; Pettit, Jethro (IDS, 2013)

OutNav - Evaluate outcomes and impact - Matter of Focus (Matter of Focus, 2021)
Make better use of your data and information to learn, improve and tell an evidenced story of the difference your organisation is making.

Overcoming Premature Evaluation - Roche, Chris (2016)
Guest post from Chris Roche on practical ways of introducing adaptive management, learning from failure etc in aid programmes

Overview for Social Sector Leaders: Assessing Innovation Potential for Social Impact - Global Knowledge Initiative (2016)
We aim to provide decision makers with greater insight and confidence into the process of assessing innovation impact potential. Rather than considering the role innovation plays after an investment is made, or based on historic evaluations of how innovation has or has not delivered solutions to a problem, this approach is forward-looking. This customizable toolset assesses the future impact that innovation can deliver in a system to tackle particularly complex problems

Pando - Root Change (Root Change, 2020)
Pando is a platform that gives organizations a way to visualize, learn from, and engage with the social systems in which they work. We have designed Pando to help users build trust, strengthen relationships, and work together to achieve greater social impact. Grounded in social network analysis, Pando allows users to collect and visualize organizations and their relationships in real-time on simple and easy-to-use relationship maps. Relationship maps are managed by map administrators. These are actors interested in learning about a particular system and making the tool available to those working in the system. Pando is integrated with Keystone Accountability’s Feedback Commons, an online tool that allows map administrators to collect and analyze qualitative feedback about levels of trust and relationship quality among map participants. Key features of Pando include relationship mapping, feedback surveys, and dashboards.

Paradigms, Poverty and Adaptive Pluralism - Chambers, Robert (IDS, 2010)
This paper explores participatory methodologies (PMs) associated with a paradigm of people, contrasted with a dominant paradigm associated with things.

Paradoxes and partnerships: a study of knowledge exploration and exploitation in international development programmes - Lannon, John; Walsh, John N. (Journal of Knowledge Management, 2019)
Purpose – This paper aims to look at how organisational partnerships balance knowledge exploration and exploitation in contexts that are rife with paradoxes. It draws on paradox theory to examine the partnership’s response to the explore-exploit relationship.

ParEvo - Web-assisted participatory evolution of scenarios - Davies, Rick (2020)
ParEvo is a method of exploring alternative futures or histories, using a participatory evolutionary process (hence ParEvo). The process is designed to be used by multiple people, to produce a branching structure of storylines about what did, or could, happen. Participants are anonymous and can choose the extent to which they collaborate with others. Participants are also able to tag, comment on, and evaluate the storylines that are generated. Completed exercises can be analysed using downloaded data describing the content of storylines and the structure of people’s participation. Outcomes can be both cognitive (e.g. how we think about the future) and behavioural (e.g. how we respond to the future).

Parliament and the people - Rumbul, Rebecca; Moulder, Gemma; Parsons, Alex (2018)
How digital technologies are shaping democratic information flow in Sub-Saharan Africa

Participación Digital y mejora democrática - un camino sin regreso - Palumbo, Gabriel (Luminate, 2020)
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 tecnología puede ayudar a mejorar la calidad democrática. Según nuestro estudio, la participación digital está promoviendo modificaciones importantes en la relación entre la ciudadanía y los decisores políticos, ampliando los espacios de proximidad. Esto sucede, fundamentalmente, porque baja las barreras de acceso y de incentivos haciendo más fácil, más efectiva y más mensurable la participación ciudadana. La participación digital aumenta el períodos electorales y fomenta el asociacionismo cívico como posibilidad cierta y concreta de presionar sobre los decisores políticos. Lo digital habilita, además, participación offline y genera espacios de pedagogía cívica. La capacidad de implantación de temas en el debate público que se puede generar a través de ella mejora la conversación pública, impactando a su vez la calidad de la democracia. Desde Luminate entendemos que favorecer los espacios de rendición de cuentas desde la ciudadanía hacia el poder político es una apuesta al robustecimiento de la experiencia democrática y que las formas digitales están abriendo posibilidades que otras opciones no pudieron lograr. Esperamos que esta investigación sea un aporte para poder seguir reflexionando y avanzando en esta dirección.

Participation and accountability in development management - Brett, E. A. (The Journal of Development Studies, 2003)
This article critically reviews the role of participatory theory in managing development projects and programmes in poor countries. Participation has emerged in response to global demands for greater individual and social control over the activities of state and private agencies, and especially to the manifest failures of traditional ‘top-down’ management systems in LDCs. Claims made on behalf of these participatory methodologies are critically reviewed and a distinction is drawn between strong and weak versions of the theory. Empirical evidence is then considered to evaluate the effectiveness of these methodologies, using long-standing insights of social science theory to show that participation can succeed for specific kinds of projects and programmes in favourable circumstances, but is unsuitable for many others. It commonly fails in contexts where local conditions make co-operative and collective action very difficult, or where it is manipulated by implementing agencies to justify their own actions or poor performance.

Participation and Power in Climate Change Adaptation Policies: Vulnerability in Food Security Programs in Nepal - Nagoda, Sigrid; Nightingale, Andrea J. (World Development, 2017)
The article explores the moments wherein participatory approaches in climate change adaptation (CCA) policies contribute to reinforcing, rather than transforming, the underlying causes of vulnerability. Using the case of food insecure households in the district of Humla in northwestern Nepal, the study demonstrates that the same social and power relations that are driving local vulnerability dynamics, such as caste, gender, and access to social and political networks, also play important roles in shaping the impact of CCA policies. By tracing Nepal’s CCA programs, starting with the local level, through district to international-national level dynamics, the study adds insights into the barriers to exclusion that embed power relations all the way through the chain of policy development. The purpose is to better understand how CCA can perpetuate rather than alleviate the conditions that create differential vulnerability patterns at village level. It raises questions about how whether CCA programs are an adequate response to increasing vulnerability for some of the world’s most marginalized people.

