Development is Going Digital: What is the role of INGOs? ICT for Development programmes in the Horn, East and Central Africa - Haikin, Matt; Flatters, George (Policy & Practice, 2017)
Development is going digital and INGOs like Oxfam have a vital convening role to play. This paper draws on ICT for Development in Oxfam’s programmes in the Horn, East and Central Africa to consider what this role is. In order to realise the opportunities

Development innovation: Taking the high road - Ramalingam, Ben (Nesta, 2015)
In part two of his blog on the challenges facing development innovation, Ben Ramalingam suggests how we might take the ‘high road’ to bring about long-lasting and meaningful innovation in the sector.

Development innovation: Fad, silo or catalyst? - Ramalingam, Ben (Nesta, 2015)
In the first of a two-part blog piece, Ben Ramalingam, affiliate of the Overseas Development Institute / Institute of Development Studies, discusses the challenges of implementing innovation in to the development sector - from keeping expectations realistic to managing the innovation process and assessing impact and value.

Development entrepreneurship: how donors and leaders can foster institutional change - Faustino, Jaime; Booth, David (The Asia Foundation, 2014)
Various communities of practice have been established recently to advance the general idea of thinking and working politically in development agencies. This paper makes a contribution by describing the practice of what has been called development entrepreneurship and explaining some of the ideas from outside the field of development that have inspired it.

Development Delusions and Contradictions: An Anatomy of the Foreign Aid Industry - Sims, David (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
This book analyses the shortcomings of the Western development aid programme. Through exploring the evolution of aid over more than seven decades, development is examined as an industry with a variety of motives and actors. The driving forces and dynamics in the relationship between aid and economic development are highlighted in relation to faulty development structures and misaligned aims. With a particular focus on Egypt, radical questions are posed on how global aid and development can be improved, including how it can respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.This book aims to present an alternative aid framework to help overcome the dysfunctionality of the current international development system. It will be of interest to researchers and policymakers working within development economics and development policy.

Development and the Learning Organization - Roper, Laura; Pettit, Jethro; Eade, Deborah (Oxfam Publications, 2003)

Development and the Learning Organisation: An introduction - Roper, Laura; Pettit, Jethro (Development in Practice, 2002)

Development and radical uncertainty - Feinstein, Osvaldo (Development in Practice, 2020)
Development strategies, programmes and projects are designed making assumptions concerning several variables such as future prices of outputs and inputs, exchange rates and productivity growth. However, knowledge about the future is limited. Uncertainty prevails. The usual approach to deal with uncertainty is to reduce it to risk. Uncertainty is perceived as a negative factor that should and can be eliminated. This article presents an alternative approach which recognises that radical uncertainty is irreducible to risk, identifying a positive dimension of uncertainty and showing its implications for development practice.
Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2020.1763258

Development Aid Confronts Politics: The Almost Revolution - Carothers, Thomas; de Gramont, Diane (EDS Publications Ltd., 2013)
A new lens on development is changing the world of international aid. The overdue recognition that development in all sectors is an inherently political process is driving aid providers to try to learn how to think and act politically. Major donors are pursuing explicitly political goals alongside their traditional socioeconomic aims and introducing more politically informed methods throughout their work. Yet these changes face an array of external and internal obstacles, from heightened sensitivity on the part of many aid-receiving governments about foreign political interventionism to inflexible aid delivery mechanisms and entrenched technocratic preferences within many aid organizations. This pathbreaking book assesses the progress and pitfalls of the attempted politics revolution in development aid and charts a constructive way forward.

'Development': A visual story of shifting power - Faciolince, Maria; Obando, Hansel (From Poverty to Power, 2021)
The work of shifting power is fundamentally the work of changing our gaze. People act on how they see, and to change how we see, is to radically change how we act. By not exploring other forms of expressing, looking and creating, we’re limiting ourselves. The development space is fixated on the written word. ... This exhibit, called “‘Development’: a visual story of shifting power”, tells the story of ‘development’, from its origin to its current challenge, from its contradictions to its possible horizons. Our guiding principles were the twin notions of decolonization and intersectionality: moving away from the unequal power structures that reinforce legacies of colonialism, and advancing explicitly anti-racist and feminist agendas.

Developing ICT Services in a Low-Resource Development Context - Bon, Anna; Akkermans, Hans; Gordijn, Jaap (Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Developing and Using Useful ToCs - Mayne, John (2018)
Developing useful theories of change (ToCs) for anintervention, especially complex interventions, is not straightforward nor something done in a couple of hourswith limited effort. Agreement is needed on a number of basic concepts and terms, key challenges need to be addressed, and there are numerous issues that need to be considered.Butthe effort is worth the investment of resources and time.Theory-based evaluation approaches need good ToCs.Some of the ideas here are discussed in the context of agricultural research for nutrition and health interventions by Mayne and Johnson (2015) (10) Developing and Using Useful ToCs. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323868372_Developing_and_Using_Useful_ToCs [accessed Jun 13 2018].

Developing an effective adaptive monitoring network to support integrated coastal management in a multiuser nature reserve - Vugteveen, Pim; van Katwijk, Marieke M.; Rouwette, Etiënne; Lenders, H. J. Rob; Hanssen, Lucien (Ecology and Society, 2015)
ABSTRACT. We elaborate the necessary conceptual and strategic elements for developing an effective adaptive monitoring network to support Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) in a multiuser nature reserve in the Dutch Wadden Sea Region. We discuss quality criteria and enabling actions essential to accomplish and sustain monitoring excellence to support ICM. The Wadden Sea Long-Term Ecosystem Research project (WaLTER) was initiated to develop an adaptive monitoring network and online data portal to better understand and support ICM in the Dutch Wadden Sea Region. Our comprehensive approach integrates ecological and socioeconomic data and links research-driven and policy-driven monitoring for system analysis using indicators of pressures, state, benefits, and responses. The approach and concepts we elaborated are transferable to other coastal regions to accomplish ICM in complex social-ecological systems in which scientists, multisectoral stakeholders, resource managers, and governmental representatives seek to balance long-term ecological, economic, and social objectives within natural limits.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Developing a Systems Thinking Lens for Collective Leadership - O’Donnell, Joan (Collective Leadership for Scotland, 2023)
Systems thinking approaches are gaining traction as an effective way of understanding and working with increasing complexity. They are being put forward by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as well as the World Health Organisation as a way to tackle the complex and unpredictable environments we now operate in. As the world has become increasingly interconnected, national or local boundaries cannot isolate and control social problems. The climate emergency, war and political instability have become everyday realities that accompany an ever-widening gap between those who have and control resources, and those who do not have enough to meet basic needs. The usual responses are becoming more and more ineffective; all interventions have unseen consequences or emergent properties that cannot be predicted using an inputoutput outcomes model. Designing interventions therefore requires a fresh lens to manage our way through turbulence and uncertainty. Most complex situations benefit from a complementary mix of a systematic (linear) decisive intervention as much as a systemic (whole-view) understanding of a proposed intervention. In this sense, adopting a systems thinking approach requires both framing the situation using a systems lens, as well as a commitment to take action and learn forward in realtime. When utilised in this way, a systems thinking lens complements rather than replaces traditional management tools. It draws on well-tested concepts and tools and relies on the systems leader to develop their practice, which includes the art of knowing what is needed and when. It is about threading traditional planning methods together with an understanding of the interrelationships, multiple perspectives and boundary judgements that influence the framing of a situation. It is becoming increasingly clear that effective leadership is embedded and invested: objective management science has no place in a world bound by interconnectedness and unintended consequences. Leaders are, as we shall see, an inherent part of both the problem and the proposed intervention. The purpose of this paper is to share some concepts informed by systems thinking to support you, as leaders in your organisations, to bring a systems-informed lens to your work. It puts you as a practitioner-leader at the centre of your own practice and encourages you to reflect critically on your positionality, as well as the lens you use to understand and intervene in complex issues. This paper has been developed on foot of training piloted with public service leaders in Scotland in the summer of 2022, and acts as an introduction to developing your systems literacy skills. While we are all born with a systems sensibility, many of us lose that sense of connectedness and interdependence with the world as we grow up. This paper acts as a prompt to bring a complexity informed approach to your work practice. It also contains some pointers for further resources and tools that may support your learning.

Developing a performance story report: user guide - Roughly, A.; Dart, J. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009)
This report is a nuts and bolts guide to developing a Collaborative Outcomes Report (COR)/ Performance Story Report (PSR) produced by the Australian Government and Jess Dart. It includes practical tips, step-by-step process guides and definitions of key concepts surrounding these approaches.

Desired and unwanted: Policy work by participation practitioners - Escobar, Óliver (2012)
"This paper presents findings from doctoral research in a Scottish Local Authority Area, where I am developing an interpretive ethnography of ‘the work of participation’ (cf. Colebatch, 2005c, 2006). My focus is on engagement practitioners:
Keywords: Academia; Biology; Computer Science; Earth Sciences; Geography; History; Law; Math; Medicine; Philosophy; Physics; Political science; Psychology; Religion; Research; economics; universities

Designing Regenerative Cultures - Wahl, Daniel Christian (Triarchy Press Ltd, 2016)
This is a 'Whole Earth Catalog' for the 21st century: an impressive and wide-ranging analysis of what's wrong with our societies, organizations, ideologies, worldviews and cultures - and how to put them right. The book covers the finance system, agriculture, design, ecology, economy, sustainability, organizations and society at large. In this remarkable book, Daniel Wahl explores ways in which we can reframe and understand the crises that we currently face, and he explores how we can live our way into the future. Moving from patterns of thinking and believing to our practice of education, design and community living, he systematically shows how we can stop chasing the mirage of certainty and control in a complex and unpredictable world. The book asks how can we collaborate in the creation of diverse regenerative cultures adapted to the unique biocultural conditions of place? How can we create conditions conducive to life? *** "This book is a valuable contribution to the important discussion of the worldview and value system we need to redesign our businesses, economies, and technologies - in fact, our entire culture - so as to make them regenerative rather than destructive." –Fritjof Capra, author of The Web of Life, co-author of The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision *** "This is an excellent addition to the literature on ecological design and it will certainly form a keystone in the foundations of the new MA in Ecological Design Thinking at Schumacher College, Devon. It not only contains a wealth of ideas on what Dr Wahl has termed 'Designing Regenerative Cultures' but what is probably more important, it provides some stimulating new ways of looking at persistent problems in our contemporary culture and hence opens up new ways of thinking and acting in the future." – Seaton Baxter OBE, Prof. in Ecological Design Thinking, Schumacher College, UK [Subject: Systems Thinking, Education, Social Anthropology, Environmentalism, Ecology, Regenerative Culture, Sociology]

Designing Participatory Meetings and Brownbags: A TOPS Quick Guide to Linking Development Practitioners - TOPS (Technical and Operational Performance Support Program, USAID, 2013)
Visit this resource for ideas on designing meetings and brownbags that are engaging and build inopportunities for participant dialogue.

Designing Monitoring and Evaluation Approaches for Learning An FOS How-To Guide - FOS (FOS, 2019)

Designing for Public Services - Nesta (Nesta/IDEO, 2016)

Designing & Facilitating Collaborative Learning Networks. A toolkit - Folsom, Amanda (Results for Development, 2023)
Collaborative Learning — an approach which brings together people who face common challenges to share knowledge and jointly problem-solve — is a powerful way to support locally-led development and achieve impact. It provides a structured process in which change agents determine priorities, set the learning agenda, work together to identify strategies to address complex challenges, and provide ongoing implementation support to one another. Collaborative Learning — unlike traditional approaches to technical assistance — centers the expertise of local change agents and captures the valuable tacit knowledge of practitioners to advance systems change. This toolkit synthesizes lessons, tips, and tools accumulated from more than a decade of experience designing and facilitating over 20 Collaborative Learning Networks. The lead author was Amanda Folsom, Senior Program Director and Collaborative Learning Practice Lead, Results for Development (R4D). The toolkit benefited from the contributions of many R4D colleagues, including Katie Bowman, Cheryl Cashin, Tanya Jones, Gina Lagomarsino, Agnes Munyua, Maria Jose Pastor, and Abeba Taddese. R4D has not done this alone. The lessons and examples are drawn from our work with many network partners from the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN), Linked Immunisation Action Network (Linked), Health Systems Strengthening Accelerator, Strategic Purchasing Africa Resource Center (SPARC), the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI), the Partnership for Evidence and Equity in Responsive Social Systems (PEERSS), and the School Action Learning Exchange (SALEX), to name a few. We are grateful for the thought partnership and support of our partners and funders, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, Hewlett Foundation, Jacobs Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, USAID, and World Bank.

Designing Contribution Analysis of Participatory Programming to Tackle the Worst Forms of Child Labour - Apgar, Marina; Snijder, Mieke; Prieto Martin, Pedro; Ton, Giel; Macleod, Shona; Kakri, Shanta; Paul, Sukanta (Institute of Development Studies, 2022)
This Research and Evidence Paper presents the theory-based and participatory evaluation design of the Child Labour: Action-Research- Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA) programme. The evaluation is embedded in emergent Participatory Action Research with children and other stakeholders to address the drivers of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). The report describes the use of contribution analysis as an overarching approach, with its emphasis on crafting, nesting and iteratively reflecting on causal theories of change. It illustrates how hierarchically-nested impact pathways lead to specific evaluation questions and mixing different evaluation methods in response to these questions, critical assumptions, and agreement on causal mechanisms to be examined in depth. It also illustrates how realist evaluation can be combined with contribution analysis to deeply investigate specific causal links in the theory of change. It reflects on learning from the use of causal hotspots as a vehicle for mixing methods. It offers considerations on how to navigate relationships and operational trade-offs in making methodological choices to build robust and credible evidence on how, for whom, and under what conditions participatory programming can work to address complex problems such as child labour.
Accepted: 2022-08-18T11:05:51Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

Designing a Participatory Programme at Scale: Phases 1 and 2 of the CLARISSA Programme on Worst Forms of Child Labour - Burns, Danny; Apgar, Marina; Raw, Anna (Institute of Development Studies, 2021)
CLARISSA (Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia) is a large-scale Participatory Action Research programme which aims to identify, evidence, and promote effective multi-stakeholder action to tackle the drivers of the worst forms of child labour in selected supply chains in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar. CLARISSA places a particular focus on participants’ own ‘agency’. In other words, participants’ ability to understand the situation they face, and to develop and take actions in response to them. Most of CLARISSA’s participants are children. This document shares the design and overarching methodology of the CLARISSA programme, which was co-developed with all consortium partners during and since the co-generation phase of the programme (September 2018–June 2020). The immediate audience is the CLARISSA programme implementation teams, plus the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). This design document is also a useful reference point for other programmes trying to build large-scale participatory processes. It provides a clear overview of the CLARISSA programmatic approach, the design, and how it is being operationalised in context.

