From service design to systems change - Groves, Adam (Medium, 2018)
Reshaping what’s desirable, feasible and viable using ‘Systems Leverage Maps’.

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.

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.

Thinking and working politically: An introduction to key ideas, examples and further reading - Laws, Ed; Marquette, Heather (TWP Community of Practice, 2018)

Thinking and working politically: Reviewing the evidence on the integration of politics into development practice over the past decade - Laws, Ed; Marquette, Heather (TWP Community of Practice, 2018)

DRG Center practical tips to implement more context-adaptive programming - Jacobstein, David (#AdaptDev, 2018)
Hi #adaptdevers, The cross-sectoral programs team in the DRG Center have been working in support of ways that programming can be made more aware of, and responsive to, context considerations that have to do with incentives and relationships between different actors - often called power dynamics or political economy. Following several discussions with field folks, we were asked to come up with simple and practical tips that could help staff to implement more context-adaptive programming, or to better Work Politically to use TWP jargon. With assistance from many of our field staff and partners, we've put together three documents (to start) that have now been cleared to share publicly: • Tips on Making Your Solicitations Invite Context-Driven Adaptive Programming - suggestions spanning most sections of a typical solicitation to better weave in Thinking and Working Politically. I'm particularly excited that this document contains embedded links to excerpts from a set of solicitations that model good practice. You can also find a summary of all the excerpts from real solicitations, and links onward to the public posting of those solicitations on Fed Biz Ops or Grants.gov, here. • Tips on Power Dynamics and Theories of Change - suggestions relevant to those working on project designs and logic models. • Tips for Better Use of Advisory Councils - suggestions to set up better advisory bodies that help you to incorporate political economy more automatically into your programmatic adjustments. I hope that you'll find these practical and helpful! Feedback is always welcome. Best, David

Adaptive management: why we find it so hard to operationalise - Teskey, Graham (Abt Associates - Governance Soapbox, 2018)

Using elements of DCED Standards for CLA - Mitra, Bilash; Jalil, Mohammad Muaz (2018)
Introduction used in the DCED-BEAM seminar in Nairobi

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.

Implementation research: The unambiguous cornerstone of implementation science - Hoke, Theresa (R&E Search for Evidence, 2018)
This blog post defines implementation research and outlines why it makes for such a useful concept in development.

DFID’s approach to value for money in programme and portfolio management - ICAI (Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), 2018)
ICAI published this review on DFID’s approach to value for money in February 2018, and as value for money is both a process and an outcome and cuts across all aspects of DFID’s operations, did not score this review. We made five recommendations and published a follow-up to this review in July 2019. All UK government departments are required to achieve value for money in their use of public funds. In recent years, DFID has been working to build value for money considerations further into its management processes and its relationships with implementers and multilateral partners, establishing itself as a global champion on value for money. Review This review was published in February. Though it was not rated, ICAI made five recommendations, and found that the Department for International Development’s approach to value for money was helping to make UK aid spending go further, but improvements are still needed. Findings This review found that DFID has strengthened its processes and systems for ensuring it gains maximum value for each pound spent, has taken swift remedial action to tackle under-performing programmes, and has become a strong global champion on value for money. The review also found that DFID has been diligent in its efforts to cut waste, detect fraud, and improve efficiency, and that this work is improving the return on the UK investment in aid. However, the review found that DFID’s approach was not adequately reporting and capturing results and value for money at the country portfolio level, or how programmes work together to deliver lasting impact, including reducing future dependency on aid. It also found that weakness in the annual review process could undermine DFID’s approach to value for money. It found that targets were frequently revised, and that there could be pressures for optimistic scoring of programmes. Recommendations Based on this review, we made the following five recommendations to help DFID improve its approach to value for money still further: DFID country offices should articulate cross-cutting value for money objectives at the country portfolio level, and should report periodically on progress at that level. Drawing on its experience with introducing adaptive programming, DFID should encourage programmes to experiment with different ways of delivering results more cost-effectively, particularly for more complex programming. DFID should ensure that principles of development effectiveness – such as ensuring partner country leadership, building national capacity and empowering beneficiaries – are more explicit in its value for money approach. Programmes should reflect these principles in their value for money frameworks, and where appropriate incorporate qualitative indicators of progress at that level. DFID should be more explicit about the assumptions underlying the economic case in its business cases, and ensure that these are taken into account in programme monitoring. Delivery plans should specify points in the programme cycle when the economic case should be fully reassessed. Senior responsible owners should also determine whether a reassessment is needed following material changes in the programme, results targets or context. Annual review scores should include an assessment of whether programmes are likely to achieve their intended outcomes in a cost-effective way. DFID should consider introducing further quality assurance into the setting and adjustment of logframe targets.

Program Cycle - Discussion Note: Adaptive Management - USAID (USAID, 2018)
This Discussion Note complements ADS 201.3.1.2 Program Cycle Principles by elaborating on Principle 2: Manage Adaptively through Continuous Learning. This Discussion Note is intended for USAID staff interested in learning about recent and promising practices in adaptive management across the Program Cycle.

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.

Reflection methods: Tools to make learning more meaningful - Gordijn, Femke; Eernstman, Natalia; Helder, Jan; Brouwer, Herman (Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, 2018)
This handbook summarises methods that can be used to facilitate the process of reflection on the knowledge and experiences people acquire during a capacity development trajectory or training event. We believe that by explicitly integrating reflection in the learning process the learning will become clearer and better articulated and will contribute more strongly to meaningful change. Therefore we advise facilitators to deliberately include reflective learning sessions in their process design and implementation. This handbook can inspire you to do so and provides many methods which help to facilitate this.

Innovation lifecycle and the missing middle - Gray, Ian; McClure, Dan (Managing Humanitarian Innovation - The cutting edge of aid, 2018)

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.

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

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

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

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

Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagemetn in Nigeria - Chemonics (Chemonics International, 2018)

Follow the rabbit: Field Guide to Systemic Design - CoLab (Government of Alberta, 2018)
This Field Guide is designed to support budding systemic designers to facilitate and lead systemic design projects. It’s designed for systemic designers who have basic familiarity with SD concepts and are looking for some practical tips and tools to put theory into action. While this Guide was designed with Government of Alberta staff in mind, the content applies across a range of issue areas, sectors, and intersections. The Guide goes through a systemic design project from concept to implementation. It takes you through the workshop planning process, and discusses workshop roles and client relations. In the FAQs, you’ll find explanations to some commonly asked questions about systemic design concepts to help you introduce others to SD and bring them along with you. You’ll get the most out of this field guide if you approach it with a systemic design mindset – open, willing to try things, a desire to learn, and a ‘yes, and’ orientation. Think of this field guide as an early stop in your systemic design journey: it’s not the end of your learning – it’s a jumping off point. In the Additional Resources section, you can connect to more in-depth explorations of concepts and practical applications.

Principles for Digital Development - digitalprinciples.org (2018)
The Principles for Digital Development serve as a compass for those working to promote sustainable and inclusive development in today’s complex digital landscape. Using these Principles as a starting point, policymakers, practitioners, and technologists will be better equipped to ensure that all people can benefit from digital initiatives and from the broader digital society. Originally developed in 2014, the Principles are officially endorsed by more than 300 organizations, including donors, international organizations, and civil society organizations. During the first decade (2014-2024), they widely influenced funder procurement policies and the design and implementation of development programs. In 2024, the Principles were updated in consultation with a diverse set of individuals and organizations. Through this effort, the community expressed the need for the Principles to better reflect that people today largely interact with technology outside of development programs. Today, all people – even those who do not yet have access to or use technology – live in societies that are increasingly shaped by digital ecosystems that can bring both immense benefit and immense harm. Therefore, the refreshed Principles recognize the need for radical inclusion and local ownership; elevate issues arising from the generation and use of digital data; and intentionally speak to the original audience while resonating further with the full diversity of individuals and organizations that exert power over the design, deployment, and governance of digital systems and solutions. The Principles are mutually reinforcing, as they emphasize the actions needed to ensure no one is left behind in an increasingly digital world.

The relationship between adaptive management of social-ecological systems and law: a systematic review - Frohlich, Miguel F.; Jacobson, Chris; Fidelman, Pedro; Smith, Timothy F. (Ecology and Society, 2018)
Adaptive management has been considered a valuable approach for managing social-ecological systems involving high levels of complexity and uncertainty. However, many obstacles still hamper its implementation. Law is often seen as a barrier for moving adaptive management beyond theory, although there has been no synthesis on the challenges of legal constraints or how to overcome them. We contribute to filling this knowledge gap by providing a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on the relationship between adaptive management and law in relation to social-ecological systems. We analyze how the scholarship defines the concept of adaptive management, identifies the legal barriers to adaptive management, and the legal strategies suggested for enabling this approach. Research efforts in this domain are still highly geographically concentrated in the United States of America, unveiling gaps concerning the analysis of other legal jurisdictions. Overall, our results show that more flexible legal frameworks can allow for adaptive management without undermining the role of law in providing stability to social interactions. Achieving this balance will likely require the reform of existing laws, regulations, and other legal instruments. Legal reforms can facilitate the emergence of adaptive governance, with the potential to support not only adaptive management implementation but also to make law itself more adaptive.