Participation as assemblage: Introducing assemblage as a framework for analysing participatory processes and outcomes - Stage, Carsten; Ingerslev, Karen (Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, 2016)
The article presents a yet unexplored framework for analysing the multidimensionality and dis/connections of participatory processes and their outcomes by using the concept of the ‘assemblage’ (DeLanda, 2006). The case is an eight-month collaboration between a task force initiated by Central Denmark Region, the socio-economic company Sager der Samler, and citizens. The collaboration is aimed at bringing together and working across various institutional and user perspectives to act on a societal challenge. The analysis is theoretically based on a review of existing theories of participation and typologies for analysing and evaluating participation. In particu- lar, the analysis focuses on the assemblage approach as a way of acknowledging the institutional, affective, mate- rial and power-related complexity of participatory processes. The assemblage approach helps to analytically stress that the process under investigation should be evaluated both with a more traditional focus on decision-making or power allocation, as well as taking into account the social, personal-affective and material benefits produced, and the potential for change in the relationship between public administration and citizens.

Participation by All - The keys to sustainability of a CRS food security project in Niger - Cekan, Jindra; Kagendo, Rutere; Towns, Alexandra (Valuing Voices, 2016)
This project that ran from 2006-2012 in Niger and was implemented by three NGOs: CRS, Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), and Helen Keller International (HKI) under the direction of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Food for Peace (FFP) as a multi-year assistance program (MYAP) to support food security activities in the Dosso, Tahoua, and Zinder regions. PROSAN focused on increasing agricultural production and agro-enterprise, improving household health and nutrition status, reinforcing the capacities of health agents, and enhancing community resiliency. Here are the highlights from the report which itself is an excerpt from a longer analysis we did. Also please note one Annex highlights the similarlties/ differences we found to USAID/ FFP’s 4 elements of sustainability: AIM, METHODS, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS The aim of this sustainability evaluation was to explore perceptions of sustainability from Nigeriens involved in PROSAN, former CRS staff and donors. It focused on evaluating participants’ adherence to project outcomes and their creation of new innovations. It also evaluated partners’ involvement in sustaining project outcomes. This evaluation used qualitative and quantitative methods including community mapping, focus group discussions, beneficiary interviews, and key stakeholder interviews. The evaluation was carried out in six communities in the Dosso region, with more than 500 interviewees, focusing on the following research questions: Sustainability of activities and groups: Are the communities sustaining the activities three to five years after the end of the project? What can we learn from the communities and their post-project implementation partners? Spread and unexpected outcomes: If the project was considered a success in the eyes of the community, how well did it spread? Fostering Sustainability: What are the long-term prospects for continued sustainability? FINDINGS Three years after PROSAN’s conclusion, the project was considered a success by community members, national partners, the implementer (CRS), and donor (USAID) staff. The main findings include: 1. SUSTAINABILITY OF ACTIVITIES AND GROUPS Eighty percent (80%)[*] of all activities were reported to have become self-sustained and community innovations have emerged: On average, households reported moving from being food secure for 3-6 months per year during PROSAN to 8-12 months at the time of this evaluation, which is a remarkable impact [1]. CRS_Niger_PROSAN_Sustainability_Evaluation_pdf [1] Women reported greater income through the increase in sales of food that was produced and processed due to the grain mills [1]. Respondents also reported improved household health, hygiene, and nutrition, with 91% of survey respondents indicating that their health and sense of well being had improved, especially through the efforts of the health posts and clinics that CRS helped build and the government of Niger’s efforts in sustaining them with resources and staff [1]. Community groups/committees have continued and are well-supported by NGO partners: 81% of the committees set up by PROSAN were functioning at the time of this evaluation, with many participants discussing ways to sustain best practices within their communities, and members still receiving regular trainings or updates [1]. Several new and refresher trainings come through national partners, NGOs, and new channels such as radio programs [1]. Some new NGOs and international organizations have built upon PROSAN’s success, for instance, by using land previously managed by PROSAN for a new vegetable gardening training program, building hygiene programs on past health awareness efforts, or extending agricultural credit for further inputs [1]. Twenty percent (20%) of implemented activities were not sustained or have stagnated: While hygiene practices were sustained by households and there was widespread latrine construction, sanitation was poor in the villages, and most latrines had fallen into disrepair [1]. Fewer than 50% of women reported practicing exclusive breastfeeding for children less than six months of age [1]. While almost half of all health committees no longer exist, new health clinics staff have replaced some of the work of the committees with health and agricultural promotion messages now being sent via radio, television, and cell phones [1]. Literacy training and theater groups have completely ceased [1]. With the exception of the Système Communautaire d’Alerte Précoce-Réponses aux Urgences’ (SCAP-RU) SCAP-RU early warning system which has expanded, other resilience activities such as roadwork and caring for the environment are a lesser priority due in part to the lack of food and cash-incentives to continue doing them [1]. 2. SPREAD AND UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES New innovations and ceased activities reflected the project’s legacy: Community innovations have emerged such as collective funds paying for cleaners of the new health center, community-imposed sanctions for births occurring outside of the health centers, and the monitoring of savings from well water sales. National partners have praised the project, with many lamenting its withdrawal. One non-PROSAN village told an Agriculture Ministry staff and potential NGO partner that “No one should bring a program here unless it is like PROSAN.” PROSAN-trained masons, well repair technicians, and village youth have learned land recuperation techniques (zai holes, bunds and demi-lunes) that helped generate income beyond project communities. Project activities that received free inputs have largely stopped being implemented once the incentives were withdrawn such as Food for Training (FFT), Food for Work (FFW), or Cash for Work (CFW) (e.g. literacy, seedlings, latrines, theater etc.); nonetheless the inputs were highly valued and have continued to support agriculture and health (carts, bicycles). 3. FOSTERING SUSTAINABILITY The following areas were identified as potential barriers to sustainability that could be systematically explored in other projects: Although most committees are still functioning, there are no processes in place to engage and train youth and new inhabitants of the villages. While village communities have been maintained, there is an increasing lack of ministry resources (e.g., staff, transportation, and communications) to take the place of NGOs like CRS after a program ends. There is little management of knowledge around project data, which is further exacerbated by staff changes in NGOs, government ministries, and donors. Project data (proposal content, monitoring data, evaluation results, participant lists, partner names, and exit agreements) must be managed ethically, locally and be held online, accessible for future projects to use and for villages to conduct self-evaluations.