Design thinking: understand - improve - apply - Plattner, Hasso; Meinel, Christoph; Leifer, Larry (Springer, 2011)
"In this book, the researchers take a system's view that begins with a demand for deep, evidence-based understanding of design thinking phenomena. They continue with an exploration of tools which can help improve the adaptive expertise needed for design thinking. The final part of the book concerns design thinking in information technology and its relevance for business process modeling and agile software development, i.e. real world creation and deployment of products, services, and enterprise systems"–Cover
Keywords: Creative ability in business; Creative thinking; Designer; Industrial management; Innovation; Organizational change; Product development; System design; Technological innovations

Design Thinking is not enough – Innovate DFID - DFID, Innovate (Medium, 2016)
By Tamara Giltsoff

Design Thinking for Social Innovation - Brown, Tim; Wyatt, Jocelyn (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2010)
Designers have traditionally focused on enhancing the look and functionality of products. Recently, they have begun using design techniques to tackle more complex problems, such as finding ways to provide low-cost healthcare throughout the world. Businesses were the first to embrace this new approach—called design thinking—and nonprofits are beginning to adopt it too.

Design reality gap issues within an ICT4D project: an assessment of Jigawa State Community Computer Center - Kanya, Rislana Abdulazeez; Good, Alice (2013)
This paper evaluates the Jigawa State Government Community Computer centre project using the design reality gap framework. The purpose of this was to analyse the shortfall between design expectations and implementation realities, in order to find out the current situation of the project. Furthermore to analyse whether it would meet the key stakeholder’s expectation. The Majority of Government ICT Projects is classified as either failure or partial failure. Our research will underpin a case study of Jigawa State Community Computer centre project. To support our argument we conducted a qualitative case study in which we conducted two interviews, and a survey to find out the current status of the project. Our findings indicated that the project can be classified as a partial failure because few of the centres, operating in some areas of the community, offered socio-economic advancement. Our results also indicated that the project design reality gap is quite significant. This gap occurred due to poor planning and implementation of the project. Our research reveals several challenges that could impact upon the successfulness of the project provide a foundation for further research and add to existing literature. The challenges associated with the project we identify include poor state of power supply, lack of community engagement during the project planning and implementation, lack of commitment from the Local Government Administration. Our research has potential in adding ICT4D literature, reveals how ICT4D project evaluation can be carried out using design reality gap framework and provides guideline for policy makers.

Design in the Organization: Parts and Wholes - Junginger, Sabine (Research Design Journal, 2009)
Inroduces the stages of adoption of Design in organizations, with a visual tool.

Design for Sustainability: Countering the Drivers of Unsustainability in Development Projects - Meyer, Isabel; Marais, Mario Alphonso (The Journal of Community Informatics, 2015)
Development projects aim to make a difference in communities. Funders often require that the intervention needs to last, or that it needs to effect change that will last, over an extended period of time. In short, a sustainable difference needs to be made and this is an important measure of success. However, there are inherent drivers in the combined system of donors and beneficiaries that counter sustainability. This article explores these drivers, and identifies project design elements that need to be in place in order to promote sustainability by countering the drivers. This approach is applied to an education project, and implications for ICT4D projects are developed.
Keywords: Development; Project design; Systems Approaches; sustainability

Democratising Engagement: What the UK Can Learn from International Experience - Cornwall, Andrea (Demos, 2008)

Democratic governance and evaluation. - Hanberger, A. (2004)
This paper, presented by Anders Hanberger at the Sixth EES (European Evaluation Society) Conference in Berlin, Germany (September 30-October 2, 2004) argues that governance, democracy and evaluation impact each in different ways. It offers a discussion centred around the evaluation of three general democratic governance models and the implications of leading democratic evaluations. "Since governance and democracy are changing phenomena, and evaluation is embedded in these structures, there is a need to illuminate and discuss the role of evaluation. Evaluation is to most people thought of as a democratic tool, but what do we mean with democratic evaluation? Furthermore, what is the role of evaluation in times when democracy and governance are changing? The many meanings of democracy and the shifting role of evaluation in various democratic governance settings are also a motive for discussing governance and democratic evaluation. Governance issues can be discussed in relation to different political systems. However, in this paper the discussion is confined to democratic governance systems. The premise of this paper is that governance, democracy and evaluation affect one another in different ways. Governance is intertwined with democracy, and democracy and governance can be maintained or strengthened by evaluation, for example. Because different models of governance and democracy presuppose one another, evaluating governance models, or programme processes/outcomes where a specific governance model sets up the context, have implications for the model under scrutiny and subsequently for democracy. Accordingly, the implications of democratic evaluations need to be discussed in various ways. For analytical purpose democracy and governance are sometimes kept apart." (Hanberger, 2004)​

Demanding Good Governance: Lessons from Social Accountability Initiatives in Africa - McNeil, Mary; Malena, Carmen (World Bank Publications, 2010)
Accountability is the cornerstone of good governance. Unless public officials can be held to account, then critical benefits associated with good governance, such as social justice, poverty reduction and development remain elusive. The impacts of non-responsive and unaccountable governance are perhaps most harshly felt by the citizens of Africa, where corruption and governance failures are broadly acknowledged as a principal obstacle to the achievement Over the past decade, a range of social accountability practices―such as participatory budgeting, independent budget analysis, participatory monitoring of public expenditure and citizen evaluation of public services have been experimented with in many Africa countries. Their outcomes and lessons have, thus far, received little attend and documentation. This volume aims to make a contribution towards filling this gap by describing and analyzing a selection of social accountability initiatives from seven Sub-Saharan countries.

Delivering large-scale IT projects on time, on budget, and on value - Bloch, Michael; Blumberg, Sven; Laartz, Jürgen (McKinsey on Business Technology, 2012)
Large IT efforts often cost much more than planned; some can put the whole organization in jeopardy. The companies that defy these odds are the ones that master key dimensions that align IT and business value.

Delivering institutional reform at scale: Problem-driven approaches supported by adaptive programming - Manuel, Clare (DFID-LASER Programme, 2016)
LASER synthesis papers aim to help donors and other stakeholders better understand why and how to approach investment climate reform programming differently. The papers reflect emerging best practice and lessons learnt on what works and what does not work in doing development differently. The papers have been peer-reviewed by experts in the field including senior advisers at DFID, World Bank, IFC and the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (amongst others). Second synthesis paper - Delivering institutional reform at scale: problem-driven approaches supported by adaptive programming February 2016 Drawing on our experience on the ground, this peer-reviewed paper suggests how problem driven approaches, supported by adaptive programme management can be implemented at scale in relation to donor programming aimed at institutional reform and improving state capability.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Deliberation and Development: Rethinking the Role of Voice and Collective Action in Unequal Societies - Heller, Patrick; Rao, Vijayendra (World Bank Publications, 2015)
This book marries two fields that rarely converse with one another:deliberative democracy and development studies. The study ofdeliberation―which explores normative and practical questions aroundgroup-based decision making through discussion or debate―has emergedas a critical area of study over the past two decades. Concurrently, the fieldof development has seen a spurt of interest in community-led developmentand participation premised on the ability of groups to arrive at decisionsand manage resources via a process of discussion and debate. Despite thegrowing interest in both fields, they have rarely engaged with one another.This book, which brings together new essays by some of the leading scholarsin the field, deepens our understanding of participatory decision makingin developing countries while initiating a new field of study for scholarsof deliberation. In the process, it sheds light on how to best design andimplement policies to strengthen the role of participation in development.

Definitions of Agile Software Development and Agility - Laanti, Maarit; Similä, Jouni; Abrahamsson, Pekka (Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement, 2013)
The Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles are typically referred to as the definitions of "agile" and "agility". However, many other definitions exist in the literature. Thus the different definitions provide interesting source for research. For each definition we examine where their emphasis is and compare that to the emphases found in the Agile Principles.

Defining the burden of proof in conservation - Salafsky, Nick; Redford, Kent H. (Biological Conservation, 2013)
Conservationists often must take action in the face of uncertainty about the costs and benefits of different options. Although this uncertainty can be paralyzing when the stakes are high, there is obviously a cost to inaction as well as action, and decision makers need to be encouraged to act when appropriate. Many other fields of human endeavor such as law, medicine, and public safety have formally developed the “burden and standards of proof” that decision makers have to meet in choosing to take action. In this paper, we review the standards developed in these other fields to help define a similar framework for conservation. Specifically we propose that a conservation decision maker must assume the burden of proof when there is a decision to act that substantially affects others, in which the decision maker has professional standing, where there is not immediate urgency, and where there is some, but not complete certainty about the outcomes of acting versus not acting. Once these initial tests have been met, in situations in which the decision maker is more worried about the consequences of not acting, then a relatively low standard of proof is required for taking action. If the decision maker is concerned with the consequences of acting in error, but the action is relatively reversible, then a medium standard of proof is required. And finally, if there are concerns about the consequences of acting in error, but the action is relatively irreversible, then a high standard of proof is required.
Keywords: Biodiversity; Burden of proof; Decision theory; Standard of proof; Uncertainty

Defining and using evidence in conservation practice - Salafsky, Nick; Boshoven, Judith; Burivalova, Zuzana; Dubois, Natalie S.; Gomez, Andres; Johnson, Arlyne; Lee, Aileen; Margoluis, Richard; Morrison, John; Muir, Matthew; Pratt, Stephen C.; Pullin, Andrew S.; et al. (Conservation Science and Practice, 2019)
There is growing interest in evidence-based conservation, yet there are no widely accepted standard definitions of evidence, let alone guidance on how to use it in the context of conservation and natural resource management practice. In this paper, we first draw on insights of evidence-based practice from different disciplines to define evidence as being the “relevant information used to assess one or more hypotheses related to a question of interest.” We then construct a typology of different kinds of information, hypotheses, and evidence and show how these different types can be used in different steps of conservation practice. In particular, we distinguish between specific evidence used to assess project hypotheses and generic evidence used to assess generic hypotheses. We next build on this typology to develop a decision tree to support practitioners in how to appropriately use available specific and generic evidence in a given conservation situation. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of how to better promote and enable evidence-based conservation in both projects and across the discipline of conservation. Our hope is that by understanding and using evidence better, conservation can both become more effective and attract increased support from society.
Keywords: Adaptive Management; Evidence-based conservation; Evidence-based practice; Natural resource management; Project management; biodiversity; environmental evidence

Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance - Fung, Archon; Wright, Erik Olin (Verso, 2003)
ENTRADA CREADA PARA PODER CITAR EL CAPÍTULO

Deconstructing Development Discourse: Buzzwords and Fuzzwords - Cornwall, Andrea; Eade, Deborah (Oxfam & Practical Action Publishing, 2010)
Writing from diverse locations, contributors critically examine some of the key terms in current development discourse. Why should language matter to those who are doing development? Surely, there are more urgent things to do than sit around mulling over semantics?

Deconstructing Adaptive Management: Criteria for Applications to Environmental Management - Gregory, R.; Ohlson, D.; Arvai, J. (Ecological Applications, 2006)
[The concept of adaptive management has, for many ecologists, become a foundation of effective environmental management for initiatives characterized by high levels of ecological uncertainty. Yet problems associated with its application are legendary, and many of the initiatives promoted as examples of adaptive management appear to lack essential characteristics of the approach. In this paper we propose explicit criteria for helping managers and decision makers to determine the appropriateness of either passive or active adaptive-management strategies as a response to ecological uncertainty in environmental management. Four categories of criteria–dealing with spatial and temporal scale, dimensions of uncertainty, the evaluation of costs and benefits, and institutional and stakeholder support–are defined and applied using hypothetical yet realistic case-study scenarios that illustrate a range of environmental management problems. We conclude that many of the issues facing adaptive management may have less to do with the approach itself than with the indiscriminate choice of contexts within which it is now applied.]

Decision-Making and Data Use Landscaping [at DFID] - Powell, Josh; Orton-Vipond, Sarah; Bhatia, Vinisha; Kilroy, Annie (Development Gateway, 2018)
As DFID aims to harness the Data Revolution, ensuring that data1 drive decision-making, public accountability, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ensuring that systems, processes, and skills for data are aligned with these objectives is paramount. Across sector policy teams, country offices, and various analytical and technical cadres, different strengths and weaknesses, as well as needs and ambitions exist. To inform a strategic approach to data, as framed in its forthcoming Data Roadmap, DFID collaborated with Development Gateway to perform a Decision and Data Use Landscaping study. This report details lessons learned from approximately 60 interviews across 4 DFID country offices, all sector policy teams, senior managers, and various analytical and technical cadres and offices.

Deciding Well in Tumultuous Times - Moss, Ian David (Smarter decisions for a better world, 2020)
Practical advice for donors and institutions responding to COVID-19

Decide Madrid: A Critical Analysis of an Award-Winning e-Participation Initiative - Royo, Sonia; Pina, Vicente; Garcia-Rayado, Jaime (Sustainability, 2020)
This paper analyzes the award-winning e-participation initiative of the city council of Madrid, Decide Madrid, to identify the critical success factors and the main barriers that are conditioning its performance. An exploratory case study is used as a research technique, including desk research and semi-structured interviews. The analysis distinguishes contextual, organizational and individual level factors; it considers whether the factors or barriers are more related to the information and communication technology (ICT) component, public sector context or democratic participation; it also diﬀerentiates among the diﬀerent stages of the development of the initiative. Results show that individual and organizational factors related to the public sector context and democratic participation are the most relevant success factors. The high expectations of citizens explain the high levels of participation in the initial stages of Decide Madrid. However, the lack of transparency and poor functioning of some of its participatory activities (organizational factors related to the ICT and democratic dimensions) are negatively aﬀecting its performance. The software created for this platform, Consul, has been adopted or it is in the process of being implemented in more than 100 institutions in 33 countries. Therefore, the ﬁndings of this research can potentially be useful to improve the performance and sustainability of e-participation platforms worldwide.

Decide Madrid: a case study on e-Participation - Pina, Vicente; Torres, Lourdes; Royo, Sonia; García-Rayado, Jaime (2019)
This paper analyses the award-winning e-participation initiative of the city council of Madrid, Decide Madrid, to discover the critical success factors at contextual, organizational and individual level. This analysis is carried out with desk research and semi-structured interviews. Results show that the most relevant success factors are the socio-economic context, the commitment of the city council, the method used to recruit the workers and the knowledge of senior managers about citizen participation and ICTs. However, the lack of transparency and poor functioning of some of its participation activities are negatively affecting its performance.

