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

Large-Scale Transdisciplinary Collaboration for Adaptation Research: Challenges and Insights - Cundill, Georgina; Harvey, Blane; Tebboth, Mark; Cochrane, Logan; Currie‐Alder, Bruce; Vincent, Katharine; Lawn, Jon; Nicholls, Robert J.; Scodanibbio, Lucia; Prakash, Anjal; New, Mark; Wester, Philippus; et al. (Global Challenges, 2019)
An increasing number of research programs seek to support adaptation to climate change through the engagement of large-scale transdisciplinary networks that span countries and continents. While transdisciplinary research processes have been a topic of reflection, practice, and refinement for some time, these trends now mean that the global change research community needs to reflect and learn how to pursue collaborative research on a large scale. This paper shares insights from a seven-year climate change adaptation research program that supports collaboration between more than 450 researchers and practitioners across four consortia and 17 countries. The experience confirms the importance of attention to careful design for transdisciplinary collaboration, but also highlights that this alone is not enough. The success of well-designed transdisciplinary research processes is also strongly influenced by relational and systemic features of collaborative relationships. Relational features include interpersonal trust, mutual respect, and leadership styles, while systemic features include legal partnership agreements, power asymmetries between partners, and institutional values and cultures. In the new arena of large-scale collaborative science efforts, enablers of transdisciplinary collaboration include dedicated project coordinators, leaders at multiple levels, and the availability of small amounts of flexible funds to enable nimble responses to opportunities and unexpected collaborations.
Keywords: Climate change; collaboration; transdisciplinarity

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

Leading Effectively in a VUCA Environment: A is for Ambiguity - Kail, Col Eric G. (Harvard Business Review, 2011)
This is the last in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Diversity and global reach introduce ambiguity to the environment; therefore opportunities and challenges must be appreciated from multiple aspects, not just our own […]
Keywords: Leadership; Leading teams

Leading Effectively in a VUCA Environment: C is for Complexity - Kail, Col Eric G. (Harvard Business Review, 2010)
This is the third in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Our complex environment demands a perspective that goes beyond viewing threats and opportunities as collective; we must see them as interactive. Leading through […]
Keywords: Leadership; Leadership development

Leading in a VUCA Environment: U is for Uncertainty - Kail, Col Eric G. (Harvard Business Review, 2010)
This post is part of an HBR Spotlight examining leadership lessons from the military. It’s the second in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The frenetic pace of our environment, brought on by volatility, […]
Keywords: Leadership

Leading in a VUCA Environment: V Is for Volatility - Kail, Col Eric G. (Harvard Business Review, 2010)
This post is part of an HBR Spotlight examining leadership lessons from the military This is the first in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Do challenges and opportunities that once took days or […]
Keywords: Leadership

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

Lean from the Trenches: Managing Large-Scale Projects with Kanban - Kniberg, Henrik (Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2011)
You know the Agile and Lean development buzzwords, you've read the books. But when systems need a serious overhaul, you need to see how it works in real life, with real situations and people. Lean from the Trenches is all about actual practice. Every key point is illustrated with a photo or diagram, and anecdotes bring you inside the project as you discover why and how one organization modernized its workplace in record time.Lean from the Trenches is all about actual practice.Find out how the Swedish police combined XP, Scrum, and Kanban in a 60-person project. From start to finish, you'll see how to deliver a successful product using Lean principles. We start with an organization in desperate need of a new way of doing things and finish with a group of sixty, all working in sync to develop a scalable, complex system. You'll walk through the project step by step, from customer engagement, to the daily "cocktail party," version control, bug tracking, and release. In this honest look at what works--and what doesn't--you'll find out how to:Make quality everyone's business, not just the testers.Keep everyone moving in the same direction without micromanagement.Use simple and powerful metrics to aid in planning and process improvement.Balance between low-level feature focus and high-level system focus.You'll be ready to jump into the trenches and streamline your own development process.

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.

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:

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

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

Learning, Adaptation & Change: the future of Making All Voices Count - MAVC (Making All Voices Count, 2014)
Learning, Adaptation & Change: what Making All Voices Count has learned since September 2013 and how the programme will adapt and change in the future.

Learning and adaptation: 6 pitfalls to avoid - Valters, Craig (Devex, 2016)

Learning and adapting: the use of monitoring and evaluation in countering violent extremism: a handbook for practitioners - Dawson, Laura; Edwards, Charlie; Jeffray, Calum; Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, 2014)
IN 2013, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) was awarded a grant under the Kanishka Project to develop a handbook for monitoring and evaluating counter violent extremism (CVE) policies and programmes. The aim of this handbook is to support CVE policy-makers and practitioners (those who design, manage and evaluate CVE programmes), by providing them with key terms regarding violent extremism and radicalisation, describing the purpose of evaluation, and providing examples of key methodologies they can employ to conduct monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in this emerging policy field. The handbook will enable readers to understand why, when and how to conduct an evaluation of a CVE policy, programme or project. .