GIZ's Evaluation Policy: Principles, guidelines and requirements of our evaluation practice - GIZ (GIZ, 2018)

Summer School Course - Adaptive Management - Working Effectively in the Complexity of International Development (weekplan) - Green, Duncan; Guijt, Irene (Oxfam, 2018)

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

The water of Systems Change - Kania, John; Kramer, Mark; Senge, Peter (FSG, 2018)
Foundations involved in systems change can increase their odds for success by focusing on the least explicit but most powerful conditions for change, while also turning the lens on themselves. The Water of Systems Change aims to clarify what it means to shift these conditions. We offer the “inverted triangle” framework as an actionable model for funders and others interested in creating systems change, particularly those who are working to advance equity. Top Takeaways Systems change is about advancing equity by shifting the conditions that hold a problem in place. To fully embrace systems change, funders should be prepared to see how their own ways of thinking and acting must change as well. Shifts in system conditions are more likely to be sustained when working at three different levels of change: explicit, semi-explicit, and implicit.

The water of Systems Change: Action learning exercise - Kania, John; Kramer, Mark; Senge, Peter (FSG, 2018)
Based on the “inverted triangle” framework presented in The Water of Systems Change, this activity is designed to help individuals think systemically about social change, explore what is happening below the surface on issues they care about, and determine how they and their organizations can pursue large-scale change in a disciplined and holistic manner. The exercise is divided into 3 parts: Part I uses the “inverted pyramid” introduced in The Water of Systems Change to perform an external assessment of opportunities to make progress on the social or environmental issue you are focused on. Part II uses the same framework to consider internal conditions within yourself and your organization that should change in order for you to better support progress on your issue. Part III takes what was developed in Parts I and II and asks “What to do next?”

The landscape of innovation approaches - Leurs, Bas (States of Change, 2018)
An overview of innovation methods and approaches we’ve come across in government innovation practice.

States of Change - Learning programme - Nesta (Nesta, 2018)

Knowledge Management strategies and processes in Agile Software Development: a systematic literature review - Ouriques, Raquel Andrade Barros; Wnuk, Krzysztof; Gorschek, Tony; Svensson, Richard Berntsson (CoRR, 2018)
Knowledge-intensive companies that adopt Agile Software Development (ASD) relay on efficient implementation of Knowledge Management (KM) strategies to promotes different Knowledge Processes (KPs) to gain competitive advantage. This study aims to

Doing Development Differently at Scale - Pellini, Arnaldo; Karetji, Petrarca C.; Soekadis, Ade (Knowledge, Politics and Policymaking in Indonesia, 2018)
In recent decades there has been an increasing recognition that politics and political institutions matter for development. There is also a much greater interest in contextually grounded approaches. This has stemmed from an acknowledgement that purely technocratic approaches to development often result in failure because they do not take into account the nature of political institutions. Nor do they take account of the context in a particular developing country and the interests and incentives of powerful national actors. Policy processes are embedded in specific social, political and organisational contexts. Approaches that focus on implementing universal best practices in evidence-informed policymaking are unlikely to be successful. Instead, what is needed is an approach that takes the local context as the starting point for understanding what issues are relevant to policymakers and developing contextually appropriate solutions. The authors of this chapter reflect on the management approaches and systems that may be required to enable and support large-scale development programmes to be flexible and adaptive to the local policy context and circumstances. The chapter argues that such programmes struggle to adopt adaptive management principle and that to do that at scale requires some changes in the way such programmes are managed.
Keywords: Adaptive Management; Doing development differently; Evidence-informed policymaking; Indonesia; Knowledge sector; Thinking and working politically

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

Exploring new territories for evaluation - Sharp, Cathy (Collective Leadership for Scotland, 2018)
Drawing on action research, this paper recasts evaluation as ‘action inquiry’, an embedded evaluative learning practice that can help navigate complexity when enacting collective leadership. It is offered as an invitation to inquiry amongst a reasonably well-informed audience of policy makers and practitioners who work in and for public services. It will particularly interest those who provide research, evaluation and facilitation support, and those seeking to develop a more relational approach to research and evaluation. Action inquiry is a model of practising change together in environments where ‘nothing is clear, and everything keeps changing’ that significantly challenges the prevailing discourse on evaluation. Action inquiry can be wrapped around and enmeshed within initiatives and programmes that work with complexity - anywhere where success will depend on the quality of relationships that can be developed. The paper reviews some important interrelated concepts that underpin the ideals of collective leadership and public service reform and which confront deeply embedded traditional notions of leadership, expertise and participation. These offer important challenges to ideas about how change happens and recognise that relationships are at the heart of practising change. This warrants a re-examination of the high expectations of evidence-based or informed practice. Collective leadership makes new demands of evidence as it rests on help to determine ‘wise actions’ in real-life situations. This confronts the practical reality of how to work together in conditions often expressed as ‘dynamic’ or ‘turbulent’ and the added human complexities of power, emotions and relationships; too often these elements are denied or avoided aspects of a change process. Facilitated action inquiry makes these elements part of the conversations, in the midst of ‘work-as-we-are-doing-it’, to increase areas of choice for individuals and a group as a whole. Within public policy, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence about ‘what works’ yet change seems to be stubborn and slow. The paper explores some of the deep-rooted vestiges of a ‘hierarchy of evidence’ and assumptions about standardisation and generalisability that act as a ‘barrier to transformation’. These include the narrow framing of what counts as evidence and consequent relegation of community perspectives, lived experience and practice-based evidence. The paper acknowledges the clear appetite for different approaches to evaluation, especially those that better reflect deeply held values and avoid creating a culture of ‘gaming’, rooted in fear of failure and loss of funding, at the expense of learning. The need for new forms of developmental evaluative thinking, collaborative inquiry and action research to create embedded learning is well overdue. Action inquiry is a desirable and necessary response to the complex situations and challenges of human services and recognises the essentialness of knowledge co-production. It is a model of co-creation at every stage and endorses the idea that people learn from participation in evaluation and by testing theories of change through action. Action inquiry builds on the idea of inquiry, or a moment-to-moment awareness and quality of attention and draws from several elements of action research practice. It sees inquiry as an intervention in itself, one that furthermore, explicitly seeks to enhance the probability of the success of a programme, focus on learning, the collaborative development of practice-based knowledge and positive relationships. The paper highlights the importance of building inquiry into living systems, the role of facilitation, systemic inquiry, and evaluative thinking. It proposes an expansion of ideas of appreciation as a relational and collaborative practice that is a driver of emergence. Social recognition that acknowledges someone’s social value to the community and implies mutual moral obligations to cooperation and participation is particularly crucial in a work context that requires successful coordination and multiple contributions to achieve results across hierarchies of position, professional rank and sectors. Hence, appreciation goes beyond the idea of positivity to include social recognition, valuing more explicit forms of inquiry, building participants’ aspirations to design new social systems and acting in new ways to embed change. In developing this discussion, the paper contributes to emerging dialogues about the need for a model of ‘5th generation evaluation’. Such a model would be based on the idea that appreciative and challenging inquiry that is contextual, relational and open-minded will create better opportunities for change and development. The paper sets out some ‘provocative propositions’ that can help us to navigate this terrain, perhaps of a fledgling ‘5th generation approach’ to inquiry. Facilitated action inquiry can hold the key to developing both new knowledge and an adaptive, collaborative and improvisational skill-set, able to respond in new ways to systemic and complex issues on the ground. It’s common to hear the expression ‘it’s all about relationships’ and it is clearly time to shift our focus to relationships; not relationships as ‘things’, but as co-created and dynamic relational processes in which we are embedded. In this way we can bring new qualities to our talking to each other about our various and shared visions of a better future.

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.

Adaptive management intentions with a reality of evaluation: Getting science back into policy - Hasselman, Lyndal (Environmental Science & Policy, 2017)
In Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin water reform has been contentious as government attempts to reconcile historical over allocation of water to irrigation with the use of water for environmental outcomes. However, in many aspects, scientific knowledge of the environment is either imperfect, incomplete or environmental responses are unpredictable, with this uncertainty preventing definitive policy and closure of political arguments. In response to uncertainty and knowledge gaps, adaptive management has been written into the legislation, along with provisions for periodic evaluation. This research ascertains how adaptive management is understood by policy makers, with this indicative of future implementation of adaptive management. The way in which adaptive management is constructed by policy makers is determined through legislation, public speeches, government reports and semi-structured interviews. The findings demonstrate that adaptive management has been subsumed by evaluation. The loss of adaptive management as a distinct concept is seen as a loss of science and discovery from the policy process, with the dominance of evaluation discussed as limiting innovation and reinforcing a ‘muddling through’ of policy.
Keywords: Accountability; Adaptive Management; Evaluation; Science; Uncertainty

Learning to Make All Voices Count: Lessons for OGP, donors, and practitioners - Moses, Michael; Soal, Sue (2017)
The Open Government Partnership (OGP), donors and multilaterals, and social accountability practitioners across the world are among various constituencies attempting to harness and actualise emerging insights about the nature of successful governance reform. But each of these groups faces challenges as they do so. This brief reviews the evidence from Learning to Make All Voices Count (L-MAVC), a programme funded by Making All Voices Count, and implemented in collaboration with Global Integrity. L-MAVC intended to support six Making All Voices Count grantees, working in five countries, in co-creating and applying a participatory, learning-centred, and adaptive approach to strengthening citizen engagement in governance processes in their contexts, including with respect to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Two sets of lessons emerge from the experience of L-MAVC. First, supporting citizen engagement and government accountability in subnational contexts, and localising OGP in ways that matter to citizens, is not straightforward. Doing so successfully entails engaging with, navigating and shaping political and power dynamics in those contexts, and iteratively adapting to emerging lessons and challenges. Second, the effectiveness of adaptive ways of working depends in part on the extent to which they offer opportunities for cross-context peer learning, support the regular collection and use of data, and are themselves adaptive. These lessons have implications for the broader community of actors working to support governance reform, including OGP and its partners, donors and multilateral institutions, and practitioners and policy-makers. If these actors are to contribute more effectively to reforms that affect citizens’ lives, substantial changes – with respect to the nature of support provided to domestic stakeholders, grant-making practices, and practitioner approaches – may be warranted.