Debiasing: a systematic discipline and delight for development professionals - Chambers, Robert (Institute of Development Studies, 2018)
Do we really need debiasing, yet another word? Yes, unless anyone can improve on it, because we need a word to describe a rigorous discipline we development professionals need for grounded realism. This has been coming on me slowly. But now explorations and ‘aha!’ moments in India have accumulated and combined into an epiphany. For […]

Dealing with uncertainty: Reflections on donor preferences for pre-planned project models - Tyrrel, Lavinia; Cole, William (2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

DE 201: A practitioner's guide to developmental evaluation - Dozois, Elizabeth; Langlois, Marc; Blanchet-Cohen, Natasha (J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, 2010)
Developmental evaluation has emerged fairly recently as a way to support adaptive learning in complex and emergent initiatives. Combining the rigour of evaluation with the flexibility and imagination required for development, this new form of evaluation brings critical thinking to bear on the creative process in initiatives involving high levels of uncertainty, innovation, emergence, and social complexity. This guidebook from J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and the International Institute for Child Rights and Development explores key aspects of Developmental Evaluation (DE) and offers suggestions for implementing the practice and includes a range of DE resources to help with its facilitation. Contents What is developmental evaluation? When is developmental evaluation appropriate? What competencies are needed to be an effective DE? How is developmental evaluation practiced? Challenges Appendices Assessing Readiness Stakeholder analysis Sample Learning Framework Systems Analysis Framework - Key Components Data Analysis Resources
OCLC: 713183293

Data-powered positive deviance: Combining traditional and non-traditional data to identify and characterise development-related outperformers - Albanna, Basma; Heeks, Richard; Pawelke, Andreas; Boy, Jeremy; Handl, Julia; Gluecker, Andreas (Development Engineering, 2022)
The positive deviance approach in international development scales practices and strategies of positively-deviant individuals and groups: those who are able to achieve significantly better development outcomes than their peers despite having similar resources and challenges. This approach relies mainly on traditional data sources (e.g. surveys and interviews) for identifying those positive deviants and for discovering their successful solutions. The growing availability of non-traditional digital data (e.g. from remote sensing and mobile phones) relating to individuals, communities and spaces enables data innovation opportunities for positive deviance. Such datasets can identify deviance at geographic and temporal scales that were not possible before. But guidance is needed on how this new data can be employed in the positive deviance approach, and how it can be combined with more traditional data to gain deeper, more meaningful, and context-aware insights. This paper presents such guidance through a data-powered method that combines both traditional and non-traditional data to identify and understand positive deviance in new ways and domains. This method has been developed iteratively through six development projects covering five different domains – sustainable cattle ranching, agricultural productivity, rangeland management, research performance, crime control – with global and local development partners in six countries. The projects combine different types of non-traditional data with official statistics, administrative data and interviews. Here, we describe a structured method for data-powered positive deviance developed from the experience of these projects, and we reflect on lessons learned. We hope to encourage and guide greater use of this new method; enabling development practitioners to make more effective use of the non-traditional digital datasets that are increasingly available.

Data and monitoring needs for a more ecological agriculture - Zaks, David P. M.; Kucharik, Christopher J. (Environmental Research Letters, 2011)
Information on the life-cycle environmental impacts of agricultural production is often limited. As demands grow for increasing agricultural output while reducing its negative environmental impacts, both existing and novel data sources can be leveraged to provide more information to producers, consumers, scientists and policy makers. We review the components and organization of an agroecological sensor web that integrates remote sensing technologies and in situ sensors with models in order to provide decision makers with effective management options at useful spatial and temporal scales for making more informed decisions about agricultural productivity while reducing environmental burdens. Several components of the system are already in place, but by increasing the extent and accessibility of information, decision makers will have the opportunity to enhance food security and environmental quality. Potential roadblocks to implementation include farmer acceptance, data transparency and technology deployment.

DAC Peer Review of Switzerland - 2019 - OECD (OECD, 2019)

DAC Peer Review of Switzerland - 2013 - OECD (OECD, 2013)

DAC Peer Review of Switzerland - 2009 - OECD (OECD, 2009)

DAC - Mid-term Peer Review of Switzaerland - 2016 - OECD (OECD, 2016)

Cynefin St David’s Day 2020 (1 of 5) - Snowden, Dave (Cognitive Edge, 2020)
Series of blog posts discussing the last version (as of 2020) of the Cynefin framework.

Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge - Wenger, Etienne; McDermott, Richard Arnold; Snyder, William (Harvard Business Press, 2002)
Today's marketplace is fueled by knowledge. Yet organizing systematically to leverage knowledge remains a challenge. Leading companies have discovered that technology is not enough, and that cultivating communities of practice is the keystone of an effective knowledge strategy.Communities of practice come together around common interests and expertise- whether they consist of first-line managers or customer service representatives, neurosurgeons or software programmers, city managers or home-improvement amateurs. They create, share, and apply knowledge within and across the boundaries of teams, business units, and even entire companies-providing a concrete path toward creating a true knowledge organization.In Cultivating Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder argue that while communities form naturally, organizations need to become more proactive and systematic about developing and integrating them into their strategy. This book provides practical models and methods for stewarding these communities to reach their full potential-without squelching the inner drive that makes them so valuable.Through in-depth cases from firms such as DaimlerChrysler, McKinsey & Company, Shell, and the World Bank, the authors demonstrate how communities of practice can be leveraged to drive overall company strategy, generate new business opportunities, tie personal development to corporate goals, transfer best practices, and recruit and retain top talent. They define the unique features of these communities and outline principles for nurturing their essential elements. They provide guidelines to support communities of practice through their major stages of development, address the potential downsides of communities, and discuss the specific challenges of distributed communities. And they show how to recognize the value created by communities of practice and how to build a corporate knowledge strategy around them.Essential reading for any leader in today's knowledge economy, this is the definitive guide to developing communities of practice for the benefit-and long-term success-of organizations and the individuals who work in them.Etienne Wenger is a renowned expert and consultant on knowledge management and communities of practice in San Juan, California. Richard McDermott is a leading expert of organization and community development in Boulder, Colorado. William M. Snyder is a founding partner of Social Capital Group, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Google-Books-ID: m1xZuNq9RygC

Crowdsourcing citizen feedback on district development in Ghana using interactive voice response surveys - Pegus, Ciana-Marie (IDS, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Critical systems heuristics - Ulrich, Werner; Reynolds, Martin (Systems Approaches to Manging Change: A Practical Guide, 2010)
This chapter provides a detailed introduction to critical systems heuristics and the use of its central tool boundary critique. What Is CSH? Two Studies in Applying CSH Using CSH as an Intervention Tool: Some Basic Concepts A Core Concept of CSH: Systematic Boundary Critique Boundary Critique Applied to NRUA-Botswana Boundary Critique Applied to ECOSENSUS-Guyana Boundary Critique and Personal Competence Recognising Boundary Judgements – and Keeping Them Fluid Towards a New Ethos of Professional Responsibility

Critical System Heuristics : a very, very short introduction - van 't Hof, Sjon (CSL4D/SystemicAgency, 2021)

Critical friends - real time insights for shaping strategy - Johnson, Debbie; Nathan, Geeta; Rahman, Syahirah Abdul (Chapters, 2022)
This chapter focuses on facilitation given by the Innovation Caucus to provide expert academic critique to inform Innovate UK's strategy for UK business innovation. As Innovate UK's strategy developed, it became evident that several policy domains needed critical insights and evidence. An academic critical friend provided the latest academic insights, evidence and wider perspective of the actors in the UK Innovation system, insights of which policy makers often lack. The chapter gave case studies of Innovation Caucus' work with Innovate UK in facilitating extensive research expertise and helping policy makers to open dialogue. It also describes 'The Innovators' Breakfast Club', a webinar series organised by Innovation Caucus, co-developed with Innovate UK, which created live face-to-face dialogue between academic experts and Innovate UK strategy/policy leads. This example showed how critical friends are important in facilitating the initial dialogues needed to build evidence for policy making. The dialogue builds the foundation for a virtuous cycle of learning. The approach provides an opportunity for academic experts to gain insights into the priorities and dilemmas facing policy makers, to shape future academic research and refine the skill set needed to become critical friends.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Critical agency and development: applying Freire and Sen to ICT4D in Zambia and Brazil - Poveda, Sammia; Roberts, Tony (Information Technology for Development, 2017)
(2017). Critical agency and development: applying Freire and Sen to ICT4D in Zambia and Brazil. Information Technology for Development. Ahead of Print. doi: 10.1080/02681102.2017.1328656

Crisis relief for adults & families everywhere - Featuring the mighty micro-VCoL - Lectica (Lectica Live, 2020)
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, we're open-sourcing our most effective stress- and crisis-management learning tools. We call these tools micro-VCoLs™. All of the micro-VCoLs shared here can be practiced effectively just by following the instructions.

Creative Activities for Work Teams and Communities of Practice. A guide for designing participatory, productive, and engaging sessions - AKF (2023)
This free guide aims to build the skills and confidence of people designing and facilitating participatory, productive, and engaging workshop sessions for work teams and communities of practice by providing them with a series of creative activities that can be run in-person or virtually. By the time they have gone through this guide, session leads will be able to: Describe ways in which creative activities can be of value to teams and communities of practice, Design both in-person and virtual workshop sessions that incorporate creative activities, Facilitate participatory, productive and engaging workshop sessions that incorporate one or several creative activities, and Lead an effective debrief following a creative activity. This toolkit was developed by the Aga Khan Foundation.

Creating the (organisational) conditions for an OM based M&E and learning practice - Deprez, Steff (Outcome Mapping Learning Community, 2009)

Creating adaptive policies: a guide for policymaking in an uncertain world - Swanson, Darren; Bhadwal, Suruchi (IDRC, 2009)
OCLC: ocn421532510
Keywords: Adaptive natural resource management; Environmental policy; Government policy; Sustainable development

Course: Introduction to Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) in the Program Cycle - USAID LEARN (USAID Learning Lab, 2018)

COUNT - Understanding the challenge of government responsiveness - McGee, Rosemary (MAVC and IDS, 2014)

Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA) or the Highway? An Alternative Road to Investigating the Value for Money of International Development Research - Peterson, Heidi (The European Journal of Development Research, 2023)
Research for development (R4D) funding is increasingly expected to demonstrate value for money (VfM). However, the dominance of positivist approaches to evaluating VfM, such as cost-benefit analysis, do not fully account for the complexity of R4D funds and risk undermining efforts to contribute to transformational development. This paper posits an alternative approach to evaluating VfM, using the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund and the Newton Fund as case studies. Based on a constructivist approach to valuing outcomes, this approach applies a collaboratively developed rubric-based peer review to a sample of projects. This is more appropriate for the complexity of R4D interventions, particularly when considering uncertain and emergent outcomes over a long timeframe. This approach could be adapted to other complex interventions, demonstrating that our options are not merely “CBA or the highway” and there are indeed alternative routes to evaluating VfM.

Coping with Complexity - Gerard Seijts; Niels Billou; Mary Crossan (Ivey Business Journal, 2010)

Cooperation Management for Practitioners: Managing Social Change With Capacity Works - GIZ (Springer Gabler, 2015)
OCLC: 893897509

Contribution Rubrics: A simple way to assess influence - Aston, Tom (Independent Consultant, 2020)
This document explores how organisations can measure the level of influence that they had over an outcome. It summarises influence in terms of the significance of the outcome, the level of contribution and the strength of evidence.

Contribution analysis for adaptive management - Apgar, Marina; Hernandez, Kevin; Ton, Giel (IDS/GLAM, 2020)
This briefing note shares practical learning on the use of contribution analysis for adaptive management (CA4AM). It examines how the approach enables programmes to work with theories of change in a practical, reflexive way, and how, combined with assessing evidence of a programme’s contribution to change, its findings can inform programme adaptation. It also examines both how and to what extent CA enables AM through the experiences of four large complex programmes all working towards systems-level change and employing a structured process of reflection on theories of change. Key messages CA4AM can enable programmes to work with theories of change in a practical, reflexive way. It is particularly useful for programmes operating in conditions of complexity, when it is difficult to discern attribution and when systems-level change is the goal. A range of enabling factors help CA4AM to be used most effectively, including contractual flexibility; embedded monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL); and supportive leadership.

Contribution Analysis: An approach to exploring cause and effect - Mayne, J. (ILAC, 2008)
Questions of cause and effect are critical to assessing the performance of programmes and projects. When it is not practical to design an experiment to assess performance, contribution analysis can provide credible assessments of cause and effect. Verifying the theory of change that the programme is based on, and paying attention to other factors that may influence the outcomes, provides reasonable evidence about the contribution being made by the programme.

Contracts for adaptive programming - Bryan, Kevin; Carter, Paddy (ODI, 2016)
Adaptive programming is an approach to development that encourages experimentation, learning & adaptation. This report examines the contractual underpinnings of this approach.

Context-sensitive engagement: Lessons learned from Swiss experiences in South Asia for aid effectiveness in fragile scenarios - Paffenholz, Thania; Jütersonke, Oliver (CCDP, 2008)

Context-monitoring for adaptive management - Pickwick, Sarah (World Vision, 2022)

Context-Driven Adaptation (Overview) - Jacobstein, David (USAID Learning Lab, 2018)
CONTEXT-DRIVEN ADAPTATION COLLECTION

Constituent Voice: Technical Note 1 - Keystone Accountability (Keystone Accountability, 2014)

Conservation Enterprises: Using A Theory of Change Approach to Synthesize Lessons from USAID Biodiversity Projects - Boshoven, Judy (USAID, 2017)
In an effort to increase the understanding of conservation enterprises’ activities and outcomes and to improve the effectiveness of biodiversity programming, this brief synthesizes lessons from past USAID-funded efforts to support conservation enterprises

Connecting the Dots: Systems Practice & Political Economy Analysis - Walker, Tjip; Jacobstein, David (2017)
This slide deck, from a presentation to the Local Systems Community by Tjip Walker and David Jacobstein, shows various ways in which assessing the political economy of a context and understanding that context through the lens of systems thinking can reinforce each other. Effective systems practice should be grounded in the incentives and power dynamics of a particular local system; thinking and working politically requires understanding the systems dynamics of an issue or sector.

