About the BEAM Exchange (BEAM Exchange, 2018)

Adaptive management in aid programmes (BEAM Exchange, 2014)
Aid works better – especially in complex and conflict-affected environments – when there is scope to trial and adapt programme strategies. So argues Amir Allana in Navigating Complexity, a case study of Northern Karamoja's Growth, Health and Governance (GHG) Programme that is adopting an 'adaptive management' approach. This BEAM Exchange webinar invited Amir, Tim Sparkman and Peter Roggekamp to discuss lessons from their work in Uganda and Cambodia. What does adaptive management look like in practice? And what does it require of managers and funders to make it happen? Tim and Peter share their experiences of applying adaptive management techniques to the Growth, Health and Governance Programme and the Cambodia Agricultural Value Chain Program (CAVAC). Amir highlight insights from the Navigating Complexity report, including the importance of office culture, consistent management signals, and the role of supportive tools and processes.

Book Review: Branko Milanovic's brilliant take on Global Inequality (From Poverty to Power, 2016)
Some of my favourite development economists are nomads, people with feet in different regions, which seems to make them better able to identify interesting patterns and similarities/differences bet...

Busan Outcome Document (2011)

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.

Conflict and Human Rights Shareweb (2019)

Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED, 2018)
The DCED is a forum for learning about the most effective ways to fulfil the SDGs – based on practical experience in Private Sector Development (PSD).

Feedback Commons (Keystone Accountability, 2018)

Fostering Learning and Effectiveness through Collaboration: A New Collaborative on Transparency, Accountability, and Participation (TAI, 2018)
What are the features, values, and practices of effective learning organizations? How do learning practices contribute to more effective programming? And, how can collaborations between academics, researchers and practitioners better support learning organizations in the global South? These are just a few of the questions that a new global learning collaborative seeks to explore. In …

Making All Voices Count's Research & Evidence Strategy (2014)
Building an evidence-base on what works in technology for voice, transparency and accountability, how, and why.

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

MIRADI: Adaptive Management Software for Conservation Projects (2018)

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

Nairobi Outcome Document (2016)

NetworkWeaver (NetworkWeaver, 2018)
Weaving Smart Networks

Positive Deviance Initiative (2016)

Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (r4d programme) - NFP [Nr.] (2018)
Research and innovation are decisive factors for sustainable global development. With their knowledge, skills, experience and worldwide network of partners, researchers can make an important contribution towards the solution of global problems.

Transparency, Participation, & Accountability Grantmaking Strategy (THE WILLIAM AND FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION, 2015)

TWP CoP (Thinking and Working Politically - Community of Practice, 2016)

Women and power: overcoming barriers to leadership ODI women and power coverand influence (ODI, 2016)
ODI have just wrapped up an excellent two year project on ‘Women and power: overcoming barriers to leadership and influence’ with a final synthesis report that is well worth reading. It’s an intell...

18F Method Cards - A collection of tools to bring human-centered design into your project - 18F-GSA (18F-GSA, US Governement, 2017)
18F’s method cards describe how our organization puts human-centered design into practice.

Thinking big: How to use theory of change for systems change - Abercrombie, Rob; Boswell, Katie; Thomasoo, Rosanna (NPC, 2018)
We think that, applied well, theory of change can support charities and funders to take a systemic approach to their work. This report identifies five common pitfalls that organisations fall into when using theory of change, and walks through five rules of thumb that will help organisations to use the approach to tackle complex problems. We think that, applied well, theory of change can support charities and funders to take a systemic approach to their work. This report identifies five common pitfalls that organisations fall into when using theory of change, and walks through five rules of thumb that will help organisations to use the approach to tackle complex problems.

Getting strategic: vertically integrated approaches - Aceron, Joy; Isaac, Francis (Institute of Development Studies, 2016)
Holding power to account requires understanding where power lies and how it is exercised. It entails understanding how decisions are made, who makes them and what decision criteria are used to make them. Vertically integrated civil society action takes into account how power is exercised and how decisions are made in a given policy, programme or process.

Going vertical: citizen-led reform campaigns in the Philippines - Aceron, Joy; Isaac, Francis (IDS, 2016)
The Philippines has a long history of state–society engagement to introduce reforms in government and politics. Forces from civil society and social movements have interfaced with reform-oriented leaders in government on a range of social accountability initiatives – to make governance more responsive, to introduce policy reforms, and to make government more accountable. Several theoretical propositions on which strategic approaches work best for social accountability initiatives have been put forward – including the idea of vertically integrated civil society monitoring and advocacy. This multi-authored research report uses vertical integration as a framework for examining seven successful civil society social accountability initiatives in the Philippines, looking at what made them successful, and how the gains they realised can be deepened and sustained.

Alps - Accountability, Learning and Planning System - 2011 Update - ActionAid (ActionAid International, 2011)
Alps is ActionAid’s over arching accountability framework, containing within it our programme planning system. Alps is distinctive in that it is strongly driven by principles, and sets out necessary personal attitudes and behaviours alongside organisational processes for planning, strategy formulation, learning, monitoring reviews/evaluations and audit. Alps defines our standards, not only about what we do but also how we do it. Alps is part of ActionAid’s human rights-based work.

+Acumen MOOC: Adaptive Leadership: Mobilizing for Change and Disrupting the Status Quo - +Acumen (NovoEd, 2017)
This four-module course by +Acumen and Adaptive Change Advisors on adaptive leadership, which is a practical leadership framework developed at Harvard Kennedy School for driving systemic change, particularly during times of uncertainty or when there are no easy answers.

Lean Data Approaches to Measure Social Impact - ACUMEN (NovoEd, 2018)

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.

Agile Glossary and Terminology - Agile Alliance (Agile Alliance, 2015)
Learn the unique terminology used in Agile development from the experts at Agile Alliance.

Subway Map to Agile Practices - Agile Alliance (Agile Alliance, 2015)
AGILE 101

’Adaptive Authoritarianism’ in Contemporary China: Identifying Zones of Legitimacy Building - Ahlers, Anna Lisa; Schubert, Gunter (Reviving Legitimacy: Lessons for and from China, 2011)
Anna L. Ahlers and Gunter Schubert, ’Adaptive Authoritarianism’ in Contemporary China: Identifying Zones of Legitimacy Building, in: Deng Zhenglai and Guo Sujian (eds), Reviving Legitimacy: Lessons for and from China, Lanham: Lexington Books (2011),

Beyond Tweets and Screams: Action for Empowerment and Accountability in Nigeria – The Case of the #BBOG Movement - Aina, Tade Akin; Atela, Martin; Ojebode, Ayo; Dayil, Plangsat; Aremu, Fatai (IDS, 2019)
This paper explores the nature, role and dynamics of new forms of social and political action as pathways to empowerment and accountability in fragile conflict- and violence-affected settings in Africa. Through an in-depth analysis of the case of the Bring Back Our Girls (#BBOG) movement in Nigeria and a multi-methods approach, the paper provides new knowledge that addresses evidence gaps in the following areas: (1) the multiple ways through which social and political action play out in fragile, conflict- and violence-affected settings; (2) whether the conditions in which new forms of social and political action applicable to fragile, conflict- and violence-affected settings – the settings most dominant in African countries – emerge as currently projected in the literature; and (3) whether these social and political actions necessarily produce accountability and empowerment in fragile, conflict- and violence-affected settings. Although often expressed as contentious and/or unruly politics, experiences from the BBOG movement suggest that the new forms of social and political action possess a wide range of implications for citizen action and governance, including leading to multiple forms of empowerment in fragile settings.

Is (Web) Science Ready for Empowerment? - Akkermans, Hans; Gyan, Nana Baah; Bon, Anna; Tuyp, Wendelien; Grewal, Aman; Boyera, Stéphane; Allen, Mary (2011)

Afterword: Alabert Hirschman observed - Alacevich, Michele (Development Projects Observed, 2015)
Albert Hirschman considered Development Projects Observed a natural sequel to his earlier work. As Hirschman put it to an old acquaintance at the World Bank, his previous books identified the inner and often hidden mechanisms of development sequences: “Having worked out a few basic hypotheses …, I could perhaps test them (and hit on some new ones) by looking at Bank-financed projects that have had enough time to give rise to such sequences.”¹ But as much as it appeared as the logical evolution of Hirschman’s intellectual trajectory, this new research was also the offshoot of an important crisis in development

Politics matters, so what? Time for bigger bets (and more learning) on adaptive programming - Alan (www.globalintegrity.org, 2016)
By Alan Hudson, Executive Director, Global Integrity, July 26, 2016 Politics matters. Context too. And blueprints have limited value. Our strategy is based on these insights, so we’re totally on board. A World Development Report (WDR) that puts power and politics...

Try, learn, adapt, repeat: T/A Learn reflections - Alan (www.globalintegrity.org, 2015)
By Alan Hudson — November 16, 2015. I spent last week in Rio de Janeiro (tough assignment, I know), participating in the Transparency and Accountability Initiative’s third T/A Learn Annual Workshop. As the report of the second Annual Workshop, held...