Participation by the poor in Luang Prabang tourism economy: current earnings and opportunities for expansion - Ashley, Caroline (ODI, 2006)
OCLC: 836665277

Participation for Humanitarian Innovation - Background Paper - Smith, Amy; Thompson, Martha; Saida Benhayoune; Crespo Cardona, Omar (Elrha, 2023)
A resource designed to help organisations, teams and individuals manage innovation journeys responsibly and successfully. We have partnered with MIT D-Lab to develop a new resource to drive greater diversity and inclusion within project design and implementation. The Participation for Humanitarian Innovation (PfHI) toolkit sets out a robust approach to setting expectations for and monitoring the degree of participation within research and innovation projects for, with, and by people affected by crisis. The PfHI toolkit is composed of five tools: Opportunity Adviser: Identify and prioritise the desired benefits of participation while weighing the potential barriers. Participation Matrix: Agree on the precise degree of participation to target at a given project stage. Resource Navigator: Select tools and processes to address the needs of stakeholders, the project objectives and context. Quality Guidance: Ensure engagements are delivered to the highest standard. Assessment Matrix: Collectively evaluate the degree of participation achieved during an activity or project phase, learn and adapt. By applying these tools before, during and after a research and/or innovation project, implementors can ensure that stakeholders/end-users are included and participating at the highest possible degree. We encourage users of the PfHI toolkit to consider how else to integrate the tools into existing practices. For instance, the Evaluation Matrix could be used to supplement existing MEAL activities to: Establish baselines to measure changes in participation over time. Track the degree of participation/engagement of stakeholders. Regularly assess the degree of participation. Seek feedback from participants about the degree of their participation. Monitor the progress of activities related to stakeholder engagement. Our Participation for Humanitarian Innovation toolkit represents our ongoing commitment to responsible research and innovation across our portfolio of grants and for the humanitarian sector more broadly. We hope you will consider downloading and using the toolkit on your next project.

Participation for Humanitarian Innovation - Toolkit - Smith, Amy; Thompson, Martha; Saida Benhayoune; Crespo Cardona, Omar (Elrha, 2023)
A resource designed to help organisations, teams and individuals manage innovation journeys responsibly and successfully. We have partnered with MIT D-Lab to develop a new resource to drive greater diversity and inclusion within project design and implementation. The Participation for Humanitarian Innovation (PfHI) toolkit sets out a robust approach to setting expectations for and monitoring the degree of participation within research and innovation projects for, with, and by people affected by crisis. The PfHI toolkit is composed of five tools: Opportunity Adviser: Identify and prioritise the desired benefits of participation while weighing the potential barriers. Participation Matrix: Agree on the precise degree of participation to target at a given project stage. Resource Navigator: Select tools and processes to address the needs of stakeholders, the project objectives and context. Quality Guidance: Ensure engagements are delivered to the highest standard. Assessment Matrix: Collectively evaluate the degree of participation achieved during an activity or project phase, learn and adapt. By applying these tools before, during and after a research and/or innovation project, implementors can ensure that stakeholders/end-users are included and participating at the highest possible degree. We encourage users of the PfHI toolkit to consider how else to integrate the tools into existing practices. For instance, the Evaluation Matrix could be used to supplement existing MEAL activities to: Establish baselines to measure changes in participation over time. Track the degree of participation/engagement of stakeholders. Regularly assess the degree of participation. Seek feedback from participants about the degree of their participation. Monitor the progress of activities related to stakeholder engagement. Our Participation for Humanitarian Innovation toolkit represents our ongoing commitment to responsible research and innovation across our portfolio of grants and for the humanitarian sector more broadly. We hope you will consider downloading and using the toolkit on your next project.

Participation in ICT Development Interventions: Who and How? - Thapa, Devinder; Sæbø, Øystein (The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 2016)
The aim of participatory development (PD) in the context of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development (ICT4D) is to empower underprivileged communities and disadvantaged segments of the stakeholders. The literature on ICT4D is replete with empirical evidence showing that ICT interventions often fail since they are often externally initiated, with very limited involvement from the affected (Heeks, 2002). Clearly, the principles and concepts of PD are relevant to ICT4D. However, we should not consider PD a panacea but need to understand the caveats and processes by which PD happens. Questions to ask include: What are the various challenges in PD? Who are the relevant stakeholders? Why and how do actors enrol in the project? How do we create sustainable ICT4D projects through PD? To understand these research questions, we present a case analysis of a project in Nepal called the Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP). Investigating the specific initiatives that they enabled, telemedicine, education and jobs, we propose that the key participants in the NWNP were activist actors and the affected and that activists drew upon existing Social Capital to enrol the affected through a process explained by Actor Network Theory (ANT). In the process, they built other forms of Social Capital, which in turn extended the benefits of PD to several mountain villages.