The five trademarks of agile organizations - Wouter Aghina; Karin Ahlbäck; Aaron De Smet; Clemens Fahrbach; Christopher Handscomb; Gerald Lackey; Michael Lurie; Monica Murarka; Olli Salo; Elizabeth Seem; Jannik Woxholth (McKinsey anc Company, 2017)
Our experience and research demonstrate that successful agile organizations consistently exhibit the five trademarks described in this article. The trademarks include a network of teams within a people-centered culture that operates in rapid learning and fast decision cycles which are enabled by technology, and a common purpose that co-creates value for all stakeholders. These trademarks complement the findings from The McKinsey Global Survey Results: How to create an agile organization.

Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health - Brownson, Ross C.; Colditz, Graham A.; Proctor, Enola K. (Oxford University Press, 2017)
Fifteen to twenty years is how long it takes for the billions of dollars of health-related research to translate into evidence-based policies and programs suitable for public use. Over the past 15 years, an exciting science has emerged that seeks to narrow the gap between the discovery of new knowledge and its application in public health, mental health, and health care settings. Dissemination and implementation (D&I) research seeks to understand how to best apply scientific advances in the real world, by focusing on pushing the evidence-based knowledge base out into routine use. To help propel this crucial field forward, leading D&I scholars and researchers have collaborated to put together this volume to address a number of key issues, including: how to evaluate the evidence base on effective interventions; which strategies will produce the greatest impact; how to design an appropriate study; and how to track a set of essential outcomes. D&I studies must also take into account the barriers to uptake of evidence-based interventions in the communities where people live their lives and the social service agencies, hospitals, and clinics where they receive care. The challenges of moving research to practice and policy are universal, and future progress calls for collaborative partnerships and cross-country research. The fundamental tenet of D&I research—taking what we know about improving health and putting it into practice—must be the highest priority. This book is nothing less than a roadmap that will have broad appeal to researchers and practitioners across many disciplines.

Walking the Long Road Together - Stilger, Bob (Afternow: When We Cannot See the Future Where Do We Begin?, 2017)
On March 11, 2011, overwhelming and incomprehensible disaster struck the northeast coast of Japan. Life for those in the region would never be the same. This book is about the awakening that follows disaster. About the minutes and months and years that come after now. It is about what happens when we're smacked on the side of the head and open our eyes, startled out of the trance in which we have been living our days. It is about the opportunities always present, often invisible, to create the lives we want, now. AfterNow chronicles the author's journey with the Japanese people over 6 years -- his own story of awakening after plunging into this disaster and the stories from people who found where to take their first step, and the next. It offers the tools and processes and worldview people discovered to create what comes after now. It is built around two big ideas. The first is that after disaster, we find our way forward, together. We come awake, together. Disaster obliterates the past, plunges the present into chaos and cocoons the future. We need each other to see and build the new. The second idea is that we don't have to wait for the tragedy of disaster to make the communities and lives we want. We can engage each other with respect, curiosity and generosity and begin to co-create what we want, now. We live in a period of precipitous, unpredictable change. The book is for those who want to make this time more livable and less insane. In Japan and all over the world, we are living in the messy middle where old forms are falling apart and new possibilities are in early stages. The ground is pulled out from under us on a regular basis. Our work right now is to learn to coexist with the messiness. We need to keep trying things, to keep learning. We need to remain focused on our purpose and follow the braided strand of intention and surrender as we find our way forward. embracing radical uncertainty, showing up as fully as we can each moment, each breath.

Adaptiveness through ‘simplest tools and practices’ - Prieto Martin, Pedro (Institute of Development Studies, 2017)
In recent years, more and more influential development organisations have been openly recognising the central role that adaptive management capacities – the ability to keep improving strategies and actions as programmes unfold – play for the success of complex interventions. As a result, there has been a rich exchange of ideas and experiences on how to promote adaptiveness in development. But development organisations and professionals are having a hard time translating the many adaptive theories and recommendations into improved practices and outcomes. They are generally failing to adjust the design and operation of programmes to accommodate incipient lessons learnt and the unexpected changes in the context. Nowadays, most programme adaptations still take the form of a change of direction once it is clear that things have gone really wrong. Why is so difficult to put what we know about adaptiveness into practice? And more importantly: what can be done to improve this situation?

Is there a new Washington Consensus? An analysis of five World Development Reports - Evans, Alice (From Poverty to Power, 2017)
Is there a new Washington Consensus? Alice Evans analyses the last five World Development Reports and finds significant changes in orthodoxy, but also big gaps

Scenario-based strategizing: Advancing the applicability in strategists' teams - Lehr, Thomas; Lorenz, Ullrich; Willert, Markus; Rohrbeck, René (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2017)
For over 40years, scenarios have been promoted as a key technique for forming strategies in uncertain environments. However, many challenges remain. In this article, we discuss a novel approach designed to increase the applicability of scenario-based strategizing in top management teams. Drawing on behavioural strategy as a theoretical lens, we design a yardstick to study the impact of scenario-based strategizing. We then describe our approach, which includes developing scenarios and alternative strategies separately and supporting the strategy selection through an integrated assessment of the goal-based efficacy and robustness. To facilitate the collaborative strategizing in teams, we propose a matrix with robustness and efficacy as the two axes, which we call the Parmenides Matrix. We assess the impact of the novel approach by applying it in two cases, at a governmental agency (German Environmental Ministry) and a firm affected by disruptive change (Bosch, leading global supplier of technology and solutions).
Keywords: Behavioural strategy; Scenario-based strategizing; Scenarios; Strategic foresight; Uncertainty

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

Valuing peace: delivering and demonstrating mediation results - Dilemmas & options for mediators - Wadley, Ian (Mediation Practice Series, 2017)
Essential points for practitioners and donors • Mediation offers a cost-effective and proven method for resolving armed conflict. Between 1985 and 2015, 75 per cent of armed conflicts in the world were resolved through agreement rather than by force. In most cases these processes will have involved third party facilitation or support. • Professional mediators understand the high stakes involved in their work to prevent, mitigate and resolve armed conflict. In addition, they and their financial supporters are increasingly required to demonstrate ‘value-for-money’ to ensure continued funding. • However, traditional monitoring and evaluation (M&E) methods are not well suited to this task, typically imposing artificially linear project models on a dynamic conflict situation, as well as compliance reporting that moves attention away from real value. • Traditional M&E methods tend to focus on documenting the past and generating vast amounts of data, rather than enabling timely adaptation of the project in the present. • Traditional M&E approaches rely heavily on external evaluation consultants. Even in the best of cases this may interfere with the mediation process and impose a heavy time burden on the project team, leading to low acceptance of traditional M&E approaches by mediation practitioners. • In contrast, an ideal M&E approach for mediation should deliver useful insights in even the most dynamic and sensitive mediation environments, impose a light reporting burden, and be readily accepted by mediation teams. It should protect discretion and trust, enable rapid adaptation, and also provide some assurance that donor funds are being well spent.

Using what we know: How to ensure tech projects meet the brief - Walker, Tom (Making All Voices Count, 2017)
Making tech effective - building on what we already know

Scaling Agile @ LEGO and Spotify – my talk at EA träff - Kniberg, Henrik (Crisp, 2017)

Interview protocol: Most significant turning points - Prieto Martin, Pedro; Faith, Becky (Institute of Development Studies, 2017)
This interview protocol was used for a research project on adaptiveness in technology for governance initiatives in Kenya. For more information, please read the research report at: Prieto Martin, P.; Hernandez, K.; Faith, B. and Ramalingam, B. (2017) Doing Digital Development Differently: Lessons in adaptive management from technology for governance initiatives in Kenya, MAVC Research Report, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, ids.ac.uk/project/making-all-voices-count
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Doing Digital Development Differently: Lessons in adaptive management from technology for governance initiatives in Kenya - Prieto Martin, Pedro; Hernandez, Kevin; Faith, Becky; Ramalingam, Ben (MAVC Research Report, 2017)
Development projects don’t always work as planned. This has long been acknowledged by those in the sector, and has led to several approaches that seek to solve complex development problems through enabling and encouraging greater adaptiveness and learning within projects (e.g. Doing Development Differently and Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation). Digital development projects experience many of these issues. Using technology for transparency and accountability (Tech4T&A) projects in Kenya as case studies, our research analysed the many different theoretical approaches to learning and adaptation, and then tested how these play out in reality. Firstly, we conducted an extensive review of the literature on the spectrum of approaches to adaptive learning. The findings were used to develop a framework through which to analyse adaptiveness at the different layers of complexity in projects (e.g. software design and development, programme design and management). The second part of the research consisted of interviews and focus group discussions with participants in Tech4T&A projects in Kenya. Respondents helped us identify the main characteristics of adaptiveness in their projects (e.g. who needs to adapt, and how and when) and the challenges and issues that inhibit projects’ abilities to be adaptive. This process also revealed how accountability interplays with adaptiveness, and considered how better collaboration flows can enable adaptiveness. From our literature review and empirical study, we draw several conclusions for increasing adaptiveness in digital development projects. These include simplifying the many adaptive theories that abound, increasing responsiveness to project beneficiaries and stakeholders, and for stakeholders to keep on experimenting, networking and advocating.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

How to create an agile organization - survey - Salo, Olli; Ahlbäck, Karin; Fahrbach, Clemens; Murarka, Monica (McKinsey & Co., 2017)
Eighteen practices for organizational agility The survey asked respondents about a series of specific actions that underlie each of the 18 practices (9 of them stable, and 9 dynamic) of organizational agility; all of the practices are summarized in the table below. To rate respondents’ organizations, we asked how frequently their performance units engaged in each action that supports a given practice.