Positive deviance, big data, and development: A systematic literature review - Albanna, Basma; Heeks, Richard (The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 2019)
Positive deviance is a growing approach in international development that identifies those within a population who are outperforming their peers in some way, eg, children in low-income families who are well nourished when those around them are not. Analysing and then disseminating the behaviours and other factors underpinning positive deviance are demonstrably effective in delivering development results. However, positive deviance faces a number of challenges that are restricting its diffusion. In this paper, using a systematic literature review, we analyse the current state of positive deviance and the potential for big data to address the challenges facing positive deviance. From this, we evaluate the promise of “big data-based positive deviance”: This would analyse typical sources of big data in developing countries—mobile phone records, social media, remote sensing data, etc—to identify both positive deviants and the factors underpinning their superior performance. While big data cannot solve all the challenges facing positive deviance as a development tool, they could reduce time, cost, and effort; identify positive deviants in new or better ways; and enable positive deviance to break out of its current preoccupation with public health into domains such as agriculture, education, and urban planning. In turn, positive deviance could provide a new and systematic basis for extracting real-world development impacts from big data.
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/isd2.12063
Keywords: big data; developing countries; machine learning; mobile data; positive deviance; systematic literature review

Eight Practices for Strategic Agility - Algoso, Dave (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2019)
Rather than a glossy brochure that no one reads, your strategy should be an ongoing practice that informs your decisions and adapts as circumstances change. A Viewpoint from the Summer 2019 issue.

How INGOs are Doing Development Differently - Algoso, Dave (Care, IRC, Mercy Corps, Oxfam & World Vision, 2017)

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

Adapting Aid: Lessons from six case studies - Algoso, Dave; Beloe, Jon; Hemberger, Alison; Hill, Philippa; Proud, Emma (MercyCorps & IRC, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Where have we got to on adaptive learning, thinking and working politically, doing development differently etc? Getting beyond the People’s Front of Judea - Algoso, Dave; Hudson, Alan (From Poverty to Power, 2016)
Dave Algoso and Alan Hudson at Global Integrity compare and contrast 9 different initiatives that are all heading in roughly the right direction in aid reform
Keywords: IMPORTANT

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

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

An introduction to systems thinking and tools for systems thinking - Allen, Will; Kilvington, Margaret (Learning fro Sustainability, 2018)
Systems thinking is an approach to integration that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system will act differently when isolated from the system’s environment or other parts of the system. THIS PAGE PROVIDES PLENTY OF RESOURCES ON SYSTEM THINKING

Making humanitarian response more flexible: bibliography - ALNAP (2018)

Doing Accountability Differently: A 'Vertically Integrated' Approach - Amakom, Uzochukwu; Fashola, Temitope; Gay, Charles; Shutt, Cathy (Christian Aid, 2018)

Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid - Anderson, Mary B.; Brown, Dayna; Jean, Isabella (CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, 2012)
Does the way international assistance is organized make sense? Is it working as we mean it to? This book approaches these questions through the experiences of people living on the receiving side of international assistance. It reports on the ideas, insights, and analyses of almost 6,000 people across 20 countries where international aid has been provided. From such a range of locations and people, one might expect vastly different ideas and opinions. However, remarkably consistent patterns and common judgments emerged. In the midst of difference, there was striking unanimity and consistency about the processes and the effects of the international aid system. Using their words, their experiences, and their ideas, this book describes why the cumulative impacts of international aid efforts have not met expectations. It describes a way forward to make changes that, according to those on the receiving end, will lead to more effective and lasting results.

LAC MEL Specialists Use Peer Network to Improve Quality and Use of Evidence - Anderson, Todd M; Prevatt, Amy (USAID, 2019)
Based on consultations and stocktakings with LAC Missions, the LAC Bureau identified Mission Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialists as influential decision makers regarding data and evidence use. The LAC Bureau aims to improve the quality and use of evidence for decision making, and ultimately to improve development outcomes.

Explaining positive deviance in public sector reforms in development - Andrews, Matt (World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER), 2013)
Public sector reforms are commonplace in developing countries. Much of the literature about these reforms reflects on their failures. This paper asks about the successes and investigates which of two competing theories best explain why some reforms exhibi
Keywords: Development; Innovation; Reform; case survey; governance; growth; leadership

The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development: Changing Rules for Realistic Solutions - Andrews, Matt (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Institutional reforms are common across the globe. Think of efforts to build new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq; or decades worth of interventions intended to improve fiscal management, reduce corruption or introduce efficient public sector service delivery in African countries.These reforms often have limited results, however. They lead to new laws that are not properly implemented, and new organizations that have poor capacities and fail to function as needed. In this book, Matt Andrews explains why reform results are frequently limited and suggests ways to overcome these limits. In the first half of the book, Andrews argues that reforms fail to make governments better when they are introduced as signals to gain short-term support–from donors and others. Reforms as signals introduce unrealistic best practices that do not fit developing country contexts and are not considered relevant by implementing agents. The result is a set of new forms that do not function properly. Andrews uses examples to prove this point, ranging from efforts to introduce fiscal rules in Argentina to reforms aimed at international accounting standard adoption in many African countries, and anti corruption interventions in Malawi and Uganda. In the second half of the book, Andrews notes that there are instances where reforms are not being introduced as signals, and are having more of an impact on government effectiveness. Examples include local government reforms in Rwanda, anti corruption initiatives in Indonesia, and a variety of initiatives ranging from results based management to civil service modernization and internal control regime adoption in governments like Kenya, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Andrews uses these examples to discuss ways in which reforms can actually provide realistic solutions to governance challenges in developing countries. Lessons from these experiences suggest that reform limits can be overcome by focusing interventions on problem solving, and promoting incremental and localized processes to find solutions, involving multiple agents who can authorize and implement reforms.

Learning to Target for Economic Diversification: PDIA in Sri Lanka - Andrews, Matt; Ariyasinghe, Duminda; Batuwanthudawa, Thamari; Darmasiri, Shivanthika; Silva, Nilupul; Harrington, Peter; Jayasinghe, Prasanna; Jayasinghe, Upul; Jayathilake, Gamini; Karunaratne, Jayani; Katugampala, Lalit; Liyanapathirane, Jeewani; et al. (Center for International Development, Harvard University, 2017)

A Guide to Peer-to-Peer Learning - Andrews, Matt; Manning, Nick (Effective Institutions Platform, 2016)

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 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

Doing Iterative and Adaptive Work - Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, Michael (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2016)
Many of the challenges in international development are complex in nature. They involve many actors in uncertain contexts and with unclear solutions. Our work has proposed an approach to addressing such challenges, called Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA). This paper is the most recent in a series intended to show how one can do PDIA, building on the first paper, "Doing Problem Driven Work.” The current paper addresses a key part of the approach one moves to once a problem has been identified, performing real-time experimental iterations. This is intended as a practical paper that builds on experience and embeds exercises for readers who are actually involved in this kind of work.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Doing Problem Driven Work - Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, Michael (Harvard University, 2015)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Escaping Capability Traps through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) - Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, Michael (Harvard University, 2012)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

3 fallacies of embracing complexity - Ang, Yuen Yuen (UNDP Blog, 2018)
Global development is seeing an exciting paradigm shift. Increasingly, leaders and practitioners recognize that development is not a “complicated” challenge that can be neatly parsed out into separate problems and siloed departments, like assembling a car. Rather, the various tasks of development—poverty eradication, improving governance, climate action, gender equality, and so on—are all connected, making development a “complex” challenge.

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

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.

Going Local 2.0: How to Reform Development Agencies to Make Localized Aid More Than Talk - Ang, Yuen Yuen (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2018)
More and more global aid agencies believe they should replace one-size-fits-all best practices with locally tailored solutions, but they must shift from just agreeing to “go local” to preparing development experts for the task by taking on three major problems with their internal practices.

How China Escaped the Poverty Trap - Ang, Yuen Yuen (Cornell University Press, 2016)
Before markets opened in 1978, China was an impoverished planned economy governed by a Maoist bureaucracy. In just three decades it evolved into the world's second-largest economy and is today guided by highly entrepreneurial bureaucrats. In How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Yuen Yuen Ang explains this astonishing metamorphosis. Rather than insist that either strong institutions of good governance foster markets or that growth enables good governance, Ang lays out a new, dynamic framework for understanding development broadly. Successful development, she contends, is a coevolutionary process in which markets and governments mutually adapt.By mapping this coevolution, Ang reveals a startling conclusion: poor and weak countries can escape the poverty trap by first harnessing weak institutions―features that defy norms of good governance―to build markets. Further, she stresses that adaptive processes, though essential for development, do not automatically occur. Highlighting three universal roadblocks to adaptation, Ang identifies how Chinese reformers crafted enabling conditions for effective improvisation.How China Escaped the Poverty Trap offers the most complete synthesis to date of the numerous interacting forces that have shaped China’s dramatic makeover and the problems it faces today. Looking beyond China, Ang also traces the coevolutionary sequence of development in late medieval Europe, antebellum United States, and contemporary Nigeria, and finds surprising parallels among these otherwise disparate cases. Indispensable to all who care about development, this groundbreaking book challenges the convention of linear thinking and points to an alternative path out of poverty traps.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Integrating Big Data and Thick Data to Transform Public Services Delivery - Ang, Yuen Yuen (IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2019)
This report explains how public organizations can combine big data and thick data to transform public services delivery—a strategy called mixed analytics. Governments can greatly enhance the value of big data by combining it with “thick” data—rich qualitative information about users, such as their values, goals, and consumption behavior, obtained by observing or interacting with them in their daily lives. Big data holds great promise for improving public services delivery and innovation in government, but they are not a panacea . Having lots of data can be overwhelming or have little utility if the data are “thin”—that is, they lack meaning for users or fail to capture issues that matter most . By yielding insights into what citizens really care about and how they consume services, thick data can inform both the collection and analysis of big data. This report introduces the concept of “mixed analytics,” integrating big data and thick data to transform government decision making, public services delivery, and communication. The report presents three case studies of organizations that employ mixed analytics at the international, federal, and city level, respectively. Together, this research offers a set of transferable lessons for agencies at all levels of government: Lesson 1: Big data is a means to an end, rather than an end. Lesson 2: Thick data can identify unexpected problems or previously unexpressed needs. Lesson 3: Thick data can inform the analysis of big data. Lesson 4: Mixed analytics can offer both scale and depth. Lesson 5: Applying technology is a social activity, not an isolated technical task. Lesson 6: The best solutions are not always high-tech. The report concludes with five actionable recommendations for public managers. Make data and technology relevant to the people who use it. Leverage thick data at appropriate stages of the problem-solving process. Build an interdisciplinary team of quantitative and qualitative experts who work closely with stakeholders. Combine big and thick data to improve communication Improve government agencies’ knowledge of mixed research methods. This report builds on multiple past IBM Center reports about how government can leverage data and analytics to improve decisions, including Data-Driven Government: The Role of Chief Data Officers, by Jane Wiseman; Ten Actions to Implement Big Data Initiatives: A Study of 65 Cities, by Alfred Ho and Bo McCall, and Realizing The Promise of Big Data, by Kevin DeSouza. The report also complements several chapters that assess the past and potential use of data across the public sector in our recent book, Government For The Future: Reflection and Vision For Tomorrow’s Leaders. At a time when the US and other governments continue to enhance their use of data as a strategic asset for transformation, we hope that Professor Ang’s report provides useful insights for government managers and stakeholders.