Participation Makes A Difference: But Not Always How And Where We Might Expect - Gaventa, John (Development Outreach, 2011)

Participation Schemas: a tool to characterize collaborative participation - Prieto-Martín, Pedro (PDD2014, Contemporary difficulties and future prospects for Participatory and Deliberative Democracy, NewCastle, 2014)

Participatory action research - Cornish, Flora; Breton, Nancy; Moreno-Tabarez, Ulises; Delgado, Jenna; Rua, Mohi; de-Graft Aikins, Ama; Hodgetts, Darrin (Nature Reviews Methods Primers, 2023)
Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach to research that prioritizes the value of experiential knowledge for tackling problems caused by unequal and harmful social systems, and for envisioning and implementing alternatives. PAR involves the participation and leadership of those people experiencing issues, who take action to produce emancipatory social change, through conducting systematic research to generate new knowledge. This Primer sets out key considerations for the design of a PAR project. The core of the Primer introduces six building blocks for PAR project design: building relationships; establishing working practices; establishing a common understanding of the issue; observing, gathering and generating materials; collaborative analysis; and planning and taking action. We discuss key challenges faced by PAR projects, namely, mismatches with institutional research infrastructure; risks of co-option; power inequalities; and the decentralizing of control. To counter such challenges, PAR researchers may build PAR-friendly networks of people and infrastructures; cultivate a critical community to hold them to account; use critical reflexivity; redistribute powers; and learn to trust the process. PAR’s societal contribution and methodological development, we argue, can best be advanced by engaging with contemporary social movements that demand the redressingl of inequities and the recognition of situated expertise.
Number: 1 Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

Participatory adaptive management leads to environmental learning outcomes extending beyond the sphere of science - Fujitani, Marie; McFall, Andrew; Randler, Christoph; Arlinghaus, Robert (Science Advances, 2017)
Resolving uncertainties in managed social-ecological systems requires adaptive experimentation at whole-ecosystem levels. However, whether participatory adaptive management fosters ecological understanding among stakeholders beyond the sphere of science is unknown. We experimentally involved members of German angling clubs (n = 181 in workshops, n = 2483 in total) engaged in self-governance of freshwater fisheries resources in a large-scale ecological experiment of active adaptive management of fish stocking, which constitutes a controversial management practice for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning when conducted inappropriately. The collaborative ecological experiments spanned several years and manipulated fish densities in 24 lakes with two species. In parallel, we experimentally compared changes in ecological knowledge and antecedents of proenvironmental behavior in stakeholders and managers who were members of a participatory adaptive management treatment group, with those receiving only a standard lecture, relative to placebo controls. Using a within-subjects pretest-posttest control design, changes in ecological knowledge, environmental beliefs, attitudes, norms, and behavioral intentions were evaluated. Participants in adaptive management retained more knowledge of ecological topics after a period of 8 months compared to those receiving a standard lecture, both relative to controls. Involvement in adaptive management was also the only treatment that altered personal norms and beliefs related to stocking. Critically, only the stakeholders who participated in adaptive management reduced their behavioral intentions to engage in fish stocking in the future. Adaptive management is essential for robust ecological knowledge, and we show that involving stakeholders in adaptive management experiments is a powerful tool to enhance ecological literacy and build environmental capacity to move toward sustainability. Participatory active adaptive management leads to far-reaching environmental learning outcomes in stakeholders. Participatory active adaptive management leads to far-reaching environmental learning outcomes in stakeholders.

Participatory Approaches - Guijt, Irene (UNICEF, 2014)
This guide, written by Irene Guijt for UNICEF, looks at the use of participatory approaches in impact evaluation. Using participatory approaches means involving stakeholders, particularly those affected by intervention, in the evaluation process. This includes involvement in the design, data collection, analysis, reporting, and management of the study. Excerpt "By asking the question, ‘Who should be involved, why and how?’ for each step of an impact evaluation, an appropriate and context-specific participatory approach can be developed. Managers of UNICEF evaluations must recognize that being clear about the purpose of participatory approaches in an impact evaluation is an essential first step towards managing expectations and guiding implementation. Is the purpose to ensure that the voices of those whose lives should have been improved by the programme or policy are central to the findings? Is it to ensure a relevant evaluation focus? Is it to hear people’s own versions of change rather than obtain an external evaluator’s set of indicators? Is it to build ownership of the UNICEF programme? These, and other considerations, would lead to different forms of participation by different combinations of stakeholders in the impact evaluation."

Participatory approaches: a facilitator's guide - VSO (VSO, 2004)
This book provides a set of guidelines for people who will be involved in participatory processes and projects with specific design focus on VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) volunteers. It looks at appropriate levels of participation; pitfalls of participatory approaches (PA); best practice in facilitation; and tools for participation. The guide is organised into three parts (I) Principles, (II) Methods and (III) Toolkit. Part I gives a background to PA with a comparative analysis of PA in relation to top-down approaches, and within the range of PAs; looks at the role PA in VSO; discusses how to facilitate participatory processes with multiple stakeholders; presents a framework for PA on different levels of participation; and examines key facilitation skills needed to support participatory activities. Part II collates a range of participatory methods that have been used successfully in the field by VSO volunteers. Methods are categorised according to this suitability for use at different stages of a project process. Examples are also given of methods that can be used for specific purposes, such as participatory organisational appraisal and gender/diversity analysis. Part III gives tips on how to choose the most appropriate tool and how to organise participatory workshops and small group activities. It also systematically records a range of tools used by development workers all over the world with reference to what tool is appropriate in what situation. A profile of each tool includes guidelines on its purpose, potential applications and variations, as well as possible pitfalls. Illustrative case studies taken form real experiences of development workers in the field are also included.

Participatory Budgeting as if Emancipation Mattered - Baiocchi, Gianpaolo; Ganuza, Ernesto (Politics & Society, 2014)
Participatory Budgeting has by now been widely discussed, often celebrated, and is now instituted in at least 1,500 cities worldwide. Some of its central features—its structure of open meetings, its yearly cycle, and its combination of deliberation and representation—are by now well known. In this article, however, we critically reflect on its global travel and argue for more careful consideration of some of its less well-known features, namely the coupling of the budgeting meetings with the exercise of power. We disaggregate PB into its communicative and empowerment dimensions and argue that its empowerment dimensions have usually not been part of its global expansion—and this is cause for concern from the point of view of emancipation. We thus discuss the specific institutional reforms associated with empowerment in the original version as well as its analytic dimensions. We also address some of the specific dangers of a communication-only version of PB as well as some suggestions for reintroducing empowerment.
Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc

Participatory Budgeting in Scotland: An overview of strategic design choices and principles for effective delivery - Escobar, Oliver; Harkins, Chris (2015)
Description