Real World SAFe – Leapfrogging a successful waterfall company into Scaled Agile - Skarin, Mattias (CRISP, 2017)

Extreme Teaming: Lessons in Complex, Cross-Sector Leadership - Edmondson, Amy C.; Harvey, Jean-Francois (Emerald Publishing, 2017)
Extreme Teaming Lessons in Complex, Cross-Sector Leadership Today’s global enterprises increasingly involve collaborative work by teams of experts operating across different professions, organizations, and industries. Extreme Teaming provides new insights into the world of complex, cross industry projects and the ways they must be managed. Leading experts Amy Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey analyze contemporary cases that expose the complex demands of cross-boundary collaboration on management, and inform our understanding of teams. Containing powerful insights and practical guidelines that allow managers to bridge professional divides and organizational boundaries in order to work together effectively, this is a new exploration of the challenges involved in today’s global enterprises. The authors demonstrate that the work done in the modern organization is less and less about looking inward and creating strong teams inside the company, and more about teaming across boundaries – that often are in flux. Extreme Teaming is a must-read book for all courses related to leading open innovation; teamwork and collaboration; project management; and cross-boundary work.

Strengthening the results chain: Synthesis of case studies of results-based management by providers - Zwart, Rosie (OECD, 2017)
This paper presents an analysis of evidence from seven case studies of results-based management by development co-operation providers. Analysis of themes from the case studies reveal six interrelated challenges which providers face in their efforts to manage for the results of development co-operation. The six challenges are: linking results to development goals, ensuring the purpose of results systems is well-defined, weighing up the benefits of aggregating and attributing results from standard indicators, enabling country ownership, using performance information alongside results information, and building and embedding a results culture. Providers continue to adopt a range of approaches to pursue a focus on results and there are many examples of good practice. The case studies suggest that in a complex development landscape some providers are prioritising the use of aggregated results information for domestic accountability, communication, and performance management over their use for learning and policy direction. In this context, the paper argues that in agency-wide results frameworks development co-operation results are often detached (or de-contextualised) from development results and discusses the implications of this, including the use of standard indicators to measure aggregated outputs. The paper uses case study evidence to discuss and suggest practical ways providers can build and maintain a strong results focus which enables analysis, insights and learning, and has achievement of development outcomes as its objective.

Systems Approaches to Public Sector Challenges: Working with Change - OECD (OECD, 2017)

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...

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

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

Two Paths to Supporting Grassroots Innovation - Cooper, Nathan; Hazeldine, Shaun; Quaggiotto, Giulio (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)
An innovation experiment in Indonesia yields insights on how international development organizations can effectively foster innovation within the communities they aim to help.

From Design Thinking to Systems Change - Conway, Rowan; Masters, Jeff; Thorold, Jake (RSA, 2017)
This report takes the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), a twophase pre-procurement innovation programme that aims to match social challenges with new ideas, as its primary case study. It suggests augmenting the excellent design thinking deployed through SBRI with a think like a system, act like an entrepreneur lens in order to drive better social outcomes from SBRI-originating innovations. Programmes like SBRI have great potential to drive change and address pressing challenges, but must be guided by a more developed understanding of how change happens. The stakes are too high to not raise our game when it comes to social innovation. Wicked problems can be overcome but will require sophisticated theories of change able to account for the complexity and unpredictability of modern life. We offer think like a system, act like an entrepreneur as a contribution to this effort. This report is based on the following research: •• Desk based review of relevant literature; •• A series of structured interviews with participants in SBRI competitions; and •• An expert round table that brought together policymakers, commissioners, procurement experts and entrepreneurs to consider and develop initial findings.

How to set up and manage an adaptive programme - Lessons from the Action on Climate Today (ACT) Programme - Cooke, Katherine (OPM, 2017)

Governance for Growth in Vanuatu: Review of a decade of thinking and working politically - Hadley, Sierd; Tilley, Helen (ODI, 2017)

Thinking and Working Politically: Lessons from FOSTER in Nigeria - Lopez Lucia, Elisa; Buckley, Joanna; Marquette, Heather; McCulloch, Neil (Research Paper, 2017)
The Facility for Oil Sector Transparency and Reform (FOSTER) was a £14 million programme that has helped Nigeria to transform its governance of the oil and gas industry. FOSTER ran from 2011 to mid-2016, and used an explicit ‘thinking and working politically’ (TWP) approach. It was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by Oxford Policy Management (OPM). This paper seeks to identify the factors that drove – or constrained – FOSTER’s achievements, and asks what this can tell us about TWP, particularly in challenging political and sectoral contexts. FOSTER sought to help strengthen oversight and accountability in Nigeria’s oil sector. It aimed to support reformers within government institutions that ‘supply’ accountability (those governing how oil and gas revenues are collected and managed), and to support civil society organisations, parliament, the media and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to ‘demand’ reform. In addition, FOSTER commissioned a series of studies and provided media training to help broaden understanding of the sector and highlight the need for reform. This paper examines the outcomes from five ‘clusters’ of FOSTER interventions. The FOSTER team viewed the first three of these in the list below as successful, whereas the latter two did not deliver on expectations but offer important opportunities for learning: • Support to the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative • Support to demand-side actors to promote transparency and accountability in the oil sector • Support for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill • An oil spill-mapping social media project • Support to the Department of Petroleum Resources The analysis drew on 44 semi-structured interviews conducted during a month of fieldwork in Abuja and Lagos; on reviews of the programme’s monitoring, evaluation and learning frameworks; and on newspaper articles and grey literature on Nigeria’s oil sector.2

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

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

Program Cycle - How-To Note: Strategy-Level Portfolio Review - USAID (USAID PPL, 2017)

The Beginner’s Guide to Political Economy Analysis (PEA) - Whaites, Alan (National School of Government International, 2017)
Over the last two decades aid agencies and academics have been on a journey of lesson learning and adaptation in relation to `politics.’ This journey has been driven by a determination to improve impact in all areas of development, but for some time it was particularly associated with work on public sector reform. Now, however, there is an increasing expectation that Political Economy Analysis (PEA) should be part and parcel of designing and implementing any programme or activity (and a brief history of the meandering journey of development actors on PEA can be found in The Policy Practice’s Briefing Paper 11 – see below). DFID in the UK is fairly typical among large development organisations in running an excellent course on political economy analysis, complete with 200 pages of resources and various online videos and case studies (and this type of course is recommended for those who want to take their exploration of PEA further). Even so, PEA is not just for those who have `done the course and bought the T-shirt,’ it is something that can be absorbed and implemented quickly by everybody. Indeed, the growth of interest in PEA is a reminder that this can look like a complex and daunting field and so this guide aims to offer an entry-point for all those who want to use PEA in their own work. In doing so, this guide borrows from the best materials that are available while also adapting some approaches by incorporating wider ideas on politics and institutions. This guide affirms that there should never be an official `orthodoxy’ for PEA and so the emphasis here is on questions, prompts and ideas to help thinking and practice. There is also an attempt to clarify jargon wherever needed, while recognising that The Policy Practice (TPP) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) have produced a more complete glossary of PEA terminology. The note will instead focus on `the essentials’ of PEA as they relate to the following questions:  Why do we do political economy analysis, and what is it?  What kinds of issues and ingredients are often included in a PEA?  How do we make sense of the different varieties of PEA?  What tools are out there to help us conduct a PEA?  What is thinking and working politically?

RFI-521-17-000015 - Improving Governance in Haiti Program (IGHI) - USAID (USAID, 2017)

Doing Urban Development Differently - Jones, Harry; Adhikari, Bishnu (From Poverty to Power, 2017)
Guest post from Harry Jones and Bishnu Adhikari, both of Palladium on what urban aid and development can learn from the Doing Development Differently movement

Systems Thinking Toolkit - Parkhurst, Marcie (FSG, 2017)
A complete compilation of our guides to system mapping.

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

A ‘real-time’ and anthropological response to the Ebola crisis - IDS (IDS, 2017)
Impact Summary The Ebola epidemic that began in the Guinea-Sierra Leone-Liberia border region in December 2013 spread fast through the villages, cities and trade routes of this highly-peopled,...