Making Details Matter: How to Reform Aid Agencies to Generate Contextual Knowledge - Ang, Yuen Yuen (SSRN, 2014)
My essay considers a central problem of reinventing foreign aid in the twenty-first century: how to reform aid agencies to enable a “best-fit” approach to development assistance. For the past decades, the aid community has tried to transplant best practices from the developed world to the developing world. Increasingly, however, it is recognized that copying best practices does not work and may even backfire; rather, aid programs work best when they are tailored to local contexts. Yet while the idea of a best-fit approach is widely embraced in principle, actualizing it is easier said than done. For meaningful changes to take root in practice, we must first identify the obstacles to localizing development assistance and suggest ways to address these problems. To this end, I propose a three-pronged strategy to promote the generation of contextual knowledge among aid professionals, a necessary condition for crafting solutions that can fit various local contexts, namely: (1) build a bank of knowledge about unorthodox practices that work, (2) diversify expertise within aid agencies; and (3) carve experimental pockets. My proposal does not fit neatly into any one of the six themes specified in the GDN competition; rather, it concerns all of the themes. Whether it is to use aid to improve governance, apply information technology, or design financial instruments, the overarching challenge is to empower and incentivize aid professionals to learn and apply contextual knowledge to creatively solve problems in developing societies.
Keywords: Contextual knowledge; Localization; Public policy; foreign aid; international development

Getting beneath the surface in program planning, monitoring and evaluation: Learning from use of participatory action research and theory of change in the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems - Apgar, J Marina; Allen, Will; Albert, Joelle; Douthwaite, Boru; Paz Ybarnegaray, Rodrigo; Lunda, Jeston (Action Research, 2017)
Many rural poor and marginalized people strive to make a living in social-ecological systems that are characterized by multiple and often inequitable interactions across agents, scale and space. Uncertainty and inequality in such systems require research and development interventions to be adaptive, support learning and to engage with underlying drivers of poverty. Such complexity-aware approaches to planning, monitoring and evaluating development interventions are gaining strength, yet, there is still little empirical evidence of what it takes to implement them in practice. In this paper, we share learning from an agricultural research program that used participatory action research and theory of change to foster learning and support transformative change in aquatic agricultural systems. We reflect on our use of critical reflection within participatory agricultural research interventions, and our use of theory of change to collectively surface and revisit assumptions about how change happens. We share learning on the importance of being strengths-based in engaging stakeholders across scales and building a common goal as a starting point, and then staging a more critical practice as capacity is built and opportunities for digging deeper emerge.

Bringing Participation into Complexity-Aware MEL: What is the evidence? - Apgar, Marina; Higdon, Grace Lyn (2018)

Appreciative Inquiry Australia - Appreciative Inquiry Australia (2015)
The site provides news and information on AI events and learning opportunities in Australia and also provides an archive of articles and discussions centred on the use of AI.

Assumptions, conjectures, and other miracles: The application of evaluative thinking to theory of change models in community development - Archibald, Thomas; Sharrock, Guy; Buckley, Jane; Cook, Natalie (Evaluation and Program Planning, 2016)
Unexamined and unjustified assumptions are the Achilles’ heel of development programs. In this paper, we describe an evaluation capacity building (ECB) approach designed to help community development practitioners work more effectively with assumptions through the intentional infusion of evaluative thinking (ET) into the program planning, monitoring, and evaluation process. We focus specifically on one component of our ET promotion approach involving the creation and analysis of theory of change (ToC) models. We describe our recent efforts to pilot this ET ECB approach with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Ethiopia and Zambia. The use of ToC models, plus the addition of ET, is a way to encourage individual and organizational learning and adaptive management that supports more reflective and responsive programming.
Keywords: Assumptions; Community development; Critical thinking; Evaluation capacity building; Evaluative thinking; International Development; Theory of change

Using adaptive processes and adverse outcome pathways to develop meaningful, robust, and actionable environmental monitoring programs - Arciszewski, Tim J.; Munkittrick, Kelly R.; Scrimgeour, Garry J.; Dubé, Monique G.; Wrona, Fred J.; Hazewinkel, Rod R. (Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 2017)
The primary goals of environmental monitoring are to indicate whether unexpected changes related to development are occurring in the physical, chemical, and biological attributes of ecosystems and to inform meaningful management intervention. Although achieving these objectives is conceptually simple, varying scientific and social challenges often result in their breakdown. Conceptualizing, designing, and operating programs that better delineate monitoring, management, and risk assessment processes supported by hypothesis-driven approaches, strong inference, and adverse outcome pathways can overcome many of the challenges. Generally, a robust monitoring program is characterized by hypothesis-driven questions associated with potential adverse outcomes and feedback loops informed by data. Specifically, key and basic features are predictions of future observations (triggers) and mechanisms to respond to success or failure of those predictions (tiers). The adaptive processes accelerate or decelerate the effort to highlight and overcome ignorance while preventing the potentially unnecessary escalation of unguided monitoring and management. The deployment of the mutually reinforcing components can allow for more meaningful and actionable monitoring programs that better associate activities with consequences. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2017;13:877–891. © 2017 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)
Keywords: Adaptive monitoring; Environmental management; Environmental monitoring; Tier; Trigger

Twinning “Practices of Change” With “Theory of Change”: Room for Emergence in Advocacy Evaluation - Arensman, Bodille; van Waegeningh, Cornelie; van Wessel, Margit (American Journal of Evaluation, 2018)
Theory of change (ToC) is currently the approach for the evaluation and planning of international development programs. This approach is considered especially suitable for complex interventions. We question this assumption and argue that ToC’s focus on cause–effect logic and intended outcomes does not do justice to the recursive nature of complex interventions such as advocacy. Supported by our work as evaluators, and specifically our case study of an advocacy program on child rights, we illustrate how advocacy evolves through recursive interactions, with outcomes that are emergent rather than predictable. We propose putting “practices of change” at the center by emphasizing human interactions, using the analytical lenses of strategies as practice and recursiveness. This provides room for emergent outcomes and implies a different use of ToC. In this article, we make a clear distinction between theoretical reality models and the real world of practices.

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

Bringing adaptive management to life: Insights from practice - Arora, Anmol; Gogoi, Elizabeth; Joy, Divya; Kumar, Pankaj; Luthra, Rajni; Pal, Uma; Pervaiz, Arif (Oxford Policy Management, 2019)

Tools for supporting sustainable natural resource management and livelihoods - Ashley, Holly; Kenton, Nicole; Milligan, Angela (2013)
OCLC: 951490115

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

Sounding clever or being smart? – How to do more with less in evaluating governance programmes - Aston, Tom (Care Insights, 2018)
About a decade ago, the development sector fell into the same trap the financial services industry did in the mid-1990s. We were all seduced by clever...

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

Global mapping of technology for transparency and accountability - Avila, Renata; Feigenblatt, Hazel; Heacock, Rebekah; Heller, Nathaniel (Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 2010)

The role of research and learning in adaptive programming - Babon, Andrea; Denney, Lisa (Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre, 2018)
Andrea Babon and Lisa Denney explore how learning partners - a common feature of aid programs - can operate and feed into programs.