Connecting the Dots for Accountability: Civil Society Policy Monitoring and Advocacy Strategies - Fox, Jonathan; Halloran, Brendan (Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Connect. Learn. Adapt. Repeat - Practicing adaptive management in complex, conflict-affected environments: barriers and promising practices - Queen, Emily Forsyth (2018)
To shift aid culture toward adaptive management, we can: - Stay humble, empathetic, and build skills in facilitation and listening. - Focus on working with more flexible foundations or individual donors. Or, work for more rigid donors and help make their policies more flexible. - Get clearer about goals and processes while finding ways to be less specific and more committed to local leadership about pathways to get to the goal. - Resist looking for a magic adaptive management tool and instead get clearer about when teams make what kinds of decisions and matching to tools that support that decision-making. - Validate that everyone’s perspective is a form of data and try out simple ways to document how teams learns and changes. - Broaden and ground the idea of expertise – remembering that, especially when working with folx on the margins, people are the only experts on their own life. Practitioners must also examine how dominant patriarchal, white supremacist, colonial ideas have pushed us toward wanting more control, less flexibility, and less space for equitable decision making.

Conjunctions: Introducing Cultural Participation as a Transdisciplinary Project - Reestorff, Camilla Møhring; Fabian, Louise; Fritsch, Jonas; Stage, Carsten; Stephensen, Jan Løhmann (Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, 2014)
In the introduction of Conjunction: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation we introduce 1) the aim of the journal, 2) the journal’s conception of transdisciplinarity as an important precondition for understanding contemporary processes and dilemmas of participation, 3) important trajectories in the existing literature on participation that focus on participation as linked to technological changes, to democratic processes of transferring power, and to complex social situations calling for analytical and evaluative frameworks able to grasp multiplicity and competing interests, and 4) the theme and articles of the this special issue: cultural participation and citizenship.
Keywords: Cultural participation; Participatory citizenship; Power dynamics; democracy; transdisciplinarity

Confronting the Contradiction - An exploration into the dual purpose of accountability and learning in aid evaluation - Reinertsen, Hilde; Bjørkdahl, Kristian; McNeill, Desmond (Expertgruppen för biståndsanalys (EBA), 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Conflict-sensitive programme management (CSPM) - SDC (2006)

Conflict Sensitive Programme Management: A quick guide - SDC (SDC, 2006)

Conflict and Human Rights Shareweb (2019)

Conflict Aid Goes “Lean” - Shinkle, Whitney (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)
Iterative design methods are essential to development work—even (or especially) in regions marked by war and violence.

Conclusion: Agency in the face of complexity and the future of assumption-aware evaluation practice - Morrow, Nathan; Nkwake, Apollo M. (Evaluation and Program Planning, 2016)
This final chapter in the volume pulls together common themes from the diverse set of articles by a group of eight authors in this issue, and presents some reflections on the next steps for improving the ways in which evaluators work with assumptions. Collectively, the authors provide a broad overview of existing and emerging approaches to the articulation and use of assumptions in evaluation theory and practice. The authors reiterate the rationale and key terminology as a common basis for working with assumption in program design and evaluation. They highlight some useful concepts and categorizations to promote more rigorous treatment of assumptions in evaluation. A three-tier framework for fostering agency for assumption-aware evaluation practice is proposed-agency for themselves (evaluators); agency for others (stakeholders); and agency for standards and principles.
Keywords: Agency; Complexity

Conceptualizing community resilience to natural hazards – the emBRACE framework - Forrester, John Martin; Kruse, Sylvia; Abeling, Thomas; Deeming, Hugh; Fordham, Maureen; Forrester, John; Jülich, Sebastian; Karanci, A. Nuray; Kuhlicke, Christian; Pelling, Mark; Pedoth, Lydia; Schneiderbauer, Stefan (Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 2017)
Abstract. The level of community is considered to be vital for building disaster resilience. Yet, community resilience as a scientific concept often remains vaguely defined and lacks the guiding characteristics necessary for analysing and enhancing resilience on the ground. The emBRACE framework of community resilience presented in this paper provides a heuristic analytical tool for understanding, explaining and measuring community resilience to natural hazards. It was developed in an iterative process building on existing scholarly debates, on empirical case study work in five countries and on participatory consultation with community stakeholders where the framework was applied and ground-tested in different contexts and for different hazard types. The framework conceptualizes resilience across three core domains: (i) resources and capacities, (ii) actions and (iii) learning. These three domains are conceptualized as intrinsically conjoined within a whole. Community resilience is influenced by these integral elements as well as by extra-community forces comprising disaster risk governance and thus laws, policies and responsibilities on the one hand and on the other, the general societal context, natural and human-made disturbances and system change over time. The framework is a graphically rendered heuristic, which through application can assist in guiding the assessment of community resilience in a systematic way and identifying key drivers and barriers of resilience that affect any particular hazard-exposed community.

Complexity, Organizations and Change - McMillan, Elizabeth (Routledge, 2004)
Complexity science has seriously challenged long-held views in the scientific community about how the world works. These ideas, particularly about the living world, also have radical and profound implications for organizations and society as a whole. Available in paperback for the first time, this insightful book describes and considers ideas from complexity science and examines their use in organizations, especially in bringing about major organizational change. Author McMillan explores how organizations, their design, the way they operate and, importantly, the people who co-create them, are thought of.Explaining the history and development of complexity science in an accessible way for the non-scientific reader, this outstanding book describes key concepts and their use in theory and practice. Illustrated with real-life examples from organizations in the UK, Europe and the USA, the book includes an in-depth case study of an organization which used complexity principles as part of a strategic change intervention. From this, useful models for introducing a complexity-based change process are derived.Complexity, Organizations and Change will appeal to academics, researchers and advanced students who are interested in complexity science and what it means for strategy, organization and management theory and organizational change.

Complexity, Institutions and Public Policy: Agile Decision-making in a Turbulent World - Room, Graham (Edward Elgar Pub, 2011)
Graham Room argues that conventional approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of social and economic change are unsatisfactory. As a result, researchers are ill-equipped to offer policy advice. This book offers a new analytical approach, combining complexity science and institutionalism. It also provides tools for policy makers in turbulent times. Part 1 is concerned with the conceptualization of socio-economic change. It integrates complexity science and institutionalism into a coherent ontology of social and policy dynamics. Part 2 is concerned with models and measurement. It combines some of the principal approaches developed in complexity analysis with models and methods drawn from mainstream social and political science. Part 3 offers empirical applications to public policy: the dynamics of social exclusion; the social dimension of knowledge economies; the current financial and economic crisis. These are supplemented by a toolkit for the practice of 'agile policy making'. This is a stimulating, provocative and highly original book. It will appeal to academics and students in social and policy studies and to a wide range of scholars in other disciplines where complexity science is already well-developed. It will also be of major interest for decision makers coping with complex and turbulent policy terrains.Contents: Preface 1. Introduction Part I: Concepts 2. The Complexity Paradigm 3. Complex Adaptive Systems 4. The Economy as a Complex Adaptive System 5. Institutional Settings and Architectures 6. Institutional Dynamics 7. The Struggle for Positional Advantage 8. Conceptualising Social Dynamics Part II: Methods 9. Attractors and Orbits in Dynamic Systems 10. Patterns in Time and Space 11. Connections and Networks 12. Mobility on Social Landscapes 13. Towards a Generic Methodology Part III: Policies 14. Agile Policy-Making 15. Poverty and Social Exclusion 16. Social Dynamics of the Knowledge Economy 17. Global Turbulence and Crisis Postscript: Tools for Policy-Makers References Index

Complexity & Development 2.0: From Agreeing We Should Adapt to Creating the Conditions that Enable Adaptation - Ang, Yuen Yuen (2018)
The field of global development has reached a critical turning point. Almost gone is the mechanical, one-size-fits-all “good governance” paradigm of the past. In its place is a growing embrace of complexity and systems thinking. While this is an encouraging shift in the right direction, the discussion mostly ends by concluding that we should adapt. Yuen Yuen Ang urges that it’s time to take our conversation on “complexity & development” to the next level: how to enable adaptation. Effective adaptation doesn’t automatically arise just because we desire it—rather, it requires certain enabling conditions. In How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), she introduces a generic complexity 2.0 framework that she terms “directed improvisation.” Effective adaptation, Yuen Yuen argues, requires a paradoxical blend of top-down direction and bottom-up improvisation. Such a system can be created—and produce dramatic results and adaptive solutions—even within a closed political regime like China.

Complexity-Aware Monitoring Discussion Note (Screencast) - Patsalides, Melissa; Britt, Heather (2014)
This screencast covers information included in the Complexity-Aware Monitoring Discussion Note. The topic is intended for those seeking cutting-edge solutions to monitoring complex aspects of strategies and projects. Most of the principles and promising approaches discussed here have a significant body of theory and practice behind them, but many have not been used to monitor USAID strategies and projects. We have much to learn about whether and how they can be applied successfully in the Agency. USAID's Office of Learning, Evaluation, and Research in the Bureau of Policy, Planning, and Learning has partnered with different groups through monitoring trials to build a body of evidence regarding which complexity-aware M&E approaches are most effective in the contexts of USAID programming.

Complexity-Aware Monitoring and Evaluation - Hertz, Tilman; Brattander, Eva; Rose, Loretta (Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, 2021)
Background: Addressing today’s sustainability challenges requires adopting a systemic approach where social and ecological systems are treated as integrated social-ecological systems. Such systems are complex, and the international development sector increasingly recognises the need to account for the complexity of the systems that they seek to transform. Purpose: This paper sketches out the elements of a complexity-aware monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for international development programmes in the area of sustainable development.  Setting: Not applicable. Data Collection and Analysis: The authors draw on existing literature on complexity and evaluation and on their own experience from working in the field of M&E. Findings: An M&E system should not be seen simply as a tool to track compliance against a pre-determined theory of change. Instead, it is most useful as a real-time approach, constantly defining and re-defining narratives for change that help push systems along trajectories of interest. Dealing with complexity involves embracing uncertainty; and this challenges established notions of accountability—something which funders and implementers must begin to redefine together. Keywords: monitoring; evaluation; complexity; social-ecological systems; international development programmes; narratives for change; theory of change
Number: 41

Complexity-Aware Monitoring - Britt, Heather; Patsalides, Melissa (USAID's Learning, Evaluation, and Research Office, 2013)

Complexity and the Art of Public Policy: Solving Society's Problems from the Bottom Up - Colander, David; Kupers, Roland (Princeton University Press, 2014)
Complexity science–made possible by modern analytical and computational advances–is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists' policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking away from creative, innovative policy solutions. Complexity and the Art of Public Policy outlines a new, more flexible policy narrative, which envisions society as a complex evolving system that is uncontrollable but can be influenced. David Colander and Roland Kupers describe how economists and society became locked into the current policy framework, and lay out fresh alternatives for framing policy questions. Offering original solutions to stubborn problems, the complexity narrative builds on broader philosophical traditions, such as those in the work of John Stuart Mill, to suggest initiatives that the authors call "activist laissez-faire" policies. Colander and Kupers develop innovative bottom-up solutions that, through new institutional structures such as for-benefit corporations, channel individuals' social instincts into solving societal problems, making profits a tool for change rather than a goal. They argue that a central role for government in this complexity framework is to foster an ecostructure within which diverse forms of social entrepreneurship can emerge and blossom.

Complexity, Adaptation, and Results - Barder, Owen; Ramalingam, Ben (Center For Global Development, 2012)
In the last of a series of three blog posts looking at the implications of complexity theory for development, Owen Barder and Ben Ramalingam look at the implications of complexity for the trend towards results-based management in development cooperation. They argue that is a common mistake to see a contradiction between recognising complexity and focusing on results: on the contrary, complexity provides a powerful reason for pursuing the results agenda, but it has to be done in ways which reflect the context. In the 2012 Kapuscinski lecture Owen argued that economic and political systems can best be thought of as complex adaptive systems, and that development should be understood as an emergent property of those systems. As explained in detail in Ben’s forthcoming book, these interactive systems are made up of adaptive actors, whose actions are a self-organised search for fitness on a shifting landscape. Systems like this undergo change in dynamic, non-linear ways; characterised by explosive surprises and tipping points as well as periods of relative stability. If development arises from the interactions of a dynamic and unpredictable system, you might draw the conclusion that it makes no sense to try to assess or measure the results of particular development interventions. That would be the wrong conclusion to reach. While the complexity of development implies a different way of thinking about evaluation, accountability and results, it also means that the ‘results agenda’ is more important than ever.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Community-based monitoring of Indigenous food security in a changing climate: Global trends and future directions - Lam, Steven; Dodd, Warren; Skinner, Kelly; Papadopoulos, Andrew; Zivot, Chloe; Ford, James; Garcia, Patricia J.; Team, IHACC Research; Harper, Sherilee L. (Environmental Research Letters, 2019)
Climate change is expected to exacerbate existing food security challenges, especially in Indigenous communities worldwide. Community-based monitoring is considered a promising strategy to improve monitoring of, and local adaptation to climatic and environmental change. Yet, it is unclear how this approach can be applied in food security or Indigenous contexts. The objectives of this paper are to: 1) review and synthesize the published literature on community-based monitoring of Indigenous food security; and, 2) identify gaps and trends in these monitoring efforts in the context of climate change. Using a systematic search and screening process, we identified 86 published articles. To be included, articles had to be published in a journal, describe a community-based monitoring system, describe any aspect of food security, and explicitly mention an Indigenous community. Relevant articles were thematically analyzed to characterize elements of community-based monitoring in the context of climate change. Results show that the number of articles published over time was steady and increased more than two-fold within the last five years. The reviewed articles reported on monitoring mainly in North America (37%) and South America (28%). In general, monitoring was either collaborative with local communities (51%) or externally-driven (37%), and focused primarily on tracking wildlife (29%), followed by natural resources (16%), environmental change (15%), fisheries (13%), climate change (9%), or some combination of these topics (18%). This review provides an evidence-base on the uses, characteristics, and opportunities of community-based monitoring, to guide future food security monitoring efforts in the context of climate change.

Communities of practice: Linking knowledge, policy and practice - Hearn, Simon; White, Nancy (ODI, 2009)
This paper describes the basic characteristics of CoPs and provides a rationale for their growing importance in international development. It also suggests some ways in which CoPs can be supported by development agencies, research institutes and donors to strengthen the linkages between knowledge, policy and practice.