Participatory design with marginalized people in developing countries: Challenges and opportunities experienced in a field study in Cambodia - Hussain, Sofia; Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N.; Steinert, Martin (International Journal of Design, 2012)

Participatory evaluation design and sense-making - making meaning through co-constructed lenses - King, Julian; Elliott, Kerry; Hollingsworth, Hilary (Evaluation and Value for Investment, 2023)
Based on a presentation at Australian Evaluation Society International Evaluation Conference, Brisbane, 28 September 2023. The importance of participatory approaches to evaluation is well-understood. Involving the right people and balancing voices at the stakeholder table can help to make evaluations more valid, credible, useful, and actually used. Not all evaluations, however, are done in participatory ways. This presentation shares the experience of three evaluators in two recent projects with clients and stakeholders who were unaccustomed to participatory evaluation. In both cases, new ways of working were introduced, requiring participants to come into the evaluation tent, collaborate and learn with us. Engagement processes deliberately focused on incrementally building deep stakeholder input into evaluation design - including key evaluation questions, context analysis, program theory, rubrics, methods of data gathering, and reporting formats. The resulting evaluation frameworks represent an agreed, shared set of lenses for making sense of the evidence. Through this process, relationships and trust were cemented, stakeholders understood the evaluation process and endorsed the resulting frameworks. The client and sector have become more interested, more engaged stakeholders and more savvy evaluation participants and consumers. As the evaluations progress, the evaluation design builds in ongoing stakeholder involvement in reviewing emergent footprints of system change and making evaluative judgements. Participatory approaches are many, varied, and flexible. We will share our reflections and generalisable learning from the participatory approaches we applied in these evaluations. We will invite the audience to reflect on their own practices and experiences, and provoke them to consider whether participatory evaluation is 'just' a methodological option or a foundational element of good evaluation.

Participatory evaluation. What is it? Why do it? What are the challenges? - Zukoski, A.; Luluquisen, Mia (Community-based public health policy & practice, 2002)
Yogi Berra was right when he remarked, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else.” When we collectively apply our hopes and energies to improving our communities, how do we know if we’re making the right choices along the way? How will we notice when we are spinning our wheels and what changes to make? How will we know that we are making a difference? And how will we know what success looks like to everyone in the group? By taking a community-based public health approach to our work, we create an opportunity to engage in a particular type of evaluation—participatory evaluation – that can help answer those questions. For those groups that are interested in this approach, this policy brief discusses the key concepts of participatory evaluation and some tips for applying it. We also present some real-life examples from two evaluators who work with grantees of the Partnership for the Public’s Health Initiative.

Participatory Systemic Inquiry - Burns, Danny (2012)
This article explores Participatory Systemic Inquiry processes through two examples of practise. The first is about embedding public engagement in UK higher education, the second is about water infrastructure development and local capacity development in small towns situated around Lake Victoria. These examples illustrate why it is necessary to understand the wider systemic dynamics within which issues are situated, and how this helps to identify workable and sustainable solutions to problems. It describes the learning architectures which were constructed to hold the local and thematic inquiries and then to extend them. It also demonstrates the methods which operationalised these processes and explores some of the methodological differences between this approach and other approaches to qualitative and participatory research.
Accepted: 2016-01-06T17:18:20Z Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Partnering with communities to co-design humanitarian health strategies: A SeeChange CommunityFirst Framework for implementation in MSF projects - Chapela Trillo, Violeta; Farber, Jessica (MSF, 2034)
The CommunityFirst Framework is intended to be implemented by field teams at MSF. The theoretical aspects and evidence presented on the importance of community engagement are intended for all MSF staff seeking to learn more about why and how to shift the way we work with communities as humanitarians. We believe this guideline, and other tools like it (including OCA’s Person-Centred Approach Guidance07, and MSF Vienna Evaluation Unit’s Guidance for Involving Communities08), to be an important contribution to the growing movement of communities and humanitarian actors who are pushing for changes in the humanitarian system that translate to dignity, health, justice, equity and self-determination for communities around the world. Specifically, the CommunityFirst Framework is intended to guide MSF teams to co-design health strategies with communities, throughout all stages of the project cycle, for exploratory missions, projects that are just opening, projects that have been running for some time, or those that are closing. At the time of publication, the CommunityFirst Framework has been tested in pilot projects in: (1) Madre de Dios, Peru (MSF OCP, August 2022), (2) Tonkolili, Sierra Leone (MSF OCA, November 2022) and (3) Anzoátegui, Venezuela (MSF OCB, February 2023) The experiences from these pilots (feedback from teams, implementation results, adaptations to each context, etc.) have informed the adaptation of the Framework. CommunityFirst builds on existing community engagement work inside MSF and contributes a practical framework for co-designing health initiatives with communities. To avoid duplicating efforts and resources around community engagement inside MSF, the appendices in this guideline largely refer to already existing MSF resources.09 This guideline is meant to be a living document that can evolve and be adapted given the experience of MSF staff and community members and diverse community contexts. This guide can be used by anyone in MSF who is interested in partnering with communities to improve the responsiveness and impact of their humanitarian programs. This is the first iteration of the document. Subsequent iterations will be published based on additional testing during future phases of the CommunityFirst TIC project.

Passive and active adaptive management: Approaches and an example - Williams, Byron (Journal of Environmental Management, 2010)
Adaptive management is a framework for resource conservation that promotes iterative learning-based decision making. Yet there remains considerable confusion about what adaptive management entails, and how to actually make resource decisions adaptively. A key but somewhat ambiguous distinction in adaptive management is between active and passive forms of adaptive decision making. The objective of this paper is to illustrate some approaches to active and passive adaptive management with a simple example involving the drawdown of water impoundments on a wildlife refuge. The approaches are illustrated for the drawdown example, and contrasted in terms of objectives, costs, and potential learning rates. Some key challenges to the actual practice of AM are discussed, and tradeoffs between implementation costs and long-term benefits are highlighted.