The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation - Bacon, Jono (O'Reilly Media, 2012)
Online communities provide a wide range of opportunities for supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or building open source software. The Art of Community helps you recruit members, motivate them, and manage them as active participants. Author Jono Bacon offers experiences and observations from his 14-year effort to build and manage communities, including his current position as manager for Ubuntu.Discover how your community can become a reliable support network, a valuable source of new ideas, and a powerful marketing force. This expanded edition shows you how to keep community projects on track, make use of social media, and organize collaborative events. Interviews with 12 community management leaders, including Linus Torvalds, Tim O’Reilly, and Mike Shinoda, provide useful insights.Develop specific objectives and goals for building your communityBuild processes to help contributors perform tasks, work together, and share successesProvide tools and infrastructure that enable members to work quicklyCreate buzz around your community to get more people involvedHarness social media to broadcast information, collaborate, and get feedbackUse several techniques to track progress on community goalsIdentify and manage conflict, such as dealing with divisive personalities

Digital lives in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda - Bailur, Savita; Donner, Jonathan; Locke, Chris; Schoemaker, Emrys; Smart, Charlotte (Caribou Digital, 2015)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Doing Development Differently at the World Bank: updating the plumbing to fit the architecture - Bain, Katherine A.; Booth, David; Wild, Leni (ODI, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Institutional Change, Political Economy, and State Capabilities : Learning from Edo State, Nigeria - Bain, Katherine; Porter, Doug; Watts, Michael (World Bank, 2015)
This paper is one of a series aimed at deepening the World Bank’s capacity to follow through on commitments made in response to the World Development Report (WDR) 2011, which gave renewed prominence to the nexus between conflict, security, and development. Nigeria is a remarkable illustration of how deeply intractable the cycle of poverty, conflict, and fragility can become when tied to the ferocious battles associated with the political economy of oil. This paper places the corpus of analytic and programmatic work concerning institutional reform in conversation with a now substantial body of work on resource politics and most especially, the debate over the politico-institutional character (sometimes called political settlements or pacting arrangements associated with the order of power) and reform landscape of the petro-state. Recent institution reform policy writing appears to have little to say about the political and economic conditions in which crises and institutional disjunctures may authorize, and thereby enable, agents to embark on institutional reforms. The authors focus on Edo state for two reasons. First, it does not on its face appear to be an obvious location in which to explore a reform experience, given its entanglement in the Niger Delta conflict and the maladies typically associated with state fragility. Second, Edo is of interest also because of the changes that its experience is contributing to the World Bank country team’s effort to engage operationally across all its instruments with the political economy of institutional reform in Nigeria, its largest client country in Africa.

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

Increasing Participation in Evaluation - Baker, A; Bruner, B (Bruner Foundation, 2014)
The Increasing Participation in Evaluation bulletin was developed by Anita Baker with Beth Bruner to help organizations integrate evaluative thinking into their organizational practice. This three page bulletin discusses how Organization Staff, Evaluators, and Funders are typically involved in participatory evaluation. The guide also defines the term "Ripple", and how to accomplish Ripple as well as examining what it looks like when Executive Leaders and Management Staff use Evaluative Thinking. Contents How are Organization Staff, Evaluators, and Funders typically involved in Participatory Evaluation? Organization Managers/Staff Roles Evaluators/Roles Funder Roles Shared Roles What is Ripple Anyway? How do you accomplish Ripple? What does it look like when Executive Leaders and Management Staff Use Evaluative Thinking? How to use these Bulletins

Biased Policy Professionals - Banuri, Sheheryar; Dercon, Stefan; Gauri, Varun (The World Bank Economic Review, 2019)
Although the decisions of policy professionals are often more consequential than those of individuals in their private capacity, there is a dearth of studies on the biases of policy professionals: those who prepare and implement policy on behalf of elected politicians. Experiments conducted on a novel subject pool of development policy professionals (public servants of the World Bank and the Department for International Development in the UK) show that policy professionals are indeed subject to decision-making traps, including the effects of framing outcomes as losses or gains, and, most strikingly, confirmation bias driven by ideological predisposition, despite having an explicit mission to promote evidence-informed and impartial decision making. These findings should worry policy professionals and their principals in governments and large organizations, as well as citizens themselves. A further experiment, in which policy professionals engage in discussion, shows that deliberation may be able to mitigate the effects of some of these biases.
Keywords: bias

Qualitative Comparative Analysis - A Rigorous Qualitative Method for Assessing Impact - Baptist, Carrie; Befani, Barbara (Coffey, 2015)

The Implications of Complexity for Development - Barder, Owen (2012)
In this lecture, adapted from his May 2012 Kapuściński Lecture, Owen Barder explores the implications of complexity theory for development policy. He explains how traditional economic models have tried and failed to understand why some countries have managed to improve living standards while other countries have not.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

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

Adaptive Peacebuilding Programming Through Effective Feedback Loops: Promising Practices - Barnard-Webster, Kiely; Jean, Isabella (CDA, 2018)
This case study report was developed by CDA’s part of Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium collaborative research on the use of feedback loops in support of adaptive programming. Feedback loops are just one element of adaptive programming and are defined and used in different ways by organizations working on social change, peace and development issues. This document includes key findings from our desk review of reports and grey literature, key informant interviews, observations documented during CDA’s advisory and learning engagements with peacebuilding partners as well as the case study on SFCG’s feedback processes in Burundi. The findings are most relevant to program and M&E staff but have implications for senior management and policymakers in light of growing interest in strengthening adaptive management.

Learning about Theories of Change for the Monitoring and Evaluation of Research Uptake - Barnett, Chris; Gregorowski, Robbie (IDS, 2013)
This paper captures lessons from recent experiences on using ‘theories of change’ amongst organisations involved in the research–policy interface. The literature in this area highlights much of the complexity inherent in the policymaking process, as well as the challenges around finding meaningful ways to measure research uptake. As a tool, ‘theories of change’ offers much, but the paper argues that the very complexity and dynamism of the research-to-policy process means that any theory of change will be inadequate in this context. Therefore, rather than overcomplicating a static depiction of change at the start (to be evaluated at the end), incentives need to be in place to regularly collect evidence around the theory, test it periodically, and then reflect and reconsider its relevance and assumptions.
Accepted: 2013-10-01T11:27:00Z

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.

The Generalizability Puzzle - Bates, Mary Ann; Glennerster, Rachel (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)
The practice of using rigorous scientific evaluations to study solutions to global poverty is relatively young. Although researchers continue to advance our knowledge of the mechanisms at work, confusion about their role and value persists. Having evidence from specific studies is fine and good, but for policy makers, the point is not simply to understand poverty, but to eliminate it. Do decisions always need to be informed by evidence from the local context? What potential and limits do randomized controlled trials have for improving our knowledge and finding effective answers? Two leaders in anti-poverty research—J-PAL and IPA—dispel some of the myths about their field. In this article, authors from J-PAL argue that rigorous impact evaluations tell us a lot about the world, not just the particular contexts in which they are conducted. Access to this article made possible by MIT.

A study of the sustained uptake developmental evaluation: How does developmental evaluation work in the USAID context, what factors help and hinder its success, and what is its value to stakeholders? - Baylor, Rebecca; Fatehi, Y. K.; Esper, H. (USAID, 2019)

Developmental Evaluation: How Barriers & Enablers Emerge Over Time - Baylor, Rebecca; Fatehi, Y. K.; Esper, H. (USAID, 2019)

Short Course - Adaptive Management, an overview - Bazaz Smith, Komal (American University, 2019)

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.

Introduction - Towards Systemic Approaches to Evaluation and Impact - Befani, Barbara; Ramalingam, Ben; Stern, Elliot (IDS Bulletin, 2015)

Guidelines for good market development program design. A managers’ perspective - Bekkers, Harald; Roggekamp, Peter (BEAM Exchange, 2014)
Good programme design is a key factor contributing to the success of market development programmes. Unfortunately, too many current designs have major flaws which prevent programmes becoming successful even before they get started. This document considers what makes market development programmes consistently successful and how to prevent programme design from being a hurdle to sustainable and efficient impact as scale.

An Introduction to the DCED Standard for Results Measurement - Bekkers, Nabanita Sen (2018)
Introduction used in the DCED-BEAM seminar

Evaluating interventions that prevent or counter violent extremism: A practical guide - Hofman, Joanna; Sutherland, Alex (RAND Corporation, 2018)

Bridging Real-Time Data and Adaptive Management: Ten Lessons for Policy Makers and Practitioners - Ben Ramalingam; Inka Barnett; Kevin Hernandez; Panthea Lee; Anna Levy; Carrie Oppenheimer; Dennis Whittle; Craig Valters; Leni Wild (USAID, 2017)
The ongoing digital revolution has seen rapid growth in the deployment of technology enabled real-time data initiatives in international development and humanitarian work, developed with the goal of accelerating decision-making processes and enhancing aid effectiveness and efficiency.

Bridging the Gap: How Real-Time Data Can Contribute to Adaptive Management in International Development - Ben Ramalingam; Inka Barnett; Kevin Hernandez; Panthea Lee; Anna Levy; Carrie Oppenheimer; Dennis Whittle; Craig Valters; Leni Wild (USAID, 2017)
The ongoing digital revolution has seen rapid growth in the deployment of technology enabled real-time data initiatives in international development and humanitarian work, developed with the goal of accelerating decision-making processes and enhancing aid effectiveness and efficiency.

Journalism from the ‘Silicon Savannah’: The Vexed Relationship Between Nairobi’s Newsmakers and its ICT4D Community - Benequista, Nicholas (Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 2015)
During the course of a year-long knowledge exchange initiative called the Networked News Lab, a small group of Kenyan journalists and a PhD researcher from the London School of Economics and Political Science sought to identify opportunities for collaboration between newsmakers and practitioners from the field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D). In almost every instance, the project failed to promote cooperation between the two groups, though it succeeded in highlighting the fundamental issues that separate them. Drawing from interviews, project documents and participant observation, this chapter describes the incompatibilities between the two communities and what they suggest about current efforts to strengthen journalism in Africa through the application of ICTs.
Keywords: ICT4D; ICTs; IMPORTANT; Journalism; Kenya; state-building

Kenya’s tech community will not save journalism - Benequista, Nicholas (Networked News Lab, 2014)

Blurring the Boundaries: Citizen Action Across States and Societies - Benequista, Nicholas; Gaventa, John (Brighton: Citizenship DRC, 11., 2011)

Time to let go: remaking humanitarian action for the modern era - Bennett, Christina (ODI, 2016)
As the international humanitarian system faces a crisis of legitimacy, the Humanitarian Policy Group’s landmark report proposes a new model of humanitarian action.