Communications Strategic Intent With Systemigrams: Application to the Network-Enabled Challenge - Blair, Charles; Boardman, John; Sauser, Brian (Systems Engineering, 2007)
The U.K. Ministry of Defense (MoD) has mandated the development of a network enabled capability (NEC) across all of defense, aimed at producing agile military and nonmilitary effects via a network of networks. This paper provides an overview of NEC, representing it as a complex human activity system of systems (SoS), analysis of which cannot rely on purely traditional reductionist engineering approaches, requiring instead a soft-systems engineering approach. A literature review is then provided, covering nontraditional systems methodologies of the past 25 years, highlighting the more recent trend towards multimethodological practice. The paper introduces the systemic diagram, or systemigram, conceptual model, explaining its evolution from a form of visual language to its use as an appreciative learning system in a soft-systems methodology. Using the written prose of MoD policy makers, a systemigram model is constructed which represents the NEC concept, providing a systemic visualization of its complexity and an elucidation of the key SoS attributes of emergence, hierarchy, and boundary. Finally, the NEC systemigram is used in an example storyboarding technique, demonstrating its utility as a platform for stakeholder dialog leading towards a refined model that reflects a deeper understanding of NEC strategy. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 10:309–322, 2007

Combining Big Data and Thick Data to Improve Services Delivery - Ang, Yuen Yuen (IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2018)

Combating Wildlife Trafficking Cross-Mission Learning Agenda - Present, Teresa; Peabody, Shawn (USAID, 2017)

Combating Wildlife Trafficking Case Study Compilation: Capacity Building for Enforcement and Prosecution - USAID (2018)

Collective intelligence and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals - Mulgan, Geoff (nesta, 2018)
Collective intelligence and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Collective Impact - Kania, John; Kramer, Mark (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2011)
Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, not the isolated intervention of individual organizations.

Collaborative Overload - Cross, Rob; Rebele, Reb; Grant, Adam (Harvard Business Review, 2016)
Too much teamwork exhausts employees and saps productivity. Here’s how to avoid it.

Collaborative Outcome Mapping - Dart, J.; Roberts, M. (Better Evaluation, 2014)
Collaborative Outcomes Reporting (COR) is a participatory approach to impact evaluation based around a performance story that presents evidence of how a program has contributed to outcomes and impacts, that is then reviewed by both technical experts and program stakeholders, which may include community members. Collaborative Outcomes Reporting (COR) is a participatory approach to impact evaluation based around a performance story that presents evidence of how a program has contributed to outcomes and impacts, that is then reviewed by both technical experts and program stakeholders, which may include community members. Developed by Jess Dart, COR combines contribution analysis andMultiple Lines and Levels of Evidence (MLLE), mapping existing data and additional data against the program logic to produce a performance story. Performance story reports are essentially a short report about how a program contributed to outcomes. Although they may vary in content and format, most are short, mention program context and aims, relate to a plausible results chain, and are backed by empirical evidence (Dart and Mayne, 2005). The aim is to tell the ‘story’ of a program’s performance using multiple-lines of evidence. COR adds processes of review by an expert panel and stakeholders, sometimes including community members, to check for the credibility of the evidence about what impacts have occurred and the extent to which these can be credibly attributed to the intervention. It is these components of expert panel review (outcomes panel) and a collaborative approach to developing outcomes (through summit workshops) that differentiate COR from other approaches to outcome and impact evaluation.

Collaborative geomatics and the Mushkegowuk Cree First Nations: Fostering adaptive capacity for community-based sub-arctic natural resource management - McCarthy, Daniel D. P.; Whitelaw, Graham S.; Anderson, Scott; Cowan, Donald; McGarry, Fred; Robins, Anthony; Gardner, Holly L.; Barbeau, Christine D.; Charania, Nadia A.; General, Zachariah; Liedtke, Jeff; Sutherland, Celine; et al. (Geoforum, 2012)
The remote First Nation (FN) communities of the Mushkegowuk Territory on the west coast of James Bay, Ontario, Canada are currently facing increased development pressures and the imposition of a government land use planning process. The land use planning process is mandated in the Far North Act (received Royal Assent on September 23, 2010). There is a need for capacity enhancement for community-based natural resource planning and management in the Territory. A number of frameworks are emerging for addressing change brought on by resource development and building resilience to such change at the community level. Among these include the concept of adaptive capacity. In collaboration with FN community leaders, we explored the use of “collaborative geomatics” tools to foster adaptive capacity. Our action research suggests that collaborative geomatics technologies should enhance the Mushkegowuk First Nations’ adaptive capacity to address environmental and policy change by allowing them to collect and manage data collaboratively (e.g., traditional environmental knowledge, western science) to create opportunities for innovative community development, including natural resource development and management.
Keywords: Adaptive capacity; Collaborative geomatics; Community development; Cree communities; Land use plans

Collaboration for Impact (2018)
The site seeks to accelerate the adoption of system collaboration and Collective Impact in Australia. It does so by creating knowledge, network and tools; shining a light on successful Collective Impact initiatives; and building an Australian community of practice.

Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Framework & Key Concepts (Implementing Partner Version 1) - USAID LEARN (USAID, 2022)
Although collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) are not new to USAID and its implementing partners, they often do not happen regularly or systematically and are not intentionally resourced. The CLA Framework above identifies components and subcomponents to help you think more deliberately about what approach to CLA might be best tailored to your organizational or project context. The framework recognizes the diversity of what CLA can look like in various organizations and projects while also giving CLA structure, clarity, and coherence across two key dimensions: - CLA in the Program Cycle: how CLA is incorporated into planning and design processes throughout the Program Cycle in order to improve their effectiveness; and - Enabling Conditions: how an organization’s culture, daily operating processes, and resource allocation support CLA integration. Organizations need both integrated CLA practices appropriate for their context and conducive enabling conditions to become stronger learning organizations capable of managing adaptively. The framework stresses the holistic and integrated nature of the various components of CLA to reinforce the principle that CLA is not a separate workstream—it should be integrated into existing processes to strengthen the discipline of development and improve aid effectiveness.

Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting. Framework & Key Concepts - Learning Lab (USAID, 2016)

Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Framework & Key Concepts - USAID (USAID, 2016)
Although collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) are not new to USAID, they often do not happen regularly or systematically and are not intentionally resourced. The CLA framework above identifies components and subcomponents to help you think more deliberately about what approach to CLA might be best tailored to your organizational or project context. The framework recognizes the diversity of what CLA can look like in various organizations and projects while also giving CLA structure, clarity, and coherence across two key dimensions: CLA in the Program Cycle: how CLA is incorporated throughout Program Cycle processes, including strategy, project, and activity design and implementation; and Enabling Conditions: how an organization’s culture, business processes, and resource allocation support CLA integration. Organizations need both integrated CLA practices appropriate for their context and conducive enabling conditions to become stronger learning organizations capable of managing adaptively. The framework stresses the holistic and integrated nature of the various components of CLA to reinforce the principle that CLA is not a separate workstream—it should be integrated into existing processes to strengthen the discipline of development and improve aid effectiveness.

Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Maturity Spectrum (v7) - USAID LEARN (USAID, 2022)
USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL) and its support mechanism, LEARN, have developed a Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Framework and Maturity tool to help USAID missions think more deliberately about how to plan for and implement CLA approaches that fit the mission’s context and assist them in achieving their development objectives. While the tool is intended primarily for USAID audiences to be used in participatory self-assessment workshops, the CLA Framework and maturity spectrum are relevant to a wider audience. USAID’s CLA Framework identifies key components and subcomponents of daily work that may be opportunities for intentional, systematic, and resourced CLA. The framework recognizes the diversity of what CLA can look like in various organizations and programs while also giving CLA structure, clarity, and coherence across two key dimensions: • CLA in the Program Cycle: how CLA is incorporated throughout Program Cycle processes, including strategy, project, and activity design and implementation; and • Enabling Conditions: how an organization’s culture, business processes, and resource allocation support CLA integration. Recognizing that CLA is not binary—it’s not an issue of “doing it or not doing it”—PPL and LEARN have developed a spectrum of practice for each of the 16 subcomponents in the framework. The spectrum offers examples of what integration might look like at different stages: Not Yet Present, Emergent, Expanding, Advanced and Institutionalized. The maturity stage descriptions are only illustrative and are intended to spark reflection on current practice and opportunities for improvements. In this resource, each CLA subcomponent page describes the key concepts for that topic and includes a description of the maturity stages. Although the descriptions were originally developed for USAID, the majority of the concepts easily transfer or have equivalents in the partner community. For example, although organizations outside of USAID may not hold “Portfolio Reviews” (part of the Pause & Reflect subcomponent), the majority hold some type of meeting to review programmatic progress. This is the seventh version of the CLA Framework and maturity spectrum. PPL and LEARN will continue reviewed and periodically update them based on user feedback, so if you have comments about the content, please email learning@usaid.gov. We would also love to hear how you’ve used this content with your team or organization.

Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) - Maturity Matrix Overview - USAID (Policy, Planning and Learning, 2016)
Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) involves strategic collaboration, continuous learning, and adaptive management. CLA approaches to development include collaborating intentionally with stakeholders to share knowledge and reduce duplication of effort, learning systematically by drawing on evidence from a variety of sources and taking time to reflect on implementation, and applying learning by adapting intentionally. The purpose of the maturity matrix tool is to help USAID Missions think more deliberately about how to plan for and implement CLA approaches that fit the Mission’s context and needs. Through a set of easy-to-use cards, the CLA maturity matrix offers examples of what CLA looks like at different stages of maturity. USAID staff can use the decks of cards to both assess current practice and plan for the future. The maturity matrix consists of two decks of cards corresponding to the dimensions of CLA: ● CLA in the Program Cycle: By using the matrix cards to guide a conversation, teams can explore how well CLA is incorporated into the planning and implementation processes of the Program Cycle. ● Enabling Conditions: The cards encourage discussion of the conditions that can significantly influence how CLA and the Program Cycle are implemented at a Mission, including operating processes, organizational culture, and resourcing. Within these decks, the matrix covers 16 subcomponents of CLA. Each has one key concept card and five matrix cards that describe the component in practice, along a spectrum ranging from Not Yet Present to Institutionalized.

Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA). Framework and Maturity Matrix Overview - Learning Lab (USAID, 2016)

Collaborate Learn Adapt - Case Competition - USAID (USAID Learning Lab, 2015)

Cognitive bias cheat sheet. An organized list of cognitive biases because thinking is hard - Benson, Buster (Better Humans, 2016)

Co-creating Digital Public Services for an Ageing Society: Evidence for User-centric Design - Jarke, Juliane (Springer International Publishing, 2021)
This open access book attends to the co-creation of digital public services for ageing societies. Increasingly public services are provided in digital form; their uptake however remains well below expectations. In particular, amongst older adults the need for public services is high, while at the same time the uptake of digital services is lower than the population average. One of the reasons is that many digital public services (or e-services) do not respond well to the life worlds, use contexts and use practices of its target audiences. This book argues that when older adults are involved in the process of identifying, conceptualising, and designing digital public services, these services become more relevant and meaningful.The book describes and compares three co-creation projects that were conducted in two European cities, Bremen and Zaragoza, as part of a larger EU-funded innovation project. The first part of the book traces the origins of co-creation to three distinct domains, in which co-creation has become an equally important approach with different understandings of what it is and entails: (1) the co-production of public services, (2) the co-design of information systems and (3) the civic use of open data. The second part of the book analyses how decisions about a co-creation project’s governance structure, its scope of action, its choice of methods, its alignment with strategic policies and its embedding in existing public information infrastructures impact on the process and its results. The final part of the book identifies key challenges to co-creation and provides a more general assessment of what co-creation may achieve, where the most promising areas of application may be and where it probably does not match with the contingent requirements of digital public services. Contributing to current discourses on digital citizenship in ageing societies and user-centric design, this book is useful for researchers and practitioners interested in co-creation, public sector innovation, open government, ageing and digital technologies, citizen engagement and civic participation in socio-technical innovation.

Co-Creating Digital Public Services - Jarke, Juliane (Co-creating Digital Public Services for an Ageing Society: Evidence for User-centric Design, 2021)
This chapter reviews key literature and concepts relating to the co-creation of digital public services. For this task, it is firstly important to consider what kind of digital public services may be suitable for co-creation. In order to do so, the first section of this chapter defines what a digital public service is (e.g. with respect to different types of service providers, different types of services and service delivery) and considers what kind of digital public services allow for meaningful citizen participation. To better conceptualise different degrees of participation, the subsequent section reviews Arnstein’s (1969) “ladder of citizen participation” and related work. This allows distinguishing between different degrees of non-participation, (consultative) participation and beyond. Thirdly, the chapter reviews traditional participatory approaches that provide the basis to co-creating of digital public services: (1) co-production of public services, (2) co-design and (3) civic open data use. The chapter summarises and compares the different rationales for participation in these approaches, and reviews how they understand the sharing of control, the sharing of knowledge and the enabling of change.
Keywords: Civic Tech; Co-creation; Co-design; Co-production; Digital public services; Open data; Open government; Participation; Participatory design; User-centric services; e-services

Clearing the fog: new tools for improving the credibility of impact claims - Befani, Barbara; D'Errico, Stefano; Booker, Francesca; Giuliani, Alessandra (iied Briefing Papers, 2016)
Development actors facing pressure to provide more rigorous assessments of their impact on policy and practice need new methods to deliver them. There is now a broad consensus that the traditional counterfactual analysis leading to the assessment of the net effect of an intervention is incapable of capturing the complexity of factors at play in any particular policy change. We suggest that evaluations focus instead on establishing whether a clearly-defined process of change has taken place, and improve the validity and credibility of qualitative impact statements. IIED research in Uganda shows that the methods of process tracing and Bayesian updating facilitate a dialogue between theory and evidence that allows us to assess our degree of confidence in ‘contribution claims’ in a transparent and replicable way.