Payment by Results in Development Aid: All That Glitters Is Not Gold - Clist, Paul (The World Bank Research Observer, 2016)
Payment by Results (PbR), where aid is disbursed conditional upon progress against a pre-agreed measure, is becoming increasingly important for various donors. There are great hopes that this innovative instrument will focus attention on ultimate outcomes and lead to greater aid effectiveness by passing the delivery risk on to recipients. However, there is very little related empirical evidence, and previous attempts to place it on a sure conceptual footing are rare and incomplete. This article collates and synthesises relevant insights from a wide range of subfields in economics, providing a rich framework with which to analyze Payment by Results. I argue that the domain in which it dominates more traditional forms is relatively small and if it is used too broadly, many of the results it claims are likely to be misleading. The likelihood of illusory gains stems from the difficulty of using a single indicator to simultaneously measure and reward performance: ‘once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’ This does not mean PbR should not be used (indeed it will be optimal in some settings), but it does mean that claims of success should be treated with caution.
Keywords: Conditionality; Contract theory; F35; Foreign Aid; Multitask model; performance

PDIA Course: Alumni are already practicing what they learned - Samji, Salimah (Building State Capability, 2017)
written by Salimah Samji We offered 4 free PDIA online courses between November 2015 and June 2016. They were well received and 365 people, living in 56 countries, successfully completed the course…

PDIA in action - Andrews, Matt; Samji, Salimah (Center for International Development, Harvard University, 2021)
Learning from our experience in 2020, we asked the alumni of our HKS Implementing Public Policy (IPP) Executive Education program, if they wanted to work with our students on their nominated problems. Eight IPP alumni, William Keith Young, Adaeze Oreh, Milzy Carrasco, Kevin Schilling, Artem Shaipov, George Imbenzi, David Wuyep, and Raphael Kenigsberg, who had been trained on PDIA and implementation, signed up to work with our students. Thirty-seven students signed up to take the course beginning January 26th, 2021. The students worked across eight teams and adopted a problem driven approach to foster learning that could help their authorizers develop an action learning strategy to their nominated challenge. This book highlights the students’ work drawing from their blogs as well as the event series. There are 8 sections, one for each of the teams and the problems they worked on during the course. We hope you enjoy reading their stories! Scan the QR Code at the end of each section to learn more.

PDIA Notes 2: Learning to Learn - Samji, Salimah (Building State Capability, 2016)
written by Peter Harrington After over two years of working with the government of Albania, and as we embark on a new project to work with the government of Sri Lanka, we at the Building State Capa…

PDIA Toolkit - A DIY Approach to Solving Complex Problems - Samji, Salimah; Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, MIchael (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2018)
The PDIAtoolkit is designed to guide you through the process of solving complex problems which requires working in teams. We call it a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) kit, where the ‘you’ is a committed team of 4-6 people mobilized to work together to solve a complex problem that cannot be solved by one person.

Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Strategy for SDC’s work in fragile and conflict contexts - SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC, 2015)

Peacebuilding design, monitoring, and evaluation: A Training Package for participants and trainers at intermediate to advanced levels - Ernstorfer, Anita; Barnard-Webster, Kiely (Carnegie Corporation, 2019)
This training package includes 7 Training Modules and a set of Annexes (Annexes A-O). The Training Modules build on each other and should ideally be used in a sequenced way in a training setting. However, for groups with specific training needs around particular areas, modules can also be used individually, but need to be tailored by the trainers and facilitators to meet the needs of specific audiences. The annexes provide worksheets and hand-outs that can be used as resources during the training for specific modules and exercises.

Peer reviews - Guidance for facilitators and participants - Wadley, Ian (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2021)
Essential points for practitioners and donors • Mediation offers a cost-effective and proven method for resolving armed conflict. Between 1985 and 2015, 75 per cent of armed conflicts in the world were resolved through agreement rather than by force. In most cases these processes will have involved third party facilitation or support. • Professional mediators understand the high stakes involved in their work to prevent, mitigate and resolve armed conflict. In addition, they and their financial supporters are increasingly required to demonstrate ‘value-for-money’ to ensure continued funding. • However, traditional monitoring and evaluation (M&E) methods are not well suited to this task, typically imposing artificially linear project models on a dynamic conflict situation, as well as compliance reporting that moves attention away from real value. • Traditional M&E methods tend to focus on documenting the past and generating vast amounts of data, rather than enabling timely adaptation of the project in the present. • Traditional M&E approaches rely heavily on external evaluation consultants. Even in the best of cases this may interfere with the mediation process and impose a heavy time burden on the project team, leading to low acceptance of traditional M&E approaches by mediation practitioners. • In contrast, an ideal M&E approach for mediation should deliver useful insights in even the most dynamic and sensitive mediation environments, impose a light reporting burden, and be readily accepted by mediation teams. It should protect discretion and trust, enable rapid adaptation, and also provide some assurance that donor funds are being well spent.

Performance Story - Dart, J.; Mayne, J. (Encyclopedia of Evaluation, 2005)
This is a concise description of ‘Performance Story’ written by Jess Dart and John Mayne for the Sage ‘Encyclopaedia of Evaluation’.

Perspectives on Participation in Design - Sanders, Elizabeth (Wer gestaltet die Gestaltung? Praxis, Theorie und Geschichte des partizipatorischen Designs, 2013)
OCLC: 930782596
Keywords: Design

Perverse Payment by Results: frogs in a pot and straitjackets for obstacle courses - Chambers, Robert (IDS - Participation, Power and Social Change, 2014)
Posts about Robert Chambers written by idsppsc

PFM Reform Through PDIA: What Works and When it Works - Harris, Jamelia; Lawson, Andrew (Public Financial Management Blog - IMF, 2022)

Physically distanced adaptive management - Proud, Emma (LearnAdapt, 2020)
Opportunities and challenges for local leadership

Planners versus Searchers in Foreign Aid - Easterly, William (Asian Development Review, 2006)
Only for the recipients of foreign aid is something akin to central planning seen as a way to achieve prosperity. The end of poverty is achieved with free markets and democracy—where decentralized “searchers” look for ways to meet individual needs—not Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The PRSPs and MDGs create lots of bureaucracy but hold no one specific agency in foreign aid accountable for any one specific task. Planners in foreign aid use the old failed models of the past—the “Financing Gap”, the “poverty trap”, the government-to-government aid model; and the “expenditures = outcomes” mentality. Searchers in foreign aid would imitate the feedback and accountability of markets and democracy to provide goods and services to individuals until homegrown markets and democracy end poverty in the society as a whole. An example of the more promising “searchers” approach in foreign aid is 2006 Nobel Peace Laureate Mohammad Yunus and Grameen Bank.