Agile – where are we at? - Kniberg, Henrik (USI, 2017)

Scaled Agile Framework – SAFe for Lean Software and System Engineering 4.5 - Scaled Agile (2017)

The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning - Lent, Jeremy (Prometheus Books, 2017)
This fresh perspective on crucial questions of history identifies the root metaphors that cultures have used to construct meaning in their world. It offers a glimpse into the minds of a vast range of different peoples: early hunter-gatherers and farmers, ancient Egyptians, traditional Chinese sages, the founders of Christianity, trail-blazers of the Scientific Revolution, and those who constructed our modern consumer society. Taking the reader on an archaeological exploration of the mind, the author, an entrepreneur and sustainability leader, uses recent findings in cognitive science and systems theory to reveal the hidden layers of values that form today's cultural norms. Uprooting the tired cliches of the science-religion debate, he shows how medieval Christian rationalism acted as an incubator for scientific thought, which in turn shaped our modern vision of the conquest of nature. The author probes our current crisis of unsustainability and argues that it is not an inevitable result of human nature, but is culturally driven: a product of particular mental patterns that could conceivably be reshaped. By shining a light on our possible futures, the book foresees a coming struggle between two contrasting views of humanity: one driving to a technological endgame of artificially enhanced humans, the other enabling a sustainable future arising from our intrinsic connectedness with each other and the natural world. This struggle, it concludes, is one in which each of us will play a role through the meaning we choose to forge from the lives we lead.

Teams that Do Development Differently - Khan, Jehanzeb; Fisher, Annette (Global Policy Journal, 2017)

Two Tunes, One Dance: Keeping Programming Agile - Learning Lab (USAID Learning Lab, 2017)

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

A Whole New World - Funding and Commissioning in Complexity - Knight, Annabel Davidson; Lowe, Toby; Brossard, Marion; Wilson, Julie (Collaborate & Newcastle University, 2017)
Collaborate and Newcastle University Business School Publish Research into Complexity-Friendly Funding

Learning, monitoring and evaluating: achieving and measuring change in adaptive programmes - Callaghan, Sarah; Plank, Georgia (Synthesis Paper, 5, 2017)

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

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

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

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

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

Amateur hour: CfC's 'surprising' success in addressing school congestion in the philippines - Sidel, John T. (Coalitions for Change, 2017)
The international development community has increasingly embraced the idea that finding durable solutions to complex development problems requires new ways of working that move beyond industry norms. This paper makes an important contribution to the current debate by outlining an innovative monitoring system called Strategy Testing (ST). This is the third paper in the Working Politically in Practice paper series, launched together with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Six things that help grant-makers learn and adapt - Murray, Aoife (Itad, 2017)
There’s an emerging body of literature identifying key strategies that can both improve learning and enable adaptive management amongst grant-makers. We recently reviewed a host of publications from eight grant-making organisations. Those organisations have diverse aims and approaches but we’ve identified six common themes that stand out: Strong leadership and facilitation enables successful learning and …

Systems Change in a Polarized Country - Kramer, Mark R. (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)
A growing number of US foundations are adopting practices based on systems change to achieve their goals in the current political environment.

The Boda Boda Talk Talk Module - Internews (Learning Collection, 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting: summary of the literature review (2017 update) - Learning Lab (USAID, 2017)
LEARN and USAID/PPL are managing an area of work known as Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (EB4CLA). The purpose of this work is to answer key learning questions:

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...

It’s About Results at Scale, Not Collective Impact - Edmondson, Jeff; Santhosh-Kumar, Parvathi (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)
Improving outcomes at scale requires a paradigm shift in how we work.

Implementing the new development agenda - Wrap up - Teskey, Graham (DDD 4 Conference, 2017)

Re-Perceiving Results: Aid Programs and Change in Fragile Societies - van Veen, Erwin; Rijper, Alies (Policy Brief, 2017)
Aid programmes need to be able to adapt their objectives and operations to changes in their political environment, since development processes are subject to political contestation. Change takes time and is often a matter of seizing the opportunity.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

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.

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

Landscape Analysis of Learing Agendas: USAID/Washington and beyond - Learning Lab (USAID, 2017)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY U.S. government agencies and development organizations around the world are increasingly recognizing and supporting learning activities— often informed by a learning agenda—as important tools for improving organizational effectiveness and efficiency. A learning agenda comprises a set of broad questions directly related to the work that an agency conducts; when answered, they enable the agency to work more effectively and efficiently, particularly pertaining to evaluation, evidence, and decisionmaking. This report surveys the landscape of learning agendas at USAID and beyond to inform the learning agenda initiative planned by the Office of Learning, Evaluation, and Research (LER) in the Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL). Reporting on research conducted over a 6-month period (September 2016 to February 2017), this landscape analysis focuses on six documented, office-, bureau-, or initiative-wide learning agendas being used at USAID/Washington. It also considers 11 new or noteworthy learning initiatives at USAID and five learning efforts at other federal agencies. The research team interviewed 60 staff from 20 USAID offices and bureaus, as well as staff from five other federal agencies. (See Annexes 1 through IV for more information.) The team also convened two focus groups: one with staff in USAID/Washington who had recently returned from serving in Missions, and one with PPL staff who discussed that bureau’s learning activities. The report details the interviewees’ remarks on six topics:  Motivations behind their decisions to pursue a learning agenda, such as expectations of accountability, especially in response to leadership demands  The key benefits emerging from their learning agenda efforts, which have included identifying gaps in knowledge and evidence, and supporting other cultural and organizational change processes  The participatory and consultative strategies they used to engage with stakeholders, including engagement with Mission staff and inclusion of academics and outside experts  The learning activities and products related to their initiatives  Challenges and strategies on resources, dissemination, and utilization, including ways to update their learning agenda to ensure that it remains a “living document”  Recommendations they had for PPL and others considering embarking on a learning agenda initiative

Thinking and Working Politically – Are We Seeing the Emergence of a Second Orthodoxy? - Teskey, Graham (Governance Working Paper 1, 2017)
There now is a persuasive volume of evidence that demonstrates that capacity and technical knowledge alone are insufficient to change deeply entrenched political interests and bureaucratic norms. These critiques demonstrate that an understanding of power asymmetries is frequently the critical missing ingredient in project design and implementation. Many eminent thinkers have looked at the difference between success and failure in development, and all point to the primacy of domestic politics. This point has not been lost on development agencies and some have tried to provoke greater attention to the role that politics plays. However, this recognition is yet to pass into the mainstream of development practice. Despite the slow but sure accretion of this knowledge the international community seems to be wedded to doing development traditionally. The purpose of this paper is to consider the extent to which a ‘second orthodoxy’ is slowly emerging which can stand alongside, and in some cases may supplant, the ‘first orthodoxy’ of the traditional project framework. Care has to be taken in making this argument, as there is certainly no consensus within the development community on its importance, and even among advocates, there are slightly differing interpretations of what this second orthodoxy looks like. Further, it is not absolutely clear that the two orthodoxies can co-exist. The paper does not call for any ‘paradigm shift’ in how development practitioners conceptualise programs and projects, nor does it demand that the project framework be scrapped; the former would be impossible and the latter undesirable. Equally readers will find no claims that Doing Development Differently or ‘Thinking and Working Politically’ will always and everywhere guarantee better development outcomes. Rather, the paper seeks to summarise how the two orthodoxies differ, where the second orthodoxy now stands, and propose how it can be taken forward in practical terms.

Project Cycle Hacker's Toolkit - changing the conversation around your projects - UNDP (UNDP, 2017)
The Istanbul Regional Hub partnered with Nesta and 4 country offices (fYR Macedonia, Moldova, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan) to develop a program that can help us bring innovation closer to the center of the organization by embedding it in the key project management business processes - The Project Cycle Hackers Toolkit.

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

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

Fostering Learning in Large Programmes and Portfolios: Emerging Lessons from Climate Change and Sustainable Development - Harvey, Blane; Pasanen, Tiina; Pollard, Alison; Raybould, Julia (Sustainability, 2017)
In ﬁelds like climate and development, where the challenges being addressed can be described as “wicked”, learning is key to successful programming. Useful practical and theoretical work is being undertaken to better understand the role of reﬂexive learning in bringing together different knowledge to address complex problems like climate change. Through a review of practical cases and learning theories commonly used in the areas of resilience, climate change adaptation and environmental management, this article: (i) reviews the theories that have shaped approaches to reﬂexive learning in large, highly-distributed climate change and resilience-building programmes for development; and (ii) conducts a comparative learning review of key challenges and lessons emerging from early efforts to promote and integrate reﬂexive learning processes in programmes of this nature. Using a case study approach, the authors focus on early efforts made in four large, inter-related (or nested) programmes to establish, integrate and sustain learning processes and systems. Eight themes emerged from the review and are considered from the perspective of learning programmes as emergent communities of practice. By investigating how these themes play out in the nested programming, the paper contributes to the limited existing body of evidence on learning in large climate change programmes and identiﬁes areas where future efforts might focus.