CLARISSA Cash Plus: Innovative Social Protection in Bangladesh - Roelen, Keetie; Howard, Neil; Afroze, Jiniya; Aktar, Afrin; Ton, Giel; Huq, Lopita (Institute of Development Studies, 2023)
Social protection, and cash transfers especially, have been found to have many positive impacts on families’ lives and are now widely recognised as a cornerstone of any prosperous, fair society. The CLARISSA Cash Plus intervention is an innovative social protection scheme for tackling social ills, including the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). Combining community mobilisation, case work and cash transfers, it aims to support people in a poor neighbourhood in Dhaka to build their individual, family, and group capacities to meet their needs. An increase in capacities is expected to lead to a corresponding decrease in deprivation and community-identified social issues that negatively affect wellbeing, including WFCL.
Accepted: 2023-06-30T11:14:55Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

CLA Maturity Tool: Example Spectrum Cards - USAID (2016)

CLA Maturity Tool - Card Deck (Implementing Partners version 1) - USAID LEARN (USAID, 2022)
USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL) and its support mechanism, LEARN, have developed a Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Framework and Maturity tool to help USAID missions think more deliberately about how to plan for and implement CLA approaches that fit the mission’s context and assist them in achieving their development objectives. While the tool is intended primarily for USAID audiences to be used in participatory self-assessment workshops, the CLA Framework and maturity spectrum are relevant to a wider audience. USAID’s CLA Framework identifies key components and subcomponents of daily work that may be opportunities for intentional, systematic, and resourced CLA. The framework recognizes the diversity of what CLA can look like in various organizations and programs while also giving CLA structure, clarity, and coherence across two key dimensions: • CLA in the Program Cycle: how CLA is incorporated throughout Program Cycle processes, including strategy, project, and activity design and implementation; and • Enabling Conditions: how an organization’s culture, business processes, and resource allocation support CLA integration. Recognizing that CLA is not binary—it’s not an issue of “doing it or not doing it”—PPL and LEARN have developed a spectrum of practice for each of the 16 subcomponents in the framework. The spectrum offers examples of what integration might look like at different stages: Not Yet Present, Emergent, Expanding, Advanced and Institutionalized. The maturity stage descriptions are only illustrative and are intended to spark reflection on current practice and opportunities for improvements. In this resource, each CLA subcomponent page describes the key concepts for that topic and includes a description of the maturity stages. Although the descriptions were originally developed for USAID, the majority of the concepts easily transfer or have equivalents in the partner community. For example, although organizations outside of USAID may not hold “Portfolio Reviews” (part of the Pause & Reflect subcomponent), the majority hold some type of meeting to review programmatic progress. This is the seventh version of the CLA Framework and maturity spectrum. PPL and LEARN will continue reviewed and periodically update them based on user feedback, so if you have comments about the content, please email learning@usaid.gov. We would also love to hear how you’ve used this content with your team or organization.

CLA for More Effective Development Programs (video) - USAID (USAID LearningLab, 2014)
This presentation features USAID/PPL's Stacey Young discussing the history of learning at USAID; how collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) can enhance development outcomes, and the role of implementing partners in supporting this vision.

Civil society organizations and managerialism: On the depoliticization of the adaptive management agenda - Gutheil, Lena; Koch, Dirk-Jan (Development Policy Review, 2022)
Motivation In the last decade, a movement formed around making aid delivery more adaptive, relying on principles such as context sensitivity, flexibility, and ownership. The approaches seem promising for civil society organizations (CSOs) to fulfil their mission of fostering social transformation. While several donor agencies have started engaging with such approaches, the authors hardly see their political implications in practice. Purpose The article aims to provide evidence on an adaptive project and demonstrate how the social transformative and political nature of adaptive development management is rendered technical and depoliticized in practice. Methods and approach We use a case study of a development programme based on a social transformative policy framework that is implemented through CSOs in Uganda and Vietnam. Data were collected by means of interviews, participant observation and document analysis. Findings We find that, in practice, the social transformative policy framework is competing with managerial logics. We compare this process with the depoliticization of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, finding striking similarities. By using practice theory, we show how managerialism remains the dominant paradigm in the civil society aid sector, fuelling the “anti-politics machine.” Policy implications The article shows that policy frameworks do not always work as intended. Donors should therefore not only change policy frameworks, but also start addressing institutional and operational requirements.
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/dpr.12630

Civic Technologies as tools for change: Is balance between online and offline actions a necessary condition for achieving social change through civic innovation? - Civic Innovation Accelerator Fund (Fundación Avina & Omidyar Network, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Citizens’ Use of New Media in Authoritarian Regimes: A Case Study of Uganda - Grönlund, Åke; Wakabi, Wairagala (The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 2015)
By subsidizing the costs of civic participation, the use of the Internet use is believed to stimulate participation but there are fears that intensive Internet use causes withdrawal from public life. This paper investigates the connection between the way individuals participate online and offline in authoritarian, low-income regimes, and the nature of eParticipation among citizens in authoritarian regimes such as Uganda. Based on personal interviews with 116 Internet users, the study found that common drivers of eParticipation, such as low cost, security and anonymity are hard to transplant into the offline world for citizens of authoritarian states such as Uganda. Perceived risks of retribution and intimidation for expressing a particular opinion or supporting a political cause mean that citizen-to-citizen participation is the predominant form but still at low levels, while citizen-to-government participation is negligible.

Citizens Against Corruption: Report from the Front Line - Landell-Mills, Pierre (Matador, 2013)
Citizens Against Corruption: Report From The Front Line tells the story of how groups of courageous and dedicated citizens across the globe are taking direct action to root out corruption. It shows how people are no longer prepared to accept the predatory activities of dishonest officials and are challenging their scams. It draws on over 200 unique case studies that describe initiatives undertaken by 130 civil society organisations (CSOs) which engage directly with public agencies to stop the bribery and extortion that damages peoples' lives and obstructs social and economic progress. This book challenges the notion that, at best, civil society can only have a marginal impact on reducing corruption and argues that aid donors need to radically rethink their assistance for governance reform. Part 1 analyses the role citizens can play in fighting corruption and promoting good governance and briefly tells the story of the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF). Part 2 presents studies of India, Mongolia, Philippines, and Uganda - each with its unique history and distinctive circumstances - to illustrate activities undertaken by CSOs to root out corruption, including the tools and approaches that are being used to build pressure on corrupt public agencies to become transparent and accountable. Part 3 addresses key themes - strengthening the rule of law, putting in place effective national anti-corruption strategies and institutions, making public buying and selling honest, promoting grassroots monitoring of public expenditures and the provision of public services, mounting media campaigns to expose and defeat corruption, and empowering ordinary citizens to keep watch on what actually happens at the point of delivery of public services. Part 4 is a summary of lessons learnt and explores the potential, as well as the risks and limitations, of civic activism in a world where greed and dishonesty is the norm. Finally, the book explores the opportunities and dangers faced by aid donors in supporting local CSOs and charts a way forward. Citizens Against Corruption: Report From The Front Line will be of interest to staff working in CSOs and aid agencies, policy analysts and researchers concerned about corruption and poor governance.

Citizen science in hydrology and water resources: opportunities for knowledge generation, ecosystem service management, and sustainable development - Buytaert, Wouter; Zulkafli, Zed; Grainger, Sam; Acosta, Luis; Alemie, Tilashwork C.; Bastiaensen, Johan; De Bièvre, Bert; Bhusal, Jagat; Clark, Julian; Dewulf, Art; Foggin, Marc; Hannah, David M.; et al. (Frontiers in Earth Science, 2014)
The participation of the general public in the research design, data collection and interpretation process together with scientists is often referred to as citizen science. While citizen science itself has existed since the start of scientific practice, developments in sensing technology, data processing and visualisation, and communication of ideas and results, are creating a wide range of new opportunities for public participation in scientific research. This paper reviews the state of citizen science in a hydrological context and explores the potential of citizen science to complement more traditional ways of scientific data collection and knowledge generation for hydrological sciences and water resources management. Although hydrological data collection often involves advanced technology, the advent of robust, cheap and low-maintenance sensing equipment provides unprecedented opportunities for data collection in a citizen science context. These data have a significant potential to create new hydrological knowledge, especially in relation to the characterisation of process heterogeneity, remote regions, and human impacts on the water cycle. However, the nature and quality of data collected in citizen science experiments is potentially very different from those of traditional monitoring networks. This poses challenges in terms of their processing, interpretation, and use, especially with regard to assimilation of traditional knowledge, the quantification of uncertainties, and their role in decision support. It also requires care in designing citizen science projects such that the generated data complement optimally other available knowledge. Lastly, we reflect on the challenges and opportunities in the integration of hydrologically-oriented citizen science in water resources management, the role of scientific knowledge in the decision-making process, and the potential contestation to established community institutions posed by co-generation of new knowledge.
Keywords: Citizen science; Co-generation of knowledge; Water Resources Management; hydrological sensing; poly-centric governance

Citizen Participation in Representative Democracy - Fung, Archon (Post Party Politics. Can participation reconnect people and government?, 2006)
ENTRADA CREADA PARA PODER CITAR EL CAPÍTULO

Citizen participation and the rise of the open source city in Spain - Peña-López, Ismael (MAVC & IT for Change, 2017)
Research on the Information Society, the Digital Divide and Information and Communication Technologies for development

Citizen-generated data and sustainable development - Rono-Bett, Karen; Kenei, Steve (DevInit and DRT, 2017)
The potential of citizen-generated data in the sustainable development agenda

Citizen engagement: emerging digital technologies create new risks and value - Peixoto, Tiago; Steinberg, Tom (World Bank, 2019)
The recent rapid evolution of digital technologies has been changing behaviors and expectations in countries around the world. These shifts make it the right time to pose the key question this paper explores: Will digital technologies, both those that are already widespread and those that are still emerging, have substantial impacts on the way citizens engage and the ways through which power is sought, used, or contested? The authors address this question both to mitigate some of the World Bank’s operational risks, and to initiate a conversation with peers about how those risks might require policy shifts. The overall framing question also is being explored in case theapproaches to citizen engagement advocated by the World Bank are changing and may require different advice for client countries. Despite the lower technology penetration levels in developing countries, their more malleable governance contexts may be more influenced by the effects of emerging technologies than older states with greater rigidity. Digitally influencedcitizen engagement is, in short, one of those “leapfrog” areas in which developing nations may exploit technologies before the wealthier parts of the world. But countries can leapfrog to worse futures, not just better ones. This paper explores what technology might mean for engagement, makespredictions, and offers measures for governments to consider.

Citizen-Centered Governance: The Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics and the Evolution of CRM in Boston - Crawford, Susan P.; Walters, Dana (Social Science Research Network, 2013)
Over the last three years, the Boston Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, the innovative, collaborative ethos within City Hall fostered by Mayor Menino and h

Christian Practical Wisdom: What It Is, Why It Matters - Bass, Dorothy C.; Cahalan, Kathleen A.; McLemore, Bonnie J.; Nieman, James R.; Scharen, Christian B. (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016)
Why is the very kind of knowledge that people need to live well ― practical wisdom ― often the least understood, the hardest to learn, and the most devalued kind of knowledge?In this book five distinguished practical theologians examine the wisdom that is basic for faithful Christian living, question why it has been largely devalued, and advocate for its renewal. After first showing several concrete situations in which this kind of wisdom is visible ― marriage, church, community, culture, and more ― the authors then delve into the reasons for the decline of practical wisdom and set forth constructive cases for its renewal through biblical imagination and spiritual practice.

Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning - Smith, Mark K. (The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, 2013)
Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning. The work of Chris Argyris (1923-2013) has influenced thinking about the relationship of people and organizations…

Cherry-Picked Intelligence. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Dispositive as a Legitimation for National Security in the Post 9/11 Age - van der Heide, Liesbeth (Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, 2013)
»Geheimdienste mit Scheuklappen: Das Dispositiv der Massenvernichtungswaffen als Legitimation für Nationale Sicherheit nach 9/11«. The claim that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US army. For the George W. Bush administration, the likely presence of WMD in Iraq was the major justification for going to war. However, Bush' opponents suspected he used the WMD-dispositive as a legitimation for an invasion that was already set in motion for different reasons. The Iraq invasion and the underlying ideas about the presence of WMD thus provide a tangible case for the analysis of theories of conspiracy and security. The development of the WMD-dispositive will be contextualized using the toolkit of securitization theory. The article explores the notions of security and conspiracy that were used to build the dispositive and shows how it ultimately failed and turned into a counter-narrative in which the Bush administration itself became the Great Conspirator.

Chaos Report 2020 - Standish Group (Standish Group, 2020)

Chaos Report 2015 - Standish Group (Standish Group, 2015)

Changing theories - Aston, Thomas (Medium, 2023)
You may, or may not, be surprised to hear that many theories of change lack what we might generally understand as a theory.

Changing humanitarian action? - Knox-Clarke, Paul (ALNAP/ODI, 2017)
We live in times of profound change. This has had a great impact on humanitarian needs, and the approaches taken to meet these needs. Changes in technology, ecology, politics, economics and demographics have shaped, and will continue to shape, humanitarian action. Many humanitarians and observers of humanitarian action have suggested that change initiatives in the sector have been unambitious and unsuccessful. Indeed, many people think that the humanitarian system is unable, or unwilling, to make the changes that are required to remain effective and relevant in a rapidly changing world. Following the World Humanitarian Summit many stakeholders have made commitments to significant changes. But can the system change? And if so, how? As a network which exists to support change and improvement, it seems appropriate that ALNAP meets to consider how change occurs in the humanitarian system, and how it can be done better. Find out more about the 31st Annual Meeting by reading the concept note, or by visiting alnap.org/31am.

Changes for Justice Project - Final Report - Chemonics International (USAID, 2015)

Changeroo - Theory of Change platform - Changeroo (2020)
Changeroo assists organisations, programs and projects with a social mission to develop and manage high-quality Theories of Change. It allows you to - together with stakeholders co-create Theories of Change, and - present these in an interactive and engaging way. It helps keep a Theory of Change alive, enables reflective monitoring, and supports capacity building among social organisations. Changeroo helps you utilize your Theory of Change for strategic learning, communication, stakeholder engagement, impact measurement, scaling, planning, monitoring and evaluation. Thus you build a culture of critical thinking, constant analysis, co-creation and continuous learning. In sum, a truly strategic approach to societal value creation that helps you to assist your target groups to flourish!

Change in challenging contexts - Williamson, Tim (ODI, 2015)
This report explores how genuine institutional change takes place in fragile and conflict-affected states reforms can be supported.

Change: How to Make Big Things Happen - Centola, Damon (Little, Brown Spark, 2021)
How to create the change you want to see in the world using the paradigm-busting ideas in this "utterly fascinating" (Adam Grant) big-idea book.​ Most of what we know about how ideas spread comes from bestselling authors who give us a compelling picture of a world, in which "influencers" are king, "sticky" ideas "go viral," and good behavior is "nudged" forward. The problem is that the world they describe is a world where information spreads, but beliefs and behaviors stay the same. When it comes to lasting change in what we think or the way we live, the dynamics are beliefs and behaviors are not transmitted from person to person in the simple way that a virus is. The real story of social change is more complex. When we are exposed to a new idea, our social networks guide our responses in striking and surprising ways. Drawing on deep-yet-accessible research and fascinating examples from the spread of coronavirus to the success of the Black Lives Matter movement, the failure of Google+, and the rise of political polarization, Change presents groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting new science for understanding what drives change, and how we can change the world around us.

Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation - Brown, Tim (HarperBusiness, 2009)
The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities. This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer′s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people′s needs not only with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short‚ design thinking converts need into demand. It′s a human−centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative. Design thinking is not just applicable to so−called creative industries or people who work in the design field. It′s a methodology that has been used by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente to increase the quality of patient care by re−examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change‚ or Kraft to rethink supply chain management. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization‚ product‚ or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Challenging the Boundaries of the Possible: Participation, Knowledge and Power - Gaventa, John; Cornwall, Andrea (IDS Bulletin, 2006)

Challenge-led Innovation Workbook. Organising for Systems Innovation at Scale - Burkett, Ingrid (Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation, 2023)
Organising for Systems Innovation at Scale Our team at Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation have been experimenting with and evolving a Challenge-led Innovation Approach (based on Mission-oriented approaches developed by Mariana Mazzucato at UCL IIPP and others internationally). We are using this approach to guide the way we work internally and engage with our systems innovation partners. We’ve facilitated intensive Re:Treats, worked with government bodies, businesses and civic organisations, and engaged deeply with others exploring this work. We have a bias for developing and testing HOW such approaches could be applied to respond to both local and global challenges rather than getting too caught up in the what and why of such approaches. We decided to openly share our learnings and thinking to date in this workbook, to spark conversations and innovation in both practice and thinking amongst those exploring how we work, and to learn together to address complex systems and challenges. We see this booklet as a first step in a longer learning journey. In it we share an overview of: the principles and processes that sparked our evolution to a Challenge-led Innovation framework (from Mission-oriented). examples of our learnings from other system innovators who are experimenting. an adaptable process to help guide the learning journey. learning tools and canvases to catalyse thinking, practice, and further adaptations. Part One sets out some foundations we’ve identified as important to Challenge-led Innovation. If you want to jump straight into the mapping process, we suggest you skip to Part Two. The final section, Part Three, focuses on what we have learnt about the conditions needed and how to get started on a Challenge-led initiative.

Celebrating Adaptive Delivery: A View from the Frontline in Myanmar - Barnes, Katrina; Lonsdale, Jane (IDS, 2023)
The conversation on adaptive management has grown fast amongst development actors. These conversations often focus on designing, commissioning, and managing large-scale development programmes. Exactly how this impacts the frontline, the implementers, and day-to-day project delivery is still being debated. Yet, perspectives drawn directly from practice are often largely missing within these debates. This paper is written by two development practitioners. Through this paper, we reflect on the difference between adaptive management and adaptive delivery, and how this interacts with risk and aid accountability, particularly in contexts of fragility. Drawing on examples of Oxfam in Myanmar work and our personal insights in relation to delivering programming across humanitarian, peace-building, and development, we suggest that in complex, conflict-affected, and highly political environments adaptive delivery already happens far more regularly than is currently recognised, as a necessity to get activities delivered. However, it happens despite the system, not because of it, and is therefore often hidden and carried out ‘under the radar’ rather than celebrated as a success in difficult environments. This paper was written in 2019, before the military seized control of Myanmar in February 2021. Whilst it draws on examples from pre-2021 Myanmar to illustrate real life cases, it is a contribution to a broader global debate on adaptive management in practice, specifically in fragile contexts. This is not specifically aimed at practitioners working in Myanmar at present, who are now working in a protracted crisis. This paper makes tangible recommendations on steps that donors, international non-governmental organisations, local staff, and partners could take to promote a system of encouraging and celebrating adaptability in programme delivery in fragile contexts.
Accepted: 2023-02-02T14:48:03Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

Causality and attribution in market systems development - Jenal, Marcus; Liesner, Mollie (BEAM, 2017)
Resources that contain evidence of market systems interventions. Recently updated.

Causal mapping for evaluators - Powell, Steve; Copestake, James; Remnant, Fiona (Evaluation, 2023)
Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally i...
Publisher: SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England

Causal Loop Diagrams: Little Known Analytical Tool | iSixSigma - Rushing, William (2010)
The causal loop diagram is an analytical tool that is seldom used in Six Sigma but nonetheless is still very valuable. It is a foundational tool used in system dynamics, a method of analysis used to develop an understanding of complex systems.

Causal Link Monitoring - Britt, Heather; Hummelbrunner, Richard; Greene, Jacqueline (2017)
Causal Link Monitoring (CLM) 1 integrates design and monitoring to support adaptive management of projects. CLM helps project planners and managers identify the processes that are required to achieve desired results, and then to observe whether those processes take place, and how. Result-producing processes specify the causal links between results in a logic model or results framework—in other words, the processes between results.2 CLM focuses on how specific individuals or organizations use results to achieve other results. In CLM, planners start by creating a logic model to help document predictable, agreed-upon elements of the project. Next, they refine the causal links by describing the processes that will transform results at one point in the causal chain to the next. Planners are often less certain about these resultproducing processes. Finally, the CLM logic model is enhanced with information about two important sources of uncertainty, contextual factors that may influence the project and diverse perspectives on the problem and its solution.

Causal inferences on the effectiveness of complex social programs: Navigating assumptions, sources of complexity and evaluation design challenges - Chatterji, Madhabi (Evaluation and Program Planning, 2016)
This paper explores avenues for navigating evaluation design challenges posed by complex social programs (CSPs) and their environments when conducting studies that call for generalizable, causal inferences on the intervention’s effectiveness. A definition is provided of a CSP drawing on examples from different fields, and an evaluation case is analyzed in depth to derive seven (7) major sources of complexity that typify CSPs, threatening assumptions of textbook-recommended experimental designs for performing impact evaluations. Theoretically-supported, alternative methodological strategies are discussed to navigate assumptions and counter the design challenges posed by the complex configurations and ecology of CSPs. Specific recommendations include: sequential refinement of the evaluation design through systems thinking, systems-informed logic modeling; and use of extended term, mixed methods (ETMM) approaches with exploratory and confirmatory phases of the evaluation. In the proposed approach, logic models are refined through direct induction and interactions with stakeholders. To better guide assumption evaluation, question-framing, and selection of appropriate methodological strategies, a multiphase evaluation design is recommended.
Keywords: Causal inferences; Complex social programs; Experimental designs; Impact evaluations; Mixed methods

“Cash Plus” programmes for children - Save the Children (Save the Children, 2017)
This paper provides a resource on “Cash Plus” interventions for children. These interventions combine household cash transfers with complementary, context-relevant interventionsn in order to address the multiple drivers of childhood deprivations and generate more powerful impacts for children across Save the Children’s Breakthroughs, in both development and humanitarian contexts.

Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods - Yin, Dr Robert K. (SAGE Publications, Inc, 2018)
Winner of the 2019 McGuffey Longevity Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) Recognized as one of the most cited methodology books in the social sciences, the Sixth Edition of Robert K. Yin′s bestselling text provides a complete portal to the world of case study research. With the integration of 11 applications in this edition, the book gives readers access to exemplary case studies drawn from a wide variety of academic and applied fields. Ultimately, Case Study Research and Applications will guide students in the successful use and application ofthe case study research method.

Case study - Lepra - Adaptive programming in “reaching the unreached” - UK Aid Direct (DFID, 2017)

Case study: Embedding reform and exiting: LASER’s application of the hourglass approach to achieve sustainable results - Manuel, Clare (DFID-LASER Programme, 2016)
This case study describes how LASER has gone about enabling systemic change and sustainable uptake of reforms that address complex institutional problems in Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somaliland and Uganda. In each of these countries LASER has designed-in a sustainable approach from the start based on: (i) local ownership and leadership of reforms based on developing country (rather than donor) priorities; (ii) use of country (rather than donor programme) systems; and (iii) an understanding that the role of the donor / development practitioner is to support (rather than buy) reform. The case study uses LASER’s hour glass methodology, illustrated with examples from LASER interventions, to show how these principles guide LASER operations every step of the way.
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

Case studies of results-based management by providers: World Bank Group - OECD (OECD, 2017)

Case studies of results-based management by providers: United Kingdom - OECD (OECD, 2017)

Case studies of results-based management by providers: The Netherlands - OECD (OECD, 2017)

Case studies of results-based management by providers: Switzerland - OECD (OECD, 2017)

Case studies of results-based management by providers: Sweden - OECD (OECD, 2017)

Case studies of results-based management by providers: New Zealand - OECD (OECD, 2017)

Case studies of results-based management by providers: Canada - OECD (OECD, 2017)

Caracterizando la participación ciudadana en el marco del Gobierno Abierto - Prieto-Martín, Pedro; Ramírez-Alujas, Álvaro V. (Revista del CLAD. Reforma y Democracia, 2014)
Este artículo profundiza conceptualmente en las dimensiones del Gobierno Abierto, centrándose en el análisis y caracterización de su dimensión participativa. Se propone, en primer lugar, una tipología de actos participativos que muestra el efecto potenciador que las TIC ejercen sobre las distintas formas de participación. En segundo lugar, se presentan los denominados “Esquemas de participación” (EdP), un instrumento conceptual que facilita el análisis y la representación estandarizada de las dimensiones más importantes de la participación. Los EdP proporcionan así, por un lado, un modelo de categorización que extiende nuestra comprensión crítica de la participación y, por otro lado, una herramienta potente y flexible para la comunicación, el diseño y la evaluación de diversos tipos de iniciativas participativas.

Capacity Works - online training - GIZ (GIZ, 2014)

Capacity WORKS - GIZ (2014)
One of GIZ’s core competencies is understanding how cooperation works in societies, and supporting that process. The kind of process we mean is cooperation between state, civil society and private-sector actors who wish to jointly shape societal changes. GIZ has systematised its knowledge on how to achieve this, and made it available in the Capacity WORKS management model. The model describes how to manage cooperation systems.

Capacity Development in a Participatory Adaptive Programme: the Case of the Clarissa Consortium - Widmer, Mireille; Apgar, Marina; Afroze, Jiniya; Malla, Sudhir; Healey, Jill; Constant, Sendrine (IDS, 2022)
Doing development differently rests on deliberate efforts to reflect and learn, not just about what programmes are doing and achieving, but about how they are working. This is particularly important for an action research programme like Child Labour: Action- Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA), which is implemented by a consortium of organisations from across the research and development spectrum, during a rapidly changing global pandemic. Harnessing the potential of diverse skills and complementary strengths across partners in responding to the complex challenge of the worst forms of child labour, requires capacity to work together in novel ways. This Research and Evidence Paper documents how CLARISSA approached capacity development, and what we learnt from our challenges and successes. From the start, the programme incorporated a capacity development strategy resting on self-assessment of a wide range of behavioural and technical competencies that were deemed important for programme implementation, formal training activities, and periodic review of progress through an after-action review (AAR) process. An inventory of capacity development activities that took place during the first year of implementation reveals a wide range of additional, unplanned activities, enabled by the programme’s flexibility and adaptive management strategy. These are organised into eight modalities, according to the individual or collective nature of the activity, and its sequencing – namely, whether capacity development happens prior to, during, or after (from) implementation. We conclude with some reflections on the emergent nature of capacity development. Planning capacity development in an adaptive programme provides a scaffolding in terms of time, resources, and legitimacy that sustains adaptiveness. We also recognise the gaps that remain to be addressed, particularly on scaling up individual learning to collective capabilities, and widening the focus from implementation teams to individuals working at consortium level.
Accepted: 2022-04-25T10:25:54Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy - GAC (Global Affairs Canada, 2017)

Can we know better? Reflections for Development - Chambers, Robert (Practical Action, 2017)
This book is intended for all who are committed to human wellbeing and who want to make our world fairer, safer and more fulfilling for everyone, especially those who are 'last'. It argues that to do better we need to know better. It provides evidence that what we believe we know in international development is often distorted or unbalanced by errors, myths, biases and blind spots. Undue weight has been attached to standardised methodologies such as randomized control trials, systematic reviews, and competitive bidding: these are shown to have huge transaction costs which are rarely if ever recognized in their enormity. Robert Chambers contrasts a Newtonian paradigm in which the world is seen and understood as controllable with a paradigm of complexity which recognizes that the real world of social processes and power relations is messy and unpredictable. To confront the challenges of complex and emergent realities requires a revolutionary new professionalism. This is underpinned by a new combination of canons of rigour expressed through eclectic methodological pluralism and participatory approaches which reverse and transform power relations. Promising developments include rapid innovations in participatory ICTs, participatory statistics, and the Reality Check Approach with its up-to-date and rigorously grounded insights. Fundamental to the new professionalism, in every country and context, are reflexivity, facilitation, groundtruthing, and personal mindsets, behaviour, attitudes, empathy and love. Robert Chambers surveys the past world of international development, and his own past views, with an honest and critical eye, and then launches into the world of complexity with a buoyant enthusiasm. He draws on almost six decades of experience in varied roles in Africa, South Asia and elsewhere as practitioner, trainer, manager, teacher, evaluator and field researcher, also working in UNHCR and the Ford Foundation. He is a Research Associate and Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, his base for many years. Can We Know Better? is essential reading for researchers and students of development, for policy makers and evaluators, and for all those working towards the better world of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Can’t See the Wood For the Logframe: Integrating Logframes and Theories of Change in Development Evaluation - Freer, Gordon; Lemire, Sebastian (Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 2019)
There are numerous ways in which to model the underlying theory of programs. In the context of international development evaluation, the most ubiquitous are likely “logframes” and to some extent “theories of change,” both of which may serve to guide program development and management, monitoring, and evaluation. While logframes and theories of change are often developed in parallel, they are rarely fully integrated in their practical application. Drawing on lessons from a recent theory-based evaluation, this article argues that fully integrating the program theory of change within the program logframe provides for a stronger and more holistic understanding of program progress.

Can SMS-Mobilization Increase Citizen Reporting of Public Service Deficiencies to Politicians? - Grossman, Guy; Michelitch, Kristin; Santamaria, Marta (2015)

Can policy-makers think like designers? - Adler, Natalia (2014)
This is the poster used by Natalia Adler, from Unicef, at the Doing Development Differently workshop in 2014. Can policy-makers think like designers? Since 2012, UNICEF has been supporting two autonomous governments in Nicaragua to develop empathy-driven policies for children. While policies are the final product, the goal of the Designing for Children Initiative is to make government officials think like designers. A good policy or service is nothing without active and engaged frontline workers. From the onset, our objective was to transform public employees into ‘public entrepreneurs.’ In doing so, we have disrupted the traditional assumptions about participatory governance, where it normally suffices to hold a meeting and have people talk about their needs and aspirations. For participation to work, government officials have to relearn how to listen. They have to let go of pre-determined assumptions and their expert status, and put themselves in the shoes of the people they are trying to reach. This is the process of empathy-driven policy-making. For the past two years, we have used a Human Centered Design (HCD) approach to make this happen. While HCD is often seen as an innovation in itself, for us, it’s just a means to an end: common-sense development.