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

ALL - The question of inclusiveness in ICT-mediated citizen engagement - Berdou, Evangelia (MAVC, 2014)

Learning about New Technologies and the Changing Evidence Base for Social Science Research and Decision Making in International Development - Berdou, Evangelia (IDS, 2011)

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

Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders - Berger, Jennifer Garvey; Johnston, Keith (Stanford University Press, 2016)

Leading Change Through Adaptive Design - Berstein, Maya; Linsky, Marty (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2016)
By integrating two practices—design thinking and adaptive leadership—social innovators can manage projects in a way that’s both creatively confident and relentlessly realistic.

Budgeting for Developmental Evaluation: An Interview with Michael Quinn Patton - Better Evaluation (2012)

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

Social Return on Investment - Better evaluation (Better Evaluation, 2016)
Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a systematic way of incorporating social, environmental, economic and other values into decision-making processes. By helping reveal the economic value of social and environmental outcomes it creates a holistic perspective on whether a development project or social business or enterprise is beneficial and profitable. This perspective opens up new opportunities and forms the basis for innovative initiatives that genuinely contribute to positive social change and poverty reduction for all. SROI balances proving and improving or addresses the paradox between accountability and learning by placing the perspectives of the different stakeholders at the center of the valuation process. ​SROI originated in the USA from social enterprises interested in new ways to value the contributions they were making to society. It later arrived in Europe, where there is an increasing interest in the methodology as noted by recent publications by Context international cooperation in the Netherlands, the New Economics Foundation in the UK and the SROI Network head-quartered in the UK. SROI is used for planning purposes in terms of designing a Theory of Change, or Business Plan, and for assessing to what extent impact is realised or changes need to occur in the Business Plan. Although the SROI approach supports the thinking along the lines of a result chain, it does not support the idea of the components being connected in a linear fashion. The SROI approach is embedded in the acceptance of development taking place in situations of complexities. Here is a simple, illustrative example: A project aims to uplift the standard of living of people in a certain area and a beekeeping initiative is set up. As a result a beekeeper now enjoys regular meals whereas before this was not the case. In traditional Cost Benefit analyses, the value of the lunch would be measured in market prices. However after interviewing the beneficiaries, and applying some valuation tools, it turns out that the ‘real’ value is much higher than the market price; social value has been created above the market / economic value which is now being accounted for. Like traditional cost-benefit analysis, SROI includes a ratio; in this case a Social Return on Investment ratio. Where in traditional cost benefit analyses the ratios would be used to compare different projects, the SROI ratio is much more seen as one element in explaining and communicating general progress of certain developments. The number itself is not seen as the end goal. It can be interpreted as aiding the narrative of this particular initiative. The aspect of stakeholder perspectives is essential in the SROI approach. It is precisely the value perspectives of the stakeholders (and most importantly the key beneficiaries), assessed, not by assuming these values, but by thoughtfully and intellectually engaging the stakeholders themselves, which is at the heart of this innovative (e)valuation approach.

Using PDIA to Put Data Into Action - Bhatia, Vinisha; Powell, Josh (Development Gateway, 2017)
We recently wrote about how the data for development community needs to take a more context aware, demand-driven approach to data. Applying theories of change...

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

Foresight and International Development* - Bingley, Kate (IDS Bulletin, 2016)
This article provides an overview of the use of foresight-type approaches and techniques in policy-related work in international development. It draws primarily on published and grey literatures, as well as select interviews with foresight practitioners. It begins with a brief introduction to the approaches and tools used in the field of strategic foresight, and then a broad mapping of the foresight landscape as relevant to international development. It provides reflections on the evidence of use and impact of foresight initiatives, and makes suggestions around future directions for foresight in international development.

International Development - Illusions and Realities - Black, Maggie (New Internationalist, 2015)
Part of the popular, reissued NoNonsense series from New Internationalist'Development' is often misunderstood and can embrace everything from building a large dam to planting trees. The idea can often mask confusion, contradiction, deceit and corruption. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to know what development actually is. It covers all the key themes and critically suggests ways to bring the poor and marginalised into the process.

Adaptive management: an overview of the concept and its practical application in the Scottish context - Blackstock, Kirsty; Brown, Katrina; Gimona, Alessandro; Prager, Katrin; Irvine, Justin (The James Hutton Institute, 2016)

Where next for development effectiveness? Building a renewed consensus - Blampied, Catherine (ODI, 2016)

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.

Responding to complexity: A Case Study on the Use of “Developmental Evaluation for Managing Adaptively” - Boisvert, Kayla (University of Massachusetts, 2017)

Digital Development: Elements of a Critical ICT4D Theory and Praxis - Bon, Anna; Akkermans, Hans (Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Strengthening Southern-Driven Cooperation as a Catalyst for ICT4D, 2019)
In recent years, critical research literature in ICT4D has grown. It is widely accepted that theory is to inform practice. However, the inverse directionality, practice informs theory, is much less present in ICT4D, including in critical research. In this paper, we discuss ways how ICT4D research and theory may be better informed by practice—in terms of (i) recognizing praxis-oriented research paradigms and integrating their results, (ii) development of foundational theories, (iii) critical analysis of ICT4D emerging policies, and (iv) positioning ICT4D in the wider development debate. This suggests several elements or directions in which critical research has the potential to push current boundaries of ICT4D in terms of content as well as relevance.
Keywords: Action research paradigm; Critical research; Network complexity theory; Principles for Digital Development

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

Use Case and Requirements Analysis in a Remote Rural Context in Mali - Bon, Anna; de Boer, Victor; Gyan, Nana Baah; van Aart, Chris; De Leenheer, Pieter; Tuyp, Wendelien; Boyera, Stephane; Froumentin, Max; Grewal, Aman; Allen, Mary; Tangara, Amadou; Akkermans, Hans (Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality, 2013)
[Context & motivation] Few studies have reported on a systematic use case and requirements analysis of low-tech, low-resource contexts such as rural Africa. This, despite the widespread agreement on the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for social and rural development, and despite the large number of ICT projects targeting underprivileged communities. [Question/problem] Unfamiliarity with the local context and differences in cultural and educational backgrounds between end-users and software engineers are the challenges for requirements engineering (RE) we encountered. [Principal ideas/results] We describe a systematic approach to RE in developing areas, based on the Living Lab methodology. Our approach is supported by extensive field research and based on co-creation within a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team of developers and users. This approach creates a shared understanding of the problem and its local context, and optimizes communication. [Contribution] We illustrate the approach using a case study of web- and voice-based communication services, that we developed for a rural context in Mali.

A Low-resource Aware Framework for ICT Service Development in Rural Africa - Bon, Anna; Gordijn, Jaap; Akkermans, Hans (Proceedings of the CAiSE'16 Forum, 2016)
Technological innovation and information & communication technologies (ICTs) are considered enabling factors for social and economic development, even in very poor parts of the world. However,...

Why the Problem with Learning Is Unlearning - Bonchek, Mark (Harvard Business Review, 2016)
Don’t get stuck in your current ways of thinking.

Aiding Institutional Reform in Developing Countries: Lessons from the Philippines on what works, what doesn't and why - Booth, David (The Asia Foundation, 2014)

Incubating policy for economic transformation: Lessons from Nepal - Booth, David (ODI, 2018)

Politically smart support to economic development: DFID experiences - Booth, David (ODI, 2016)

Still watering white elephants? The blueprint versus process debate thirty years on - Booth, David (Perspectives on politics, production and public administration in Africa: essays in honour of Ole Therkildsen, 2015)
OCLC: 913447024

Thinking and Working Politically: Professional Development Reading Pack - Booth, David (GSDRC Applied Knowledge services, 2015)

Learning to make a difference: Christian Aid Ireland’s adaptive programme management in governance, gender, peace building and human rights - Booth, David; Balfe, Karol; Gallagher, Róisín; Kilcullen, Gráinne; O'Boyle, Sarah; Tiernan, Alix (ODI, 2018)
This paper assesses the relevance of adaptive or trial-and-error approaches to the field of governance, peace building and human rights. Tackling the problems of poverty, vulnerability and exclusion that persist in parts of the world that continue to be affected by violence or political insecurity is difficult for several reasons. For one, because of the complexity of the prevailing social, economic and political systems, solutions to chronic problems are far from obvious. One response to this aspect of the challenge is adaptive programme design and management. This paper is the product of a multi-year collaboration between ODI and the core team of Christian Aid Ireland to assess the relevance of adaptive or trial-and-error approaches to the field of governance, peace building and human rights. It explains the basis on which Christian Aid Ireland’s current five-year programme has become committed to an adaptive approach. It then describes and seeks to draw lessons from the programme’s first year of experience, considering the possible implications for implementation over the coming years. The authors find that to get full benefits from the move to adaptive management, the new ways of working and their underlying principles will need to become more embedded in organisational practices and cultures.