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

Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously - Gothelf, Jeff; Seiden, Josh (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017)
The End of Assembly Line ManagementWe’re in the midst of a revolution. Quantum leaps in technology are enabling organizations to observe and measure people’s behavior in real time, communicate internally at extraordinary speed, and innovate continuously. These new, software-driven technologies are transforming the way companies interact with their customers, employees, and other stakeholders.This is no mere tech issue. The transformation requires a complete rethinking of the way we organize and manage work. And, as software becomes ever more integrated into every product and service, making this big shift is quickly becoming the key operational challenge for businesses of all kinds. We need a management model that doesn’t merely account for, but actually embraces, continuous change. Yet the truth is, most organizations continue to rely on outmoded, industrial-era operational models. They structure their teams, manage their people, and evolve their organizational cultures the way they always have.Now, organizations are emerging, and thriving, based on their capacity to sense and respond instantly to customer and employee behaviors. In Sense and Respond, Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, leading tech experts and founders of the global Lean UX movement, vividly show how these companies operate, highlighting the new mindset and skills needed to lead and manage them—and to continuously innovate within them.In illuminating and instructive business examples, you’ll see organizations with distinctively new operating principles: shifting from managing outputs to what the authors call “outcome-focused management”; forming self-guided teams that can read and react to a fast-changing environment; creating a learning-all-the-time culture that can understand and respond to new customer behaviors and the data they generate; and finally, developing in everyone at the company the new universal skills of customer listening, assessment, and response.This engaging and practical book provides the crucial new operational and management model to help you and your organization win in a world of continuous change.

Putting theory into practice: how DFID is doing development differently - Wild, Leni; Booth, David; Valters, Craig (ODI, 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking: What you really need to know to build high-performing digital product teams - Gothelf, Jeff (CreateSpace, 2017)
As companies evolve to adopt, integrate and leverage software as the defining element of their success in the 21st century, a rash of processes and methodologies are vying for their product teams' attention. In the worst of cases, each discipline on these teams -- product management, design and software engineering -- learn a different model. This short, tactical book reconciles the perceived differences in Lean Startup, Design Thinking and Agile software development by focusing not on rituals and practices but on the values that underpin all 3 methods.

ADS 201 Additional Help- Whole-of-Project Evaluation - USAID (USAID, 2017)

USAID ADS 201 - Program Cycle Operational Policy (Update 1/23/2017) - USAID (USAID, 2017)
The Program Cycle is USAID’s operational model for planning, delivering, assessing, and adapting development programming in a given region or country to advance U.S. foreign policy. It encompasses guidance and procedures for: 1) Making strategic decisions at the regional or country level about programmatic areas of focus and associated resources; 2) Designing projects and supportive activities to implement strategic plans; and 3) Learning from performance monitoring, evaluations, and other relevant sources of information to make course corrections as needed and inform future programming.

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

Donor perceptions and processes: Risks to success of adaptive programming? - Browse - Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law - Donovan, Elbereth (Knowledge Platform - Security & Rule of Law, 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Rapid experiments with a purpose - Moses, Michael (BEAM Exchange, 2017)
New insights, opinions and perspectives on market systems development, from experts and practitioners.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Agile Metrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Wolpers, Stefan (dzone.com, 2017)
Suitable agile metrics reflect either a team’s progress in becoming agile or your organization’s progress in becoming a learning organization.

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. (CID Faculty Working Paper 332, 2017)

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

Systems Practice - Omidyar Group (The Omidyar Group, 2017)

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.

+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.

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

Historical Roots of Dissemination and Implementation Science - Dearing, James W.; Kee, Kerk F. (Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health, 2017)
Research about dissemination and implementation (D&I) is a response to a general acknowledgment that successful, effective practices, programs, and policies resulting from clinical and community trials, demonstration projects, and community-based research as conducted by academicians very often do not affect the services that clinical staff, community service providers, and other practitioners fashion and provide to residents, clients, patients, and populations at risk. In any one societal sector (populated, for example, by planners for health care delivery, or city-level transportation and parkway planners), the state of the science (what researchers collectively know) and the state of the art (what practitioners collectively do) co-exist more or less autonomously, each realm of activity having little effect on the other. In the United States, this situation has been referred to as a “quality chasm” by the U.S. Institute of Medicine.12 Dissemination science is the study of how evidence-based practices, programs, and policies can best be communicated to an interorganizational societal sector of potential adopters and implementers to produce uptake and effective use. For example, public middle school nurses in U.S. southern states can comprise a societal sector. This definition means that dissemination embeds the objectives of both external validity, the replication of positive effects across dissimilar settings and conditions, and scale-up, the replication of positive effects across similar settings and conditions.

DFID Smart Rules: Better Programme Delivery - version VII (2017.04) - DFID (DFID, 2017)
Smart Rules provide the operating framework for the Department for International Development’s (DFID’s) programmes.
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

Adaptive Programming and Business Environment Reform – Lessons for DFID Zimbabwe - Donovan, Elbereth; Manuel, Clare (DFID, 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Doing Development Differently: Understanding the Landscape and Implications of New Approaches to Governance and Public-sector Reforms - Fritz, Verena (Transformation, Politics and Implementation, 2017)
Seeking to accelerate development, the agencies and individuals involved have regularly advanced new ideas of how external support can function better, deliver more, and achieve greater impact. There has been a particular flourishing of new ideas within the broad field of governance and public-sector reforms in the 2000s. This chapter starts off with a review of the “landscape of new ideas,” focusing on five proposed approaches in particular: political economy analysis (PEA), Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), Doing Development Differently (DDD), Thinking and Working Politically (TWP), and the “science of delivery.” It sets out the “problem-diagnostic” that underpins each of these

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

Toolkit Digitalisation: Tools to Support Strategic Planning and Implementation - GIZ (2017)

Transformation, politics and implementation: smart implementation in governance programs - Kirsch, Renate; Siehl, Elke; Stockmayer, Albrecht (Nomos, 2017)
Working in environments characterised by a high degree of uncertainty, uncontrollability and unpredictability, development agents try to organise complex realities into manageable units. What principles influence the decision on adequate approaches and necessary steps? Through theoretical considerations and nine case studies, the GIZ traces implementation processes and identifies underlying guiding principles which provide the flexibility and adaptability that is necessary for acting in complex contexts. Main findings show that an adaptive and reflexive management structure is crucial for successful implementation. Quick iteration and tight feedback loops facilitate adaptation and reorientation. Contextsensitive knowledge and constant monitoring create a space for learning and innovation. A joint vision for the future which is used for orientation purposes and can be modified according to new findings and developments fosters fruitful cooperation.

An analysis of what CLA looks like in Development Programming - Learning Lab (USAID, 2017)

Toybox's Adaptive Management in Practice - Malcolm, Emily (Toybox, 2017)
At Toybox, we understand ‘Adaptive Management’ as a broad innovative and learning approach that involves the whole organisation, our partners and funders. ‘Adaptive Programming’ of projects is part of this approach which is greatly enhanced by the Adaptive Management of all actors, including communities and children in the projects. Over the last few years Toybox have been piloting Adaptive Programming with our partners across Latin America, Africa and Asia to support children in street situations. This project has been developed within the wider context of an organisation which is focused on innovation and learning, therefore enabling Adaptive Management to become mainstream within the organisation. This paper captures the experiences and learnings of Toybox to our newly implemented Adaptive Programming approach, through the lens of a small-sized UK-based organisation working with local organisations internationally. This paper explains our learnings, inclusive of why we believe Adaptive Management is important to Toybox and how the organisation has embraced this new approach.

How can we be more adaptive? AdaptScan identifies critical areas for improvement - Mercy Corps (Mercy Corps & IRC, 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Adaptive Leadership in Development course - Moran, Mark; Curth-Bibb, Jodie; Grice, Tim; Glavey, Sarah (edX MOOC, 2017)

Bridging Real-Time Data and Adaptive Management in International Devepment - Case Study Report - Ramalingam, Ben; Barnett, Inka; Valters, Craig; Oppenheimer, Carrie; Levy, Anna; Hernandez, Kevin (IDS, 2017)

Confronting the Contradiction - An exploration into the dual purpose of accountability and learning in aid evaluation - Reinertsen, Hilde; Bjørkdahl, Kristian; McNeill, Desmond (Rapport 2017:06, 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

ING’s agile transformation - Schlatmann, Bart (McKinsey Quarterly, 2017)
Two senior executives from the global bank describe their recent journey.

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

I know what I know (but how do I know what I don’t?) - Smit, Debbie; de Lanerolle, Indra; Braam, Tamara; Byrne, Deborah; Legong, Gontse (MAVC, 2017)
An important support function of Making All Voices Count South Africa is to design, plan and facilitate community of practice gatherings for sustained learning and sharing across Making All Voices Count grantees. This report aims to capture the content of a one-day Making All Voices Count South African Community of Practice (CoP) Meeting held in November 2016. The South African MAVC CoP has been running for three years and has met between two and four times a year. It is a space for MAVC grantees and others working to foster innovation in the fields of transparency and accountability, to share experiences and knowledge, and collaborate in learning and improving work.

FOCEVAL – Promoting Evaluation Capacities in Costa Rica:: Smart(er) Implementation with Capacity WORKS? - Storm, Sabrina (Transformation, Politics and Implementation, 2017)
The National Monitoring and Evaluation System of Costa Rica and its corresponding laws were established during the 1990s. Since then, the country has endeavored to implement monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities as part of its public policy framework. Nevertheless, hardly any systematic evaluations had been conducted, and monitoring activities had been reduced mainly to the institutional self-reporting of implementation compliance. Persisting regional disparities and growing levels of inequality among the population raised the level of pressure on the government to present reliable information on the effectiveness of public interventions. Hence, results-oriented evaluations were promoted by some Costa Rican departments as

Thinking and working politically in large, multi-sector Facilities: lessons to date - Teskey, Graham; Tyrrel, Lavinia (Governance Working Paper 2, 2017)

What exactly do we mean by systems? - Vexler, Dan (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)
Everyone is talking about systems. Or at least, that's how it seems in my wonkish corner of the philanthropic world. You can't attend a conference or even have a meeting without hearing about systems, whether it's people trying to disrupt them, map them, learn from them, or catalyze them.