Planning & Navigating Social Change - Tools for Pacific voyagers - Orr, Douglas Epeli; Cavatore, Maria; Aston, Tom (Oxfam, 2019)
Those working to advance social change in the Pacific must understand, work with and respond to the complex and changing relationships and dynamics of power that exist within such networks, and situate their work in the context of decolonisation and self-determination. But the approaches typically used by NGOs to plan our projects and programs have failed to give due attention to these dynamics. The result is that our projects fall short of achieving their promise, despite being technically sound and logical. In this guide, we aim to provide a process and tools that prioritise and draw out the rich, often implicit, knowledge that Pacific Islanders have about our contexts to plan and manage social change initiatives in a manner that values and responds to this ocean of relationships. Drawing from these relationship-based and voyaging traditions, we emphasise the need to: • frame change in terms of change in people; e.g. change in the situation of groups of people and change in terms of the actions of people; • identify a course towards a particular ‘change destination’; • identify the signs to read that will help you determine where you are on that course; • be constantly attentive to the context as you make the journey, and • be ready to adjust your course in response to changes in your context. To support this way of working, we have selected a number of tools from approaches that we believe fit. In particular, we have drawn from the following approaches: • Thinking and Working Politically and other ‘politically aware’ approaches that recognise that the success of a development initiative will be determined by the interplay of relationships of power within a particular context, not just by having the right technical solution; • Outcome mapping because of its focus on people and relationships, and on identifying and supporting needed changes in the behaviour of specific actors in relation to others. This is key, because it’s individuals who deliver services, individuals who decide whether to allocate budget and resources to address a problem, and individuals who make the choice to believe whether a service is relevant to solving their issues; • Adaptive management because of its recognition that development initiatives take place within complex and changing systems and need to adjust to these and that this requires ongoing learning and adaptation.

Plans Are Worthless but Planning Is Everything: A Theoretical Explanation of Eisenhower’s Observation - Garcia Contreras, Angel F.; Ceberio, Martine; Kreinovich, Vladik (Decision Making under Constraints, 2020)
The 1953–1961 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower emphasized that his experience as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during the Second World War taught him that “plans are worthless, but planning is everything”. This sound contradictory: if plans are worthless, why bother with planning at all? In this paper, we show that Eisenhower’s observation has a meaning: while directly following the original plan in constantly changing circumstances is often not a good idea, the existence of a pre-computed original plan enables us to produce an almost-optimal strategy—a strategy that would have been computationally difficult to produce on a short notice without the pre-existing plan.

Playbook for innovation learning. 35 diagrams to support talking and thinking about learning for innovation - Leurs, Bas; Roberts, Isobel (Nesta, 2018)

Pocket Guide to Systems Wayfinding - Davidson, Seanna (The Systems School, 2019)

Policy-driven monitoring and evaluation: Does it support adaptive management of socio-ecological systems? - Waylen, Kerry A.; Blackstock, Kirsty L.; van Hulst, Freddy J.; Damian, Carmen; Horváth, Ferenc; Johnson, Richard K.; Kanka, Robert; Külvik, Mart; Macleod, Christopher J. A.; Meissner, Kristian; Oprina-Pavelescu, Mihaela M.; Pino, Joan; et al. (Science of The Total Environment, 2019)
Inadequate Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is often thought to hinder adaptive management of socio-ecological systems. A key influence on environmental management practices are environmental policies: however, their consequences for M&E practices have not been well-examined. We examine three policy areas - the Water Framework Directive, the Natura 2000 Directives, and the Agri-Environment Schemes of the Common Agricultural Policy - whose statutory requirements influence how the environment is managed and monitored across Europe. We use a comparative approach to examine what is monitored, how monitoring is carried out, and how results are used to update management, based on publicly available documentation across nine regional and national cases. The requirements and guidelines of these policies have provided significant impetus for monitoring: however, we find this policy-driven M&E usually does not match the ideals of what is needed to inform adaptive management. There is a tendency to focus on understanding state and trends rather than tracking the effect of interventions; a focus on specific biotic and abiotic indicators at the expense of understanding system functions and processes, especially social components; and limited attention to how context affects systems, though this is sometimes considered via secondary data. The resulting data are sometimes publicly-accessible, but it is rarely clear if and how these influence decisions at any level, whether this be in the original policy itself or at the level of measures such as site management plans. Adjustments to policy-driven M&E could better enable learning for adaptive management, by reconsidering what supports a balanced understanding of socio-ecological systems and decision-making. Useful strategies include making more use of secondary data, and more transparency in data-sharing and decision-making. Several countries and policy areas already offer useful examples. Such changes are essential given the influence of policy, and the urgency of enabling adaptive management to safeguard socio-ecological systems.
Keywords: Adaptive Management; Environmental governance; Monitoring and Evaluation; Policy making; Socio-ecological systems; Sustainability

Policy experimentation and innovation as a response to complexity in China’s management of health reforms - Husain, Lewis (Globalization and Health, 2017)
There are increasing criticisms of dominant models for scaling up health systems in developing countries and a recognition that approaches are needed that better take into account the complexity of health interventions. Since Reform and Opening in the late 1970s, Chinese government has managed complex, rapid and intersecting reforms across many policy areas. As with reforms in other policy areas, reform of the health system has been through a process of trial and error. There is increasing understanding of the importance of policy experimentation and innovation in many of China’s reforms; this article argues that these processes have been important in rebuilding China’s health system. While China’s current system still has many problems, progress is being made in developing a functioning system able to ensure broad population access. The article analyses Chinese thinking on policy experimentation and innovation and their use in management of complex reforms. It argues that China’s management of reform allows space for policy tailoring and innovation by sub-national governments under a broad agreement over the ends of reform, and that shared understandings of policy innovation, alongside informational infrastructures for the systemic propagation and codification of useful practices, provide a framework for managing change in complex environments and under conditions of uncertainty in which ‘what works’ is not knowable in advance. The article situates China’s use of experimentation and innovation in management of health system reform in relation to recent literature which applies complex systems thinking to global health, and concludes that there are lessons to be learnt from China’s approaches to managing complexity in development of health systems for the benefit of the poor.