The SAVI programme in Nigeria: Towards politically smart, locally led devlopment - Booth, David; Chambers, Victoria (ODI, 2014)
 More examples are needed of aid programming that works by being responsive to country realities: politically smart, problem-driven and locally led  DFID’s SAVI programme has revealed a hitherto untapped potential for change leading to better development results at state level in Nigeria  SAVI provides low-profile support to state-level organisations and partnerships, building their capacity to engage constructively with government  It avoid the pitfalls of a donor-driven approach by ‘taking the money off the table’  This illustrates the power of facilitated multi-stakeholder engagement and the disadvantages of seeing this in terms of ‘supply side’ and ‘demand side’ governance  The set-up of the DFID suite of state-level programmes, with separately managed sector support and ‘governance’ initiatives, has limited realisation of the potential  Key enabling conditions were that DFID provided space for an experience-based design process and permitted tangible results to be judged retrospectively, not pre-programmed

From political economy analysis to doing development differently: a learning experience - Booth, David; Harris, Daniel; Wild, Leni (ODI, 2016)
A study of how development efforts can be strengthened by an awareness of political economy, reflecting on the experiences of PoGo policy researchers.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Politically smart, locally led development - Booth, David; Unsworth, Sue (ODI, 2014)
Aid donors have found it hard to move from thinking politically to working differently, but there is evidence that they can do so and that this improves outcomes. This paper presents seven examples of where adopting a politically smart, locally led approach has led to better outcomes.
Keywords: Practice

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

Lessons Learned from the Forest, Climate and Communities Alliance - Boshoven, Judy (USAID, 2014)
The Forest, Climate, and Communities Alliance (FCCA) was an initiative funded by USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and the Environment/Office of Forestry and Biodiversity (E3/FAB) under the USAID Global Development Alliance (GDA)1 between 2009 and 2013. FCCA was one of the first USAID-funded projects for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+). The Rainforest Alliance (RA) implemented FCCA in Ghana and Honduras. Operating in two different contexts allowed FCCA to generate important lessons learned that may be useful as countries around the world search for approaches to prepare for and implement successful REDD+ mechanisms. In 2013, as FCCA was coming to an end, USAID tasked the Measuring Impact (MI) initiative with an independent review to generate lessons learned from FCCA. In capturing and disseminating lessons from the FCCA project, the Agency intends to contribute to the understanding of what may be effective, and under what conditions, when promoting REDD+ in conjunction with forest and agricultural product certification. MI is a five-year USAID project executed by the E3/FAB Office designed to improve the Agency’s practice of conservation by building USAID’s capacity to better design, manage, evaluate, and learn from biodiversity conservation initiatives. As such, MI was tasked with carrying out this review of lessons learned from FCCA while using RA’s general hypothesis as the basis to describe the project and its lessons.

Human-Centered, Systems-Minded Design - Both, Thomas (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2018)
Both human-centered and systems-thinking methods fit within an effective design approach, and can work in conjunction to address social challenges.

Embracing Complexity: Strategic Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence - Boulton, Jean G.; Allen, Peter M.; Bowman, Cliff (Oxford University Press, 2015)
The book describes what it means to say the world is complex and explores what that means for managers, policy makers and individuals. The first part of the book is about the theory and ideas of complexity. This is explained in a way that is thorough but not mathematical. It compares differing approaches, and also provides a historical perspective, showing how such thinking has been around since the beginning of civilisation. It emphasises the difference between a complexity worldview and the dominant mechanical worldview that underpins much of current management practice. It defines the complexity worldview as recognising the world is interconnected, shaped by history and the particularities of context. The comparison of the differing approaches to modelling complexity is unique in its depth and accessibility. The second part of the book uses this lens of complexity to explore issues in the fields of management, strategy, economics, and international development. It also explores how to facilitate others to recognise the implications of adopting a complex rather than a mechanical worldview and suggests methods of research to explore systemic, path-dependent emergent aspects of situations. The authors of this book span both science and management, academia and practice, thus the explanations of science are authoritative and yet the examples of changing how you live and work in the world are real and accessible. The aim of the book is to bring alive what complexity is all about and to illustrate the importance of loosening the grip of a modernist worldview with its hope for prediction, certainty and control.

The Answer is 42. On Data, Information and Knowledge - Bours, Dennis (Earth-Eval, 2015)
A recent discussion with some colleagues on the differences between data, knowledge and information made me realize that there still is a lot of confusion when it comes to the use of terms; confusion that goes well beyond my earlier blog post on indicators, measures and metrics.

Systems Thinking: An introduction for Oxfam programme staff - Bowman, Kimberly; Chettleborough, John; Jeans, Helen; Whitehead, James; Rowlands, Jo (Policy & Practice, 2015)
Development organizations frequently face and overcome challenges in programme delivery. But what happens when the proposed solutions fail? How can organizations adapt to changing conditions and ensure the benefits of programmes are shared as widely as possible?

Science, Technology, and Innovation in Uganda: Recommendations for Policy and Action - Brar, Sukdeep; Farley, Sara E.; Hawkins, Robert; Wagner, Caroline S. (World Bank, 2011)

Using Research Evidence - A practice guide - Breckon, Jonathan (Alliance for Useful Evidence, 2016)

Using Evidence - What works? - Breckon, Jonathan; Dodson, Jane (Alliance for Useful Evidence, 2016)

Digital Technologies for Democratic Governance in Latin America: Opportunities and Risks - Breuer, Anita; Welp, Yanina (Routledge, 2016)
This book is the first to comprehensively analyse the political and societal impacts of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in a region of the Global South. It evaluates under what conditions some Latin American governments and people have succeeded in taking up the opportunities related to the spread of ICTs, while others are confronted with the pessimist scenario of increased, digitally induced social and democratic cleavages. Specifically, the book examines if and how far the spread and use of new ICT affected central aims of democratic governance such as reducing socio-economic and gender inequality; strengthening citizen participation in political decision making; increasing the transparency of legislative processes; improving administrative processes; providing free access to government data and information; and expanding independent spaces of citizen communication. The country case and cross-country explore a range of bottom-up driven initiatives to reinforce democracy in the region. The book offers researchers and students an interdisciplinary approach to these issues by linking it to established theories of media and politics, political communication, political participation, and governance. Giving voice to researchers native to the region and with direct experience of the region, it uniquely brings together contributions from political scientists, researchers in communication studies and area studies specialists who have a solid record in political activism and international development co-operation.

Implementing Adaptive Approaches in Real World Scenarios: A Nigeria Case Study, with Lessons for Theory and Practice - Bridges, Kate; Woolcock, Michael (The World Bank, 2019)
How does adaptive implementation work in practice? Drawing on extensive interviews and observations, this paper contrasts the ways in which an adaptive component of a major health care project was implemented in three program and three matched comparison states in Nigeria. The paper examines the bases on which claims and counterclaims about the effectiveness of these approaches were made by different actors, concluding that resolution requires any such claims to be grounded in a fit-for-purpose theory of change and evaluation strategy. The principles of adaptive development may be gaining broad acceptance, but a complex array of skills, expectations, political support, empirical measures, and administrative structures needs to be deftly integrated if demonstrably positive operational results are to be obtained, especially when undertaken within institutional systems, administrative logics, and political imperatives that are predisposed to serve rather different purposes.

Unpacking the concept of political will to confront corruption - Brinkerhoff, Derek W. (U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, 2010)
Quite often, "lack of political will" is identified as the culprit for poorly performing anti-corruption programmes. Yet despite the frequency with which it is used to explain unsatisfactory reform outcomes, political will remains under-defined and poorly understood. Further, assessments are often conducted retrospectively, looking back at failed programmes. By applying a model of political will that specifies a set of action-based components that are observable and measurable, and amenable to external reinforcement and support, more clarity regarding the degree of political will can be achieved.

Adapting to Learn and Learning to Adapt: Practical Insights from International Development Projects - Brinkerhoff, Derick W.; Frazer, Sarah; McGregor, Lisa (RTI Press, 2018)
Adaptive programming and management principles focused on learning, experimentation, and evidence-based decision making are gaining traction with donor agencies and implementing partners in international development. Adaptation calls for using learning to inform adjustments during project implementation. This requires information gathering methods that promote reflection, learning, and adaption, beyond reporting on pre-specified data. A focus on adaptation changes traditional thinking about program cycle. It both erases the boundaries between design, implementation, and evaluation and reframes thinking to consider the complexity of development problems and nonlinear change pathways.Supportive management structures and processes are crucial for fostering adaptive management. Implementers and donors are experimenting with how procurement, contracting, work planning, and reporting can be modified to foster adaptive programming. Well-designed monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems can go beyond meeting accountability and reporting requirements to produce data and learning for evidence-based decision making and adaptive management. It is important to continue experimenting and learning to integrate adaptive programming and management into the operational policies and practices of donor agencies, country partners, and implementers. We need to devote ongoing effort to build the evidence base for the contributions of adaptive management to achieving international development results.

Adapting to learn and learning to adapt: Practical insights from international development projects - Brinkerhoff, Derick; Frazer, Sarah (RTI, 2018)
Adaptive programming and management principles focused on learning, experimentation, and evidence-based decision making are gaining traction with donor agencies and implementing partners in international development. Adaptation calls for using learning to inform adjustments during project implementation. This requires information gathering methods that promote reflection, learning and adaption, beyond reporting on pre-specified data. A focus on adaptation changes traditional thinking about program cycle.

Thinking and Working Politically (Yangon, October 2016) - British Council (British Council Myanmar, 2017)
On 3-4 October 2016, British Council, Pyoe Pin, The Asia Foundation and UK DFID co-hosted a two day conference on ‘Thinking and Working Politically’ (TWP) for more effective and sustainable development assistance. The success or failure of development programmes is, in many – if not most – cases, determined by domestic politics within countries, rather than by the technical elegance of programme design by external donors. The event brought together international donors, implementing agencies and local partners. Participants compared experiences on what has worked, where and why – both in Myanmar, and across the world including case studies from Sudan, Zambia and the Philippines. Throughout the conference, participants familiarised themselves with politically smart development approaches and what it means to think and work politically in Myanmar. This has laid foundations for greater collaboration on TWP to help meet Myanmar’s critical development challenges.