World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law - World Bank (The World Bank, 2017)

'Leaving No One Behind': Why Ideas Matter - Evans, Alice (2016)

The context v intervention 2x2 | From Poverty to Power - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2016)
Lots of discussion on my US trip around the strengths/weaknesses of the context v intervention 2x2 that suggests particular theories of change acc to situation
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Adaptive Management looks like it’s here to stay. Here’s why that matters. - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2016)
First installment of reflections on my US trip. This is on the rise of adaptive management approaches in USAID, and some of the questions it raises
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Real-Time Data for Adaptive Management at USAID - Doshi, Samir (Health Communication Innovation Webinar, 2016)

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

How to Apply Agile Principles to International Development M&E - ICTworks (ICT Works, 2016)
We all want to be good at our jobs. We want to accomplish the things we set out to do. If we aren’t accomplishing them, we want to figure out why or try new solutions. The trend toward Adaptive M&E is exactly that: a desire to be better at our jobs. Similar trends exist in the software world (agile) and in manufacturing and start-ups (lean). But by any name, this process of seeking to improve is about speeding up decision-making and solution delivery by focusing on incremental, iterative planning and execution. I presented on agile with Monalisa Salib of USAID Learning Lab at MERL Tech 2016. I talked about creating software; she talked about creating evaluation tools for USAID missions, but we were describing the same basic process: Develop, Release, Reflect, and Adapt. You can see our slide deck for more details, but here are the key discussion takeaways that won’t show up there: 1: Eyes on the Prize Any effort should start with a clear definition of what you’re hoping to achieve.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

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

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

Assumption-aware tools and agency; an interrogation of the primary artifacts of the program evaluation and design profession in working with complex evaluands and complex contexts - Morrow, Nathan; Nkwake, Apollo M. (Evaluation and Program Planning, 2016)
Like artisans in a professional guild, we evaluators create tools to suit our ever evolving practice. The tools we use as evaluators are the primary artifacts of our profession, reflect our practice and embody an amalgamation of paradigms and assumptions. With the increasing shifts in evaluation purposes from judging program worth to understanding how programs work, the evaluator’s role is changing to that of facilitating stakeholders in a learning process. This involves clarifying purposes and choices, as well as unearthing critical assumptions. In such a role, evaluators become major tool-users and begin to innovate with small refinements or produce completely new tools to fit a specific challenge or context. We interrogate the form and function of 12 tools used by evaluators when working with complex evaluands and complex contexts. The form is described in terms of traditional qualitative techniques and particular characteristics of the elements, use and presentation of each tool. Then the function of each tool is analyzed with respect to articulating assumptions and affecting the agency of evaluators and stakeholders in complex contexts.
Keywords: Agency; Assumption-aware; Complex context; Complex programs; Participatory approaches; Program design; Program evaluation; Program tools; Theory-based

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

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

Rethinking systemic change: economic evolution and institutions. Discussion paper - Cunningham, Shawn; Jenal, Marcus (BEAM Exchange, 2016)
The primary aim of this research project was to find a conceptually sound definition of systemic change. To do so, it was essential to gain a better understanding of how economies change. The central part of the research work, therefore, was an extended literature review on three bodies of knowledge: evolutionary economics new institutional economics complexity theory There is a growing interest in these bodies of knowledge, combined often called New Economic Thinking, and how they affect economic development. Hence, while rethinking systemic change, this work also contributes to answering the broader question of how market systems approaches can contribute to inclusive economic development. The answer, in short, is to shift the focus away from improving transactions at the micro level towards enabling actors to continuously shape an institutional landscape that supports inclusive economic evolution. This discussion paper briefly presents the key messages from the literature review and seven principles drawing from this literature. The principles can be used by market development practitioners, including technical advisers in donor organisations, programme designers and team leaders, to shape programmes and become more in line with how change happens in the economy. A list of selected references is presented at the end. A technical paper contains a much more detailed discussion of the findings and the principles and an extensive list of references. A case study offers a practitioner perspective through the lens of one market systems development programme: DFID-funded Northern Uganda: Transforming the Economy through Climate Smart Agribusiness – Market Development (NUTEC-MD).

Rethinking systemic change: economic evolution and institutions. Technical Paper - Cunningham, Shawn; Jenal, Marcus (BEAM Exchange, 2016)
The primary aim of this research project was to find a conceptually sound definition of systemic change. To do so, it was essential to gain a better understanding of how economies change. The central part of the research work, therefore, was an extended literature review on three bodies of knowledge: evolutionary economics, new institutional economics and complexity theory. There is a growing interest in these bodies of knowledge, combined often called New Economic Thinking, and how they affect economic development. Hence, while rethinking systemic change, this work also contributes to answering the broader question of how market systems approaches can contribute to inclusive economic development. The answer, in short, is to shift the focus away from improving transactions at the micro level towards enabling actors to continuously shape an institutional landscape that supports inclusive economic evolution. This technical paper provides an in-depth review of the fields of evolutionary economics, new institutional economics and complexity and social change. It is argued that economic development is a complex, non-linear and continuous evolutionary process. Both market and non-market institutions matter greatly in shaping economic performance. The paper then explores the consequences of this understanding for market development practice. It discusses how market development practitioners can engage in and shape an intentional change processes. To translate the theory into practice, seven principles are suggested that can be applied to market systems development practice. The paper concludes with a reframed look at systemic change in market systems development. A discussion paper presents the key messages from the literature review and seven principles drawing from this literature, and a case study offers a practitioner perspective through the lens of one market systems development programme: DFID-funded Northern Uganda: Transforming the Economy through Climate Smart Agribusiness – Market Development (NUTEC-MD).

Scaling accountability through vertically integrated civil society policy monitoring and advocacy - Fox, Jonathan (MAVC Working Paper, 2016)
This working paper argues that the growing field of transparency, participation and accountability (TPA) needs a conceptual reboot, to address the limited traction gained so far on the path to accountability. To inform more strategic approaches and to identify the drivers of more sustainable institutional change, fresh analytical work is needed. This paper makes the case for one among several possible strategic approaches by distinguishing between “scaling up” and “taking scale into account”. This proposition grounds an explanation of the vertical integration strategy, which involves multi-level coordination by civil society organisations of policy monitoring and advocacy, grounded in broad pro-accountability constituencies. To spell out how this strategy can empower pro-accountability actors, the paper contrasts varied terms of engagement between state and society, proposing a focus on collaborative coalitions as an alternative to the conventional dichotomy between confrontation and constructive engagement. The paper grounds this discussion by reviewing the rich empirical terrain of existing multi-level approaches, summarizing nine cases – three each in three countries – to demonstrate what can be revealed when TPA initiatives are seen through the lens of scale. It concludes with a set of broad analytical questions for discussion, followed by testable hypotheses proposed to inform future research agendas

Rethinking systemic change in practice - perspectives from NUTEC-MD in northern Uganda - Koleros, Andrew (BEAM Exchange, 2016)
Document description This document is currently being finalised and will be published shortly. Please try again soon. Recent research by The BEAM Exchange seeks to understand theoretical perspectives on how market systems approaches can contribute to inclusive economic development through systemic change. It produced three main insights. Economies are evolving systems, building on the mechanisms of variety creation, selection and amplification. Current economic performance, including aspects like the inclusiveness of growth and economic evolution, are shaped by the ability of a society to explore different options for institutional arrangements and adjust them over time. This process of evolution is complex. While some aspects can be designed and managed, others need to be explored through a process of learning and adjustment. This paper responds to these insights by providing a practitioner perspective through the lens of one programme: “Northern Uganda: Transforming the Economy through Climate Smart Agribusiness – Market Development (NUTEC-MD)”, implemented by Palladium Group. It begins with a brief introduction to the programme and key aspects of its design phase. It then provides a summary of the three main research insights, with reflections on their applicability for programme design based on the NUTEC-MD experience. Finally, it provides some conclusions for the wider practitioner community based on this case.

Doing Development Differently: Who we are, What we’re doing, What we’re learning - ODI (ODI, 2016)
In November 2014, the doing development differently community got together in Harvard to discuss what successful development interventions look like. Two years on, our community is broader than aid. It's broader than donors. It's about all organisations delivering change, producing real solutions to real problems that have real impact. It's about building trust, empowering people and promoting sustainability. Over the past two years, the community has been putting these ideas into practice across the world – being honest about what we are learning, including where we are not getting things right. This document aims to be an entry point for anyone interested in doing development differently. It explores the things that could be stopping you including: You are constrained by a disabling environment. You have strict reporting requirements. People aren't sold on the idea. It's easier to do things the way you've always done it. It's difficult to do in practice. If you are facing one, several, or all of these constraints, this document gives you a place to start. Using 43 case studies from practitoners within donors, governments, implementing organisations and NGOs across the globe, we aim to draw out some key lessons learnt, and give some advice for people considering this approach. These case studies are split across five categories: Swimming against the tide. Working in and with government. Feedback loops and data. Organisational change. Diffusion. Finally, if you want to know more, the document concludes with a suggested list of blogs and reports which explain these concepts in more detail.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

The Science in Adaptive Management - Ripley, Matt; Jaccard, Sabine (ILO, 2016)
‘Adaptive management’ is all the rage in international development circles. But to avoid yet another buzzword – we need to learn from the experience of natural resource science.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

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

SAVI Approach Paper 11: Managing and Staffing an Adaptive Citizen Engagement Programme - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI, a DFID funded programme implemented by Palladium, is an adaptive programme putting learning and adaptation at the centre of all decision-making. In relation to management and staffing SAVI has established the following approaches to facilitate this: – An adaptive approach to programme management: Full time strategic technical leadership, that works closely with and complements...