Policy messes and their management - Roe, Emery (Policy Sciences, 2016)
This paper presents a framework for better managing policy messes and draws implications for bad and good mess management in policy analysis and management. The framework has three foci: (1) the cognitive space in which policy messes develop, particularly in terms of gaps between macro-designers and micro-operators; (2) the unique domain of competence within that space where professionals manage the resulting messes by virtue of their skills in recognizing system-wide patterns, formulating locally specific contingency scenarios and translating both patterns and scenarios in highly reliable services; and (3) the ability of those mess and reliability professionals to be reliable in their domain and with these skills by maneuvering across different performance modes as conditions dictate—just-in-case, just-on-time, just-for-now or just-this-way.

Political Economy Analysis – Guidance for legal technical assistance - Denney, Lisa; Domingo, Pilar (ROLE UK, 2017)
Political economy analysis is about understanding how change in relation to rule of law and international development is embedded within and shaped by political and economic relations that interact and are particular to each context. These political economy dynamics determine the distribution of power and resources within any given society and must be taken into account when attempting to achieve change. Political economy analysis is important in the justice sector because rule of law and dispute resolution processes reflect the rules of the game about who wins and who loses in the allocation of power and resources. Using political economy analysis in legal technical assistance can help to ensure more relevant and effective assistance that sustainably addresses concrete problems. It can also help to avoid the risk that poorly targeted assistance might inadvertently exacerbate existing power structures in a way that was not intended.

Political Economy Analysis - How to note - DFID (DFID, 2009)
Political economy analysis is a powerful tool for improving the effectiveness of aid. Bridging the traditional concerns of politics and economics, it focuses on how power and resources are distributed and contested in different contexts, and the implications for development outcomes. It gets beneath the formal structures to reveal the underlying interests, incentives and institutions that enable or frustrate change. Such insights are important if we are to advance challenging agendas around governance, economic growth and service delivery, which experience has shown do not lend themselves to technical solutions alone. Political economy analysis is not a magic bullet for the resolution of intractable development problems. However, it can support more effective and politically feasible development strategies, as well as inform more realistic expectations of what can be achieved, and the risks involved. It can also contribute to better results by identifying where the main opportunities and barriers for policy reform exist and how donors can use their programming and influencing tools to promote positive change. This understanding is particularly relevant in fragile and conflict-affected environments where the challenge of building peaceful states and societies is fundamentally political. There are an increasing number of political economy tools available to development agencies for a range of analytical and operational purposes. This note brings together this material with a view to explaining the relevance and uses of political economy analysis. It is intended to be used by a wide range of DFID programme managers and advisers, as well as staff in other HMG departments and partner organisations. The main questions it addresses are: 􀂃 what is political economy analysis? 􀂃 how and why does political economy analysis add value to DFID work? 􀂃 what approaches and tools are available? 􀂃 how should the analysis be prepared, undertaken and applied to DFID’s work? 􀂃 how should we work with other development partners and across HMG on analysis? Key messages include: • Political economy analysis is central to the formulation of sound country plans and sector programmes, and can play a key role in risk mitigation and ensuring that donors avoid harmful practices. • Political economy analysis can help to improve development effectiveness by identifying how and where donors should focus efforts to promote positive change. • There are a growing number of operationally relevant tools which can be used to inform development strategies at the country or sector level, or in relation to particular development problems. • Several DFID country offices have used political economy analysis to improve the quality and impact of aid. This experience provides valuable lessons that should be considered when commissioning and undertaking political economy analysis. • Where possible, analysis should be conducted on an ongoing basis with key partners in HMG and the wider development community to encourage shared understanding and joint action.

Political economy analysis: Topic Guide - Mcloughlin, Claire (GSDRC, University of Birmingham, 2014)
Political economy analysis (PEA) aims to situate development interventions within an understanding of the prevailing political and economic processes in society – specifically, the incentives, relationships, and distribution and contestation of power between different groups and individuals. Such an analysis can support more politically feasible and therefore more effective development strategies by setting realistic expectations …

Politically informed approaches to gender in fragile and conflict-affected settings - Castillejo, Clare; Domingo, Pilar; George, Rachel; O’Connell, Shannon (ODI, 2020)
This report summarises the discussions at a meeting held in September 2019 of a group of global development research and policy experts and practitioners, convened by ODI and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, to share experiences and knowledge, reflect on what we already know about working politically on gender in fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS), and identify what further evidence would be useful. Key messages: - It is important to identify, document and learn from politically informed and adaptive ways of working in practice on gender in FCAS. - Different analytical and monitoring, evaluation and learning tools are required for politically informed programming on gender. These should be embedded within programme teams and processes, and be both gender-responsive and responsive to the political economy context. - There is a need for more politically smart use of quantitative and qualitative data in order to identify plausible entry points and ways of working on gender in FCAS. This should include increasing the capacity of programme staff to use data to inform, adapt and correct programmes. - Staff promoting politically informed work on gender equality are often isolated, with little opportunity to share experiences or learn from others. Platforms should therefore be created to share experience and knowledge, and to bring together donors and implementers involved in this work.