Iterative Design and Monitoring for Adaptive Management: How Causal Link Monitoring can help - Britt, Heather; Hummelbrunner, Richard; Green, Jackie (Better Evaluation, 2018)
Development actors are embracing the concept and practice of adaptive management, using evidence to inform ongoing revisions throughout implementation. In this guest blog, Heather Britt, Richard Hummelbrunner and Jackie Greene discuss a practical approach that donors and partners can use to agree on what’s most important to monitor as a project continues to evolve.

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.

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

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

Learning for change in accountable governance programming - Brock, Karen; Shutt, Cathy; Ashlin, Alison (IDS, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Assessing the Evidence: The Effectiveness and Impact of Public Governance-Oriented Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives - Brockmyer, Brandon; Fox, Jonathan A. (Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 2015)
Transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) – voluntary partnerships between governments, civil society, and the private sector – are an increasingly prevalent strategy for promoting government responsiveness and accountability to citizens. While most transnational MSIs involve using voluntary standards to encourage socially and environmentally responsible private sector behavior, a handful of these initiatives – the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST), the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) and the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) – focus on information disclosure and participation in the public sector. Unlike private sector MSIs, which attempt to supplement weak government capacity to enforce basic social and environmental standards through partnerships between businesses and civil society, public sector MSIs ultimately seek to bolster public governance. But how exactly are these MSIs supposed to work? And how much has actually been achieved?The purpose of this study is to identify and consolidate the current state of the evidence for public governance-oriented MSI effectiveness and impact. Researchers collected over 300 documents and interviewed more than two-dozen MSI stakeholders about their experiences with five public governance oriented multi-stakeholder initiatives.This report provides a ‘snapshot’ of the evidence related to these five MSIs, and suggests that the process of leveraging transparency and participation through these initiatives for broader accountability gains remains uncertain. The report highlights the ongoing process of defining MSI success and impact, and how these initiatives intersect with other accountability actors and processes in complex ways. The study closes with key recommendations for MSI stakeholders.
Keywords: Accountability; Participation; Program evaluation; Transparency; global governance; multi-stakeholder

This startup uses machine learning and satellite imagery to predict crop yields - Brokaw, Alex (The Verge, 2016)
Mark Johnson wants to beat the United States Department of Agriculture at its own game: predicting yields of America's crops. The USDA puts boots on the ground, deploying hundreds of workers to...

The MSP Tool Guide: Sixty tools to facilitate Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships - Brouwer, Herman; Brouwers, Jan (CDI, Wageningen University and Research, 2016)
What is ‘The MSP Tool Guide’ all about? This compilation of 60 tools is an companion to The MSP Guide, the Wageningen University & Research CDI resource on how to design and facilitate effective multi-stakeholder partnerships. At the request of many readers we have compiled them into one document to enable easy storing and sharing. These tools are available in summarized version in the MSP Guide in Chapter 6. The detailed versions on how to use the tool, and when to use it, are available on the portal www.mspguide.org/tools-and-methods. The content of this portal is compiled in this Tool Guide.

The MSP Guide: How to Design and Facilitate Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships - Brouwer, Herman; Woodhill, Jim; Hemmati, Minu; Verhoosel, Karèn; van Vugt, Simone (Practical Action Publishing, 2016)
In recent years, multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) have become popular for tackling the complex challenges of sustainable development. This guide provides a practical framework for the design and facilitation of these collaborative processes that work across the boundaries of business, government, civil society and science. The guide links the underlying rationale for multistakeholder partnerships, with a clear four phase process model, a set of seven core principles, key ideas for facilitation and 60 participatory tools for analysis, planning and decision making. The guide has been written for those directly involved in MSPs – as a stakeholder, leader, facilitator or funder – to provide both the conceptual foundations and practical tools that underpin successful partnerships. What’s inside draws on the direct experience of staff from the Wageningen Centre of Development Innovation (WCDI), at Wageningen University & Research, in supporting MSP processes in many countries around the world. The guide also compiles the ideas and materials behind WCDI’s annual three week international course on facilitating MSPs and social learning. This work has been inspired by the motivation and passion that comes when people dare to “walk in each other’s shoes” to find new paths toward shared ambitions for the future.

Putting Gender into Political Economy Analysis: why it matters and how to do it - Brown, Emily; Haines, Rebecca; O’Neil, Tam (From Poverty to Power, 2018)
Gender specialists from Oxfam and Care introduce a new guide that covers both theory and practice of including gender in political economy analysis.
Keywords: Gender

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.

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.

Getting good at disruption in an uncertain world: Insights from Southern NGO leaders - Buckley, Lila; Ward, Halina (International Institute for Environment and Development, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

When theory meets reality: assumptions, feasibility and implications of a complexity-informed approach - Buffardi, Anne (Methods Lab, 2016)
Over the last half century, repeated calls for adaptive learning in development suggests two things: many practitioners are working in complex situations that may benefit from flexible approaches, and such approaches can be difficult to apply in practice. • Complexity thinking can offer useful recommendations on how to take advantage of distributed capacities, joint interpretation of problems and learning through experimentation in complex development programmes. • However, these recommendations rely on underlying assumptions about relationships, power and flexibility that may not hold true in practice, particularly for programmes operating in a risk averse, results-driven environment. • This paper poses guiding questions to assess the fit and feasibility of integrating complexity informed practices into development programmes.

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

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

10 Things to Know About Evaluation - Buffardi, Anne; Hearn, Simon; Pasanen, Tiina; Price, clare; Ball, Louise (RAPID, 2015)
Evaluation is essential to good development. But there are still many myths and misconceptions about what it is - and how it should be used. ODI's Research and Policy in Development Programme (RAPID) has many years' experience supporting evaluation in complex development contexts. In support of the International Year of Evaluation 2015, we've put together our essential 'things to know' about evaluation in 10 infographics. Available in English and French.

Refining advocacy assessment: reflections from practice - Buffardi, Anne; Hearn, Simon; Tilley, Helen (ODI, 2017)
• This paper revisits how existing advocacy evaluation frameworks classify people and activities, and define and assess outcomes. We discuss how assessments could be more specific and propose bounding the scope of inquiry in one of four ways: strategy specific, outcome oriented, actor-centric or system-wide. • In classifying activities, the same action or event may be situated at different phases of the change pathway – in some cases used as a tactic to influence a policy outcome, and in others an intended outcome itself. • Because advocacy is more relational than other types of more technical development interventions, there will be fewer sources of directly observable data, and the direction of potential bias may be unknown. • In terms of learning, advocacy initiatives are contextually dependent, therefore lessons may be less directly transferable to subsequent phases of an initiative or to other settings. Organisations have bounded repertoires and the transferability of skill sets is limited, so advocates adapt how and with whom they engage more than what they do

Beyond 'Technology for Development' and 'Sustainability' towards Systemic and Holistic Rural Innovation: Success Factors from the Southern African Experience over 20 years - Buisson, Uys Du; Cronje, Braam; Marais, Mario; Haruperi, Emmanuel; Rensburg, Johann (2014)
Abstract: This paper describes essential, real-world activities and processes needed to develop and deploy people-centred networks enabled with innovative technologies that in turn produce "...

Aiming at the Wrong Targets: The Domestic Consequences of International Efforts to Build Institutions - Buntaine, Mark T.; Parks, Bradley C.; Buch, Benjamin P. (International Studies Quarterly, 2017)
We explain why international development organizations have had so little success building and reforming public sector institutions in developing countries. They often fail despite their apparently strong commitment to achieving measurable results and extraordinary amounts of time, money, and effort. We demonstrate that, when donors and lenders make access to financing contingent upon achievement of performance targets, recipient countries tend to choose easy and shallow institutional targets. These targets measure the organization of public sector institutions, rather than their effectiveness at addressing public problems. Such targets provide countries with low-cost opportunities to signal commitment to institution-building to international development organizations. We demonstrate the explanatory and predictive power of our argument in the context of a sector of World Bank lending—environment and natural resource management—that focuses heavily on improving public sector institutions.

Tale of the converted: how complex social problems have made me question the use of data in driving impact - Burgoyne, John (Impact of Social Sciences, 2019)
15 Shares In practice the way in which research impacts and influences policy and society is often thought to be a rational, ordered and linear process. Whilst this might represent a ‘common sense’ understanding of research impact, in this cross-post John Burgoyne reflects on how upending the primacy of data and embracing complexity can lead to a more nuanced and effective understanding of research impact.

Assessing Impact in Dynamic and Complex Environments: Systemic Action Research and Participatory Systemic Inquiry - Burns, Danny (IDS, 2014)
This CDI Practice Paper is about the uses of Systemic Action Research (SAR) and Participatory Systemic Inquiry (PSI) for impact assessment (Burns 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2013; Wadsworth 2001, 2010).

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

Systemic action research: Changing system dynamics to support sustainable change - Burns, Danny (Action Research, 2014)
This article explores the characteristics of systemic action research. It looks at the conceptual underpinnings of systemic action research and explores some of the ways in which it differs from (builds on) other forms of action research. It then explores some of the issues and dilemmas faced by systemic action researchers.