SAVI Approach Paper 12: Managing Programme Finances to Support Adaptive, Locally-led Processes of Citizen Engagement in Governance - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI, is seeking to support processes of citizen engagement in governance in ways that are effective in influencing reform, and that are able to take on a life of their own without continuing donor support. SAVI is also an adaptive programme, putting learning and adaptation at the centre of all decision-making. Money is used and...

SAVI Approach Paper 13: Measuring Value for Money and using Value for Money Analysis - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI has established its own framework for assessing Value for Money in annual performance – in relation to expenditure, economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity. Routine tracking and analysis of expenditure and economy ensure that inputs are supplied and services delivered to partners in line with SAVI’s core values, whilst also meeting DFID requirements and competing...

SAVI Approach Paper 14: Learning, Adaptation and Communications - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI, a DFID funded programme implemented by Palladium, is an adaptive programme, aiming to put learning and adaptation at the centre of all decision-making. Learning and adaptation takes place in SAVI at three levels: the work of partners; the work of SAVI delivery teams; and the enabling environment of the programme as a whole. Achieving...

SAVI Approach Paper 15: Introduction to PERL: the SAVI Successor Programme - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
In May 2016, SAVI transitioned into a successor programme – the ‘Engaged Citizens Pillar’ (ECP) of a wider DFID-funded governance reform programme ‘The Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn’ (PERL). ECP is managed by the same service provider, Palladium, and the same core management team as SAVI, and many of the SAVI front line staff...

Forget the money: De-linking technical assistance - Manuel, Clare (Synthesis Paper, 4, 2016)

From analysis to action: operationalising learning and adaptation in Savings at the Frontier - Salehi, Yusef (2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Global Learning for Adaptive Management (GLAM) - DFID (DFID Development Tracker, 2016)
To improve the value for money and impact of development interventions by promoting the use of better monitoring, evaluation and learning strategies that support development programmes to gather and respond to emergent evidence on the effects of interventions, as well as changes in the development context. The Global Learning for Adpative Management programme will make available technical assistance to DFID, USAID and partners to develop this ‘adaptive management’ approach, as well as build an evidence base to understand links between the use of adaptive management and more effective, efficient, relevant and sustainable development interventions.

Shoulder to Shoulder - Hymowitz, Dan (Art of Delivery series, 2016)

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

Scaling Assessment Map: An Evolving Tool Supporting Innovation Scale Up - McClure, Dan; Gray, Ian (ThoughtWorks, 2016)
Nearly three years ago we wrote about the “Missing Middle” in the innovation lifecycle[i], a gap that kept successful pilot programs from reaching the goal of replication and optimization in multiple contexts. Since then, scaling humanitarian innovation has received a great deal of attention from the sector, with a number of new initiatives specifically focused on the scaling challenge.

Positive Deviance Initiative (2016)

Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter - Rock, David; Halvorson, Heidi Grant (Harvard Business Review, 2016)
Research shows they’re more successful in three important ways.

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

LEARN Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning Plan - Learning Lab (USAID, 2016)
LEARN and USAID/PPL are managing an area of work known as Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (EB4CLA). The purpose of this work is to answer key learning questions:

What is adaptive management? - Wilson, Gregory (ΔNTYLLES, 2016)
Recently there has been growing recognition that most development challenges are in actual fact ‘wicked’ problem that requires development actors to recognize that the optimal management approaches…

Should the Principles of Digital Development be Agile? - ICTworks (ICT Works, 2016)
Recently, Abt Associates endorsed the “Principles of Digital Development.” These nine principles have been widely adopted by international development funders and practitioners to absorb and disseminate technology best practices in the field of international development. More than 50 organizations ranging from various offices in the United Nations and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) down to niche technology providers have endorsed the principles. The principles are aimed at moving the field away from a disconnected series of technology pilots, each of which are largely ad hoc and duplicate many of the same lessons, and toward scalability and sustainability. Ann Mei Chang, the Executive Director of the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID in her foreword to the recent report “From Principle to Practice: Implementing the Principles for Digital Development”, characterized the problem that these principles are trying to address as follows: “Pilots have failed to move

Top-down vs. Bottom-up Hierarchy: Or, How to Design a Self-Managed Organization - Sisney, Lex (Organizational Physics - Systems thinking for breakthrough business performance, 2016)
Top-down vs. Bottom-up Hierarchy: Or, How to Design a Self-Managed Organization

Agile vs Lean vs Design Thinking - Gothelf, Jeff (Medium, 2016)
There’s an unforgettable scene in my favorite movie, Goodfellas, where Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta pay a late night visit to…

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

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

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.

Thinking and Working politically to support developmental leadership and coalitions: The Pacific Leadership Program - Denney, Lisa; McLaren, Rebecca (Research Paper, 2016)

DFID Smart Rules: Better Programme Delivery - version VI (2016.10) - DFID (DFID, 2016)
Smart Rules provide the operating framework for the Department for International Development’s (DFID’s) programmes.
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

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

Grow - Scale - Impact: How to help inclusive business achieve scale - Pérez Castro, Andrea A.; Tora, Krisztina (GIZ, 2016)

The 5 Rs Framework in the program cycle - USAID (Program Cycle, 2016)
USAID’s Program Cycle Operational Policy (ADS 201) provides guidance to missions and other operating units on how to implement the Program Cycle. A key principle of the Program Cycle is to “Promote Sustainability through Local Ownership.” The purpose of this Technical Note is to describe the “5Rs Framework”, a practical methodology for supporting sustainability and local ownership in projects and activities through ongoing attention to local actors and local systems. This Note is rooted in USAID’s 2014 Local Systems Framework paper, which establishes that achieving sustained improvement in development results depends on the contributions of multiple and interconnected local actors. That document also states that USAID needs to improve its systems practice if it is to engage local actors and strengthen local systems more effectively and thus realize sustained results more consistently. The 5Rs Framework, also introduced in the Local Systems Framework, is intended as a simple and practical tool to promote good systems practice. The 5Rs Framework highlights five key dimensions of systems: Results, Roles, Relationships, Rules and Resources. Collectively these 5Rs can serve as a lens for assessing local systems and a guide for identifying and monitoring interventions designed to strengthen them. This Technical Note is divided in two parts. The first part provides an introduction to the 5Rs Framework and the systems practice from which it emerges. The second part demonstrates how systems practice can be embedded in the Program Cycle by continuously applying the 5Rs, especially to the design, implementation, and monitoring of USAID projects and their accompanying activities.

Building justice and peace from below? Supporting community dispute resolution in Asia - Valters, Craig (Working Politically in Practice Series: Case Study, 2016)

Announcement of CLA Learning Network Launch - Lab, Learning (USAID Learning Lab, 2016)
USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL), together with the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment’s localworks program, is pleased to announce the launch of a Learning Network focused on building the evidence base for Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA).

Adaptive Programming: The “Space of Possibility” - Seavey, Sara Mizuta (USAID Learning Lab, 2016)
Sara Mizuta Seavey, M.A., is a Senior Program Officer at FHI360 for the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project, where she works with USAID’s Digital Development Team to conceive, design, and test how real-time data systems can enable a more adaptive and participatory approach to development. She is passionate about systems thinking and participatory approaches to international development. What does space travel have to do with international development?

Forward Look - A vision for the World Bank Group in 2030 - World Bank (World Bank, 2016)

The fascinating world of unconscious bias and development policy - d’Almeida, André Corrêa; Grossi, Amanda Sue (The Guardian, 2016)
In the last few years scientists have exposed thinking patterns that may skew our decision-making. How can we counter these biases in humanitarian work?
Keywords: Academic experts; Higher Education Network; Neuroscience; Psychology; education; higher education

edX MOOC: Adaptive Leadership in Development - edX (edX, 2016)
Gain the skills to be an adaptive leader in development and learn how to uncover local solutions to complex problems in developing countries.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adaptive management: What it means for CSOs - O’Donnell, Michael (Bond, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Delivering institutional reform at scale: Problem-driven approaches supported by adaptive programming - Manuel, Clare (Synthesis Paper, 2, 2016)
LASER synthesis papers aim to help donors and other stakeholders better understand why and how to approach investment climate reform programming differently. The papers reflect emerging best practice and lessons learnt on what works and what does not work in doing development differently. The papers have been peer-reviewed by experts in the field including senior advisers at DFID, World Bank, IFC and the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (amongst others). Second synthesis paper - Delivering institutional reform at scale: problem-driven approaches supported by adaptive programming February 2016 Drawing on our experience on the ground, this peer-reviewed paper suggests how problem driven approaches, supported by adaptive programme management can be implemented at scale in relation to donor programming aimed at institutional reform and improving state capability.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting: summary of the literature review (2016.08) - Learning Lab (USAID, 2016)
LEARN and USAID/PPL are managing an area of work known as Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (EB4CLA). The purpose of this work is to answer key learning questions:

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...