Can PDIA become a regular part of how a government works? - Building State Capability - Harrington, Peter (Building State Capability, 2022)
Institutional change is part of the theory of change of PDIA – scaling through the diffusion of new ways of thinking and greater problem-solving know-how. And once a community of practice reaches critical mass across an eco-system, a tipping point can happen where the eco-system becomes generally more open to novelty, where success is a more effective route to legitimacy, and where leadership is oriented towards value creation.

Calibrating conservation: new tools for measuring success - Kapos, Valerie; Balmford, Andrew; Aveling, Rosalind; Bubb, Philip; Carey, Peter; Entwistle, Abigail; Hopkins, John; Mulliken, Teresa; Safford, Roger; Stattersfield, Alison; Walpole, Matt; Manica, Andrea (Conservation Letters, 2008)
Conservation practitioners, policy makers, and donors agree that there is an urgent need to identify which conservation approaches are most likely to succeed in order to use more effectively the limited resources available for conservation. While recently developed standards of good practice in conservation are helpful, a framework for evaluation is needed that supports systematic analysis of conservation effectiveness. A conceptual framework and scorecard developed by the Cambridge Conservation Forum help to address common constraints to evaluating conservation success: unclear objectives, ineffective information management, the long time frames of conservation outcomes, scarcity of resources for evaluation, and lack of incentives for such evaluation. For seven major categories of conservation activity, the CCF tools help clarify conservation objectives and provide a standardized framework that is a useful basis for managing information about project outcomes and existing conservation experience. By identifying key outcomes that can predict conservation success and can be assessed in relatively short time frames, they help to make more efficient use of scarce monitoring and evaluation resources. With wide application, the CCF framework and evaluation tool can provide a powerful platform for drawing on the experience of past and ongoing conservation projects to identify quantitatively factors that contribute to conservation success.
Keywords: Conservation effect; Conservation outcomes; Evaluation; Evidence-based conservation; Monitoring; conservation impact; framework; indicators; scorecard

Calibrating adaptive programming across multi-country, multi-partner programs - Gray, Stephen; Carl, Andy (Adapt Peacebuilding, 2019)
This past week Andy Carl and I joined the international NGO Christian Aid Ireland team in Dublin to reflect on progress in a key feature of their work - adaptive programming. This post presents what Andy Carl and I learned in reflecting this week with the international NGO Christian Aid Ireland r

Caja de Herramientas PDIA - Un enfoque “hazlo tú mismo” para resolver problemas complejos - Samji, Salimah; Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, MIchael (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2018)
(Spanish version of he PDIA toolkit) 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.

Buzzwords and fuzzwords: deconstructing development discourse - Cornwall, Andrea (Development in Practice, 2007)

Buzzing Communities: How to build bigger, better, and more active online communities - Millington, Richard (Feverbee, 2012)
How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Online CommunitiesBuzzing Communities cuts through the fluff to offer a clear process for creating thriving online communities. This book combines a century of proven science, dozens of real-life examples, practical tips, and trusted community-building methods. This step-by-step guide includes a lifecycle for tracking your progress and a framework for managing your organization's community efforts. This Book Will Help You to Understand what the members of your community really want. Dramatically increase the number of newcomers that become regulars. Avoid the mistakes most organizations make when they try to build online communities. Develop a fantastic, user-friendly website for your members. Grow your online community to critical mass and beyond Keep members engaged and active in your community. Measure the community's return on investment and explain the benefits to your organization.

Busan Outcome Document (2011)

Built to improve: Leveraging realtime M&E for adaptive youth employment programming - Skelton, John (Mercy Corps, 2016)
Recognising that aid and development programming takes place in complex contexts, Mercy Corps is increasingly seeking to understand how best to manage programs which iterate, adapt and respond to the consistently evolving settings in which we work. This brief Practice Paper provides some examples of what adaptive management looks like in practice on the Prospects youth employment program in Liberia. It does not seek to function as a manual or set of guidelines, but simply provides some practical examples and insights into how a youth employment program governed by principles of adaptive management operates.

Building tech-powered public services - Bickerstaffe, Sarah (Institute for Public Policy Research, 2013)
Given the rapid pace of technological change and take up by the public it is a question of when not if public services become tech powered This new paper asks how we can ensure that innovations are successfully introduced and deployed

Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action - Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, Michael (Oxford University Press, 2017)
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Governments play a major role in the development process, and constantly introduce reforms and policies to achieve developmental objectives. Many of these interventions have limited impact, however; schools get built but children don't learn, IT systems areintroduced but not used, plans are written but not implemented. These achievement deficiencies reveal gaps in capabilities, and weaknesses in the process of building state capability.This book addresses these weaknesses and gaps. It starts by providing evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, showing that many governments lack basic capacities even after decades of reforms and capacity building efforts. The book then analyses this evidence, identifying capability traps that hold many governments back - particularly related to isomorphic mimicry (where governments copy best practice solutions from other countries that make them look morecapable even if they are not more capable) and premature load bearing (where governments adopt new mechanisms that they cannot actually make work, given weak extant capacities). The book then describes a process that governments can use to escape these capability traps. Called PDIA (problem driveniterative adaptation), this process empowers people working in governments to find and fit solutions to the problems they face. The discussion about this process is structured in a practical manner so that readers can actually apply tools and ideas to the capability challenges they face in their own contexts. These applications will help readers devise policies and reforms that have more impact than those of the past.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Building justice and peace from below? Supporting community dispute resolution in Asia - Valters, Craig (ODI, 2016)

Building intentional networks that drive impact (part 2) - Mohr, Jeff (In Too Deep, 2016)
This is part 2 of our series on building intentional networks. Make sure you’ve read part 1 before diving into this article!

Building intentional networks that drive impact - Mohr, Jeff (In Too Deep, 2016)
These days everyone is familiar with some type of network — whether that’s their professional network on LinkedIn, their social network on…

Building elevators for development mutants - Quaggiotto, Giulio (Disrupt & Innovate, 2016)
I recently had the opportunity to learn about General Mill’s (the US food giant) “emerging brands elevator” program (also known as 301 Inc). Traditionally, General Mills has grown either through mergers and acquisitions, or by building new businesses from the ground up. Increasingly, however, it found that small brands were much faster at innovation, so … Continue reading Building elevators for development mutants

Building effective research policy networks: linking function and form - Mendizabal, Enrique (ODI, 2006)
This paper looks at the factors that affect the key structural characteristics of research policy networks in an attempt to develop a methodology for studying and understanding what networks do and how. It builds on previous work on the roles and functions that networks carry out and focuses on their structural characteristics. The literature on networks is explored to identify the main and most common factors affecting their structure, and then the paper considers the possible effects of these structural factors on a network's ability to perform one or more of these functions based on some of the lessons learned from a study of seven research policy networks in Peru. The paper provides a menu of factors and characteristics worth considering when intending to build effective networks.
OCLC: 183914885

Building Democracy from Below: Lessons from Western Uganda - King, Sophie; Hickey, Sam (The Journal of Development Studies, 2016)
How to achieve democratisation in the neo-patrimonial and agrarian environments that predominate in sub-Saharan Africa continues to present a challenge for both development theory and practice. Drawing on intensive fieldwork in Western Uganda, this paper argues that Charles Tilly’s ‘democratisation as process’ provides us with the framework required to explain the ways in which particular kinds of association can advance democratisation from below. Moving beyond the current focus on how elite-bargaining and certain associational forms may contribute to liberal forms of democracy, this approach helps identify the intermediate mechanisms involved in building democracy from below, including the significance of challenging categorical inequalities, notably through the role of producer groups, and of building trust networks, cross-class alliances and synergistic relations between civil and political society. The evidence and mode of analysis deployed here help suggest alternative routes for supporting local efforts to build democracy from below in sub-Saharan Africa.
Keywords: FRUGAL

Building Capacity for Strategic Innovation: an Emerging Competency Framework for Portfolio Work - Begovic, Milica; Colville, Jenniffer; Quaggiotto, Giulio; Vester, Søren; Naatujuna, Deborah; Oprunenco, Alex; Sadiku; Lejla; Uusikyla, Ida; Uriartt, Simone; Zorouali, Kawtar (Medium, 2023)
In a previous post we reflected on how a key learning from our “project to portfolio” journey to date is that it is ultimately about mustering the organizational will to transform. If the early days of our innovation work were about demonstrating results quickly and creating space for experimentation, now the challenge is of a different order. Eventually this means helping UNDP transition to a different value proposition and business model, as eloquently articulated by Gerd Trogemann: “No matter how well conceived and relevant in their own right, projects tend to pursue single point rather than systemic solutions, limit strategic space and the ability to adapt continuously and to connect the dots systemically. Systemic solutions need adaptive ways of working, strategic space, iterative learning, and radical collaboration.”

Building capability by delivering results: Putting Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) principles into practice - Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Samji, Salimah; Woolcock, Michael (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

Building Bridges to an Uncertain Future Lived Now: Lessons from the Use of Participatory Action Research and Theory of Change Towards A Realistic Community-Based Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation System - Avila, Enrique M.; Tolentino, Lutgarda L.; Binondo, Claudia B.; Perez, Maripaz L.; Apgar, J. Marina (International Journal of Agriculture System, 2016)
Building on experience from the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems implemented by WorldFish in the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines, known as the VisMin Hub, we describe the development and evolution of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system emerging from the facilitated action-reflection cycles of testing and adopting theories of change carried out with community partners through participatory action research (PAR). The former guides our community partners and us, as members of the potentially emergent PAR groups, towards the realization of the community’s vision; the latter facilitates learning to understand what, how and why change is unfolding. Unlike the conventional M&E system where indicators are pre-set at the beginning of program implementation, these processes result in an organically-evolved, communitybased participatory M&E system that is continuously revised according to contexts to guide communities towards realizing their visions. Its ultimate outcome is enhanced people’s capacity to own the product and process, giving rise to an internally-driven change. Towards the end, the paper offers an iterative discussion of learnings from implementing such an approach.
Keywords: Aquatic agricultural systems; CGIAR; Community-based participatory MEL; Learning; Participatory action research; research in development; theory of change

Building Better Systems - An introduction to System Innovation - Winhall, Jennie; Leadbeater, Charles (The Rockwool Foundation, 2020)
This paper lays out a series of steps people can take to create the new systems we need to meet shared, public challenges. Systems are ubiquitous and powerful. We rely on them to support our daily lives: every time we turn on a tap, flick a switch for electricity, drop our child at school, jump on a bus or visit a doctor we rely on a wider system. There is a widespread sense, among decision makers and citizens that in the coming decades society will need not just new products, software and services, but new systems for living sustainably in a socially inclusive society. The need for better, different systems will be heightened by the impact and lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic. Systems are productive precisely because they are more than standalone products. A system pulls together all the different ingredients needed to meet a need or to produce an outcome: the shipping container is a product, containerisation is a system; a contactless payment card is a product which only works as part of a payments system; an operation in a hospital can only take place because it is part of a wider health system. To understand how a system works it has to be seen as a whole, from the macro policy frameworks of social security systems right down to how a citizen goes about finding a job. Many of the systems we rely on for care and work, energy and transport, education and health are under pressure to change. Society faces both deeply entrenched and growing challenges that are outpacing the systems we have. We also have opportunities to create new, alternative systems as new knowledge, values and technologies emerge, from artificial intelligence and bitcoin, to circular and renewable systems of production. Rising to the challenge of fixing an existing system and exploring the possibility of creating a new system are different undertakings. The first is about optimising what exists, the second is about creating something different and better. We want this project to yield practical insights for those who want to respond to the systemic challenges of today by stepping into the possibilities of the future. Acting to change systems depends on new ways of seeing both challenge and opportunity: why systems come under strain and what unlocks the potential for alternatives. It depends on better understanding how new systems form, and what and who is part of initiating and driving the transition to them. In putting together this paper and the ones that will follow from it we want to clarify how to assess the need for, invest in and act on the process of deliberate system change.

Building a team culture for Adaptive Management in MSD: 5 Strategies MEL Managers Say Work - Gover, Dun; Nasution, Zulka; Okutu, David; Bolder, Meghan; Henao, Lina (USAID, 2023)
Keywords: Bolder Meghan; Gover Dun; Henao Lina; Nasution Zulka; Okutu David

Building a Movement of Public Problem Solvers - Building State Capability - Samji, Salimah (Building State Capability, 2021)
Solving public problems is a hard and thankless job. One that is undertaken with a shortage of time as well as resources, and often under pressure to deliver results. A common approach used to solve public problems is to develop a plan, sometimes with experts, and then to assume that implementation will happen on autopilot. To quote Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” The question is, what do you do after you get punched? Continue with your existing plan? Or do you learn from the punch?

Building a Learning Culture – The case of the Market Development Facility in Fiji - Miehlbradt, Alexandra (The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development, 2015)
Keywords: Case Report

Building a Learning Community in Liberia Through Partnerships at iCampus - iCampus (USAID LEARN, 2018)
Accountability Lab Liberia (ALab) and iLab Liberia established iCampus- a shared innovation, co-working and community space for organizations focusing on the intersection of technology, accountability and social change in Liberia. ALab implements DAI’s Learning activities at iCampus, and it is referred to as the Strategic Learning Partner of USAID Liberia Accountability and Voice Initiative (LAVI). LAVI is a five year USAID program with an overarching goal to strengthen multi-stakeholder partnerships to advocate for and monitor policy and accountability reforms. The iCampus CLA case scenario captures joint efforts of Accountability Lab Liberia, iLab Liberia and USAID LAVI, to ensure that learning and methodologies are shared and applied by development actors; address common capacity challenges that particularly hinder civil society from engaging in evidence-based and issues-based advocacy using various approaches, including network-building, creation of a cross-sectoral learning space- through collaboration and learning. In 2017, iCampus conducted a learning mapping survey to understand how organizations are learning in Liberia. The result indicated that frameworks and concepts of organizational learning are not yet well understood or used to guide strategic or programmatic practices, by either Liberian or international organizations. ALab, iLab and USAID LAVI then adopted a set of strategies, that led to the implementation of a CLA, enabling the establishment of the first multi-sectoral learning community in Liberia.

Building a global learning alliance on adaptive management - Wild, Leni; Ramalingam, Ben (ODI, 2018)