Navigating Complexity in International Development: Facilitating Sustainable Change at Scale - Burns, Danny; Worsley, Stuart (Practical Action Publishing, 2015)
Governments and organizations invest huge sums of money in development interventions to explicitly address poverty and its root causes. However, a high proportion of these do not work. This is because interventions are grounded in flawed assumptions about how change happens – change is rarely linear, yet development interventions are almost entirely based on linear planning models. Change is also characterized by unintended consequences, which are not predictable by planners and by power dynamics, which drive outcomes towards vested interests rather than real need. Development processes need to engage effectively with these sorts of complex system dynamics. This book provides a conceptual framework for this thinking, offers detail case studies of interventions which have been built on this philosophy and which demonstrate key facets of it. It articulates some clear methodological underpinnings for this work, and draws out the implications both for development, practice and practitioners.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Who Owns Poverty? - Burt, Martin (Red Press Ltd, 2019)
This is the story of the one question about global poverty we never thought to ask: who owns it? It's a question with an unexpected answer, one that challenges everything that we thought we knew about what poverty is, and what we can do about it. This is a story of a powerful data-driven methodology being used in a dozen countries across 5 continents. It's a new approach that puts poor families in charge of defining and diagnosing their own unique, multidimensional povertywho by owning the problem, own the solution. This book is for all the governments, development NGOs, charities, dreamers, thinkers, doers and leaders who are frustrated with limiting their aspirations to reducing poverty, or alleviating its effectsand the lack of progress we face in doing either. This is a book about unleashing trapped energy within poor families to do the unthinkable: eliminate global poverty once and for all.

Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change - Bushe, Gervase R. (EDS Publications Ltd., 2015)
Dialogic Organization Development is a compelling alternative to the classical action research approach to planned change. Organizations are seen as fluid,socially constructed realities that are continuously created through conversations and images change happens when those conversations and images change. Leaders and consultants can help foster, support, or accelerate the emergence of transformational possibilities by encouraging disruptions to taken-for-granted ways of thinking and acting and the use of generative images to stimulate new organizational conversations and narratives. Dialogic OD is a different mindset, but it s also the previously unrecognized underpinning of such diverse change methods as Appreciative Inquiry, the Art of Convening, Future Search, and many more.

Integrating Top-Down and Bottom-Up Adaptation Planning to Build Adaptive Capacity: A Structured Learning Approach - Butler, J. R. A.; Wise, R. M.; Skewes, T. D.; Bohensky, E. L.; Peterson, N.; Suadnya, W.; Yanuartati, Y.; Handayani, T.; Habibi, P.; Puspadi, K.; Bou, N.; Vaghelo, D.; et al. (Coastal Management, 2015)
Climate adaptation planning provides an opportunity to enhance the adaptive capacity of stakeholders across multiple levels. However, reviews of standard top-down and bottom-up approaches indicate that the value of multistakeholder involvement is not fully recognized or incorporated into guidelines. Focusing on provinces in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea within the Coral Triangle region, we present a novel integrated top-down and bottom-up planning approach. Based on Participatory Systemic Inquiry the process involves three stages of workshops intentionally designed to promote social learning, knowledge exchange, empowerment and social networks among multilevel stakeholders. Stage 1 workshops engage government, nongovernment and science stakeholders at the provincial level to analyze sub-districts' vulnerability and design appropriate adaptation strategies. Stage 2 engages local government, non-government and community stakeholders within vulnerable sub-districts identified in Stage 1. Stage 3 combines Stage 1 and 2 stakeholders to refine adaptation strategies and design action plans for sub-districts. Evaluation demonstrated that different stakeholder groups' perceptions of community adaptation needs varied significantly, justifying the approach. In terms of adaptive capacity, the primary outcome for all stakeholder groups was innovative ideas, suggesting that social learning and knowledge exchange had occurred. Empowerment was a secondary outcome. We discuss how the approach could be further refined.
Keywords: Climate change; Coral Triangle; Evaluation; Social learning; knowledge cultures

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

Impact assessment and the quest for the Holy Grail - Bymolt, Roger (KIT Royal Tropical Institute, 2015)

The road to adaptive management: knowledge, leadership, culture and rules - Byrne, Karri Goeldner; Sparkman, Timothy; Fowler, Ben (The BEAM Exchange, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

Evaluating Systems Change Results: an inquiry framework - Cabaj, Mark (Tamarack Institute, 2018)

Learning, monitoring and evaluating: achieving and measuring change in adaptive programmes - Callaghan, Sarah; Plank, Georgia (DFID-LASER Programme, 2017)

USAID Applied Political Economy Analysis - Field Guide - Cammack, Diana (USAID, 2016)
Political Economy Analysis (PEA) is a field-research methodology used to explore not simply how things happen in an aid-recipient country, but why things happen. It results in a written assessment with recommendations for a mission's County Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), project or activity design, or course correction during implementation.USAID's Applied PEA is a problem-focused method specially intended to be used by Mission staff to inform the design of aid interventions at any phase of the USAID program cycle and at any level of effort.

Barrio Mio and Katye: PCI’s neighbourhood approach in cities - Campbell, Leah (ALNAP/ODI, 2019)

What's missing? Adding context to the urban response toolbox - Campbell, Leah (ALNAP/ODI, 2018)

Global governance and local peace: accountability and performance in international peacebuilding - Campbell, Susanna (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
Local peacebuilding and global accountability – The country context–Burundi from 1999 to 2014 – Ingos in peacebuilding–globally unaccountable, locally adaptive – International organizations in peacebuilding–globally accountable, locally constrained – Bilateral development donors–accountable for global targets, not local change
OCLC: 1048387754

Doing Development Differently in the Global South - Workshop Report - CARE (CARE and British Council, 2018)

Agile, is it just a delivery mechanism? - Carignan, Louis-Philippe (Scrum.org Community Blog, 2014)
As a Agile coach, I refer to a few tools to help me think about where my Scrum teams should go next on their path to Agility. One of these tools is the Agile subway map, a list of Agile practices grouped in different categories. It helps me think how a specific practice could help …

Polycentric Systems of Governance: A Theoretical Model for the Commons - Carlisle, Keith; Gruby, Rebecca L. (Policy Studies Journal, 2019)
Polycentricity is a fundamental concept in commons scholarship that connotes a complex form of governance with multiple centers of semiautonomous decision making. If the decision-making centers take each other into account in competitive and cooperative relationships and have recourse to conflict resolution mechanisms, they may be regarded as a polycentric governance system. In the context of natural resource governance, commons scholars have ascribed a number of advantages to polycentric governance systems, most notably enhanced adaptive capacity, provision of good institutional fit for natural resource systems, and mitigation of risk on account of redundant governance actors and institutions. Despite the popularity of the concept, systematic development of polycentricity, including its posited advantages, is lacking in the commons literature. To build greater clarity and specificity around the concept, we develop a theoretical model of a polycentric governance system with a focus on the features necessary or conducive for achieving the functioning predicted by commons scholars. The model is comprised of attributes, which constitute the definitional elements, and enabling conditions, which specify additional institutional features for achieving functionality in the commons. The model we propose takes the concept a step further toward specificity without sacrificing the generality necessary for contextual application and further development.
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/psj.12212

Accountability, transparency, Participation, and Inclusion. A New Development Consensus? - Carothers, Thomas; Brechenmacher, Saskia (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2014)
The wide-reaching consensus around the normative and instrumental value of accountability, transparency, participation, and inclusion remains less solid than enthusiasts of these concepts might wish.

Revisiting the Foundational Assumptions of Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Work - Carothers, Thomas; Brechenmacher, Saskia (International Budget Partnership, 2018)
The Fiscal Futures team recently updated the foundational assumptions of fiscal transparency and accountability work to fit today’s world. Learn more.

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.

Scaling Up Inclusive Approaches for Marginalised and Vulnerable People - Carter, Becky; Joshi, Anu; Remme, Michelle (2018)
This rapid review summarises the evidence on how to scale up inclusive approaches to complex social change. It looks at how to design scalable inclusive change interventions, as well as how to plan and manage the scale-up process. Focusing on interventions with the aim of reaching the most marginalised and transform social norms, it covers programmes aiming to deliver inclusive outcomes for women and girls (with a particular focus on preventing violence against women and girls) and persons with disabilities. To date, many interventions seeking to change harmful gender and disability norms have been implemented as small-scale projects. There are limited experiences of scale-up and fewer evaluations of these experiences. However, there are some documented case studies as well as emerging analysis that draw out lessons learned. From this evidence base, this rapid desk review identifies eight critical issues commonly highlighted as important considerations when scaling up inclusive change interventions: 1. Opportunities for systemic approach, including integrating political and community-level scale-up, and coordinating across multiple sectors and stakeholders 2. Political support for scale-up 3. Strategic choices: balancing reach, speed, cost, quality, equity, and sustainability 4. Catalysing change: tipping points, diffusion effects, and local champions 5. Locally grounded, participatory, and adaptive approaches 6. Long-term approaches with funding models to match 7. Cost-effective and financially feasible scale-up strategies 8. Measuring impact and sustainability.

An inventory and review of countering violent extremism and insurgency monitoring systems - Carter, Lynn; Phyllis, Dinino (USAID, 2012)

Where next for development effectiveness? Implementing development effectiveness: a reality check - Carter, Paddy (ODI, 2016)

2018 Map of the Complexity Sciences - Castellani, Brian (Durham University, 2018)
A map that provides a macroscopic, trans-disciplinary introductions to the complexity sciences.