Learning and Results in World Bank Operations: Toward a New Learning Strategy - World Bank (IEG , The World Bank, 2015)
This report is the second in a program of evaluations that the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) is conducting on the learning that takes place through World Bank projects. Learning and knowledge are treated as parts of a whole and are presumed to be mutually reinforcing.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Learning Evaluation Theory: Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Method - Downes, Andrew (Watershed, 2016)
Brinkerhoff’s model isn’t restricted to learning. It can be used to analyze any major business change, such as the purchase of new equipment or implementation of a new process. It’s based on the assumption that any initiative, no matter how successful or unsuccessful, will always include some success and some failure. It seeks to uncover the most impactful successes and failures of an initiative and then tell the stories behind them, backed by evidence. Your organization can use these stories to learn how to be more successful in the future.

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

Learning for social-ecological change: a qualitative review of outcomes across empirical literature in natural resource management - Suškevičs, Monika; Hahn, Thomas; Rodela, Romina; Macura, Biljana; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia (Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2018)

Learning from adaptive programmes - 10 lessons and 10 case studies - Valters, Craig (Overseas Development Institute, 2018)
Internal DFID document from the DevAdapt Programme. Based on another previous document (also internal).

Learning from Results-Based Management evaluations and reviews - Vähämäki, Janet; Verger, Chantal (Development Co-operation Working Papers, 2019)
What have we learned from implementing results-based management in development co-operation organisations? What progress and benefits can be seen? What are the main challenges and unintended consequences? Are there good practices to address these challenges? To respond to these questions this paper reviews and analyses the findings from various evaluations and reviews of results-based management systems conducted by members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the OECD/DAC Results Community Secretariat and other bodies in the past four years (2015-2018). It also draws on emerging lessons from new methods for managing development co-operation results. This analytical work aims to: identify recent trends in results-based management, explore challenges faced by providers when developing their results approaches and systems, select good practices in responding to these challenges that can be useful for the OECD/DACResults Community, considering new approaches, new technologies and evolving contexts. This body of evidence will inform the development of a core set of generic guiding principles for results-based management in development co-operation.

Learning how to go local: Lessons from six learning journeys for the Open Government Partnership - Moses, Michael; Soal, Sue (2017)
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). The evidence from L-MAVC suggests that supporting citizen engagement with, and use of, OGP, and improving the extent to which OGP commitments are shaped by and matter to citizens in subnational districts, is not straightforward. Findings suggest that efforts to broaden and deepen citizen engagement with OGP, including at subnational levels, may be more effective when combined with support that helps local OGP champions iteratively learn and adapt, and discover and apply localisation models that fit best in their contexts. OGP and its partners may strengthen the impact of the initiative, and indeed, the impact of those working to leverage OGP at and below country level, by making structured learning support more available to local reformers. Targeted advocacy, focused on institutionalising collaborative OGP processes, and on linking subnational action with National Action Plans (NAPs), may also be useful.

Learning how to learn: eight lessons for impact evaluations that make a difference - Ramalingam, Ben (ODI, 2011)
This Background Note outlines key lessons on impact evaluations, utilisation-focused evaluations and evidence-based policy. While methodological pluralism is the key to effective impact evaluation in development, the focus here is on the factors that need to be considered for impact evaluations to be used in policy and practice – regardless of the method employed.

‘Learning journeys’ for adaptive management – Where does it take us? - Ørnemark, Charlotte (GPSA Note 12, 2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Learning Lab - Collaborate, Learn and Adapt for better development outcomes - Learning Lab (USAID, 2013)
CLA is: a component of several missions' CDCSes. a conceptual framework for some principles and operational processes that can enable USAID to become a more effective learning organization and thereby a more effective development organization. an approach to facilitating local participation and capacity and promoting country-led development. For more information on CLA visit:

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

Learning study on 'the users' in Technology for Transparency and Accountability initiatives: Assumptions and realities - McGee, Rosemary; Carlitz, Ruth (IDS, 2013)

Learning to Adapt: Building Adaptive Management as a Core Competency in Development Practice - Ramalingam, Ben (Institute of Development Studies, 2016)
Key messages 1. Development policies and programs increasingly operate in situations of high complexity and uncertainty. 2. There are growing efforts across the sector to design, plan and implement more adaptive responses that are more relevant and appropriate in such contexts 3. At the heart of effective adaptive programming is the capability to gather, interpret and use knowledge, information and data in real-time 4. Strengthening this capability requires a positive enabling environment—including tools and methods, structures and processes, leadership and management and culture and mindsets. 5. For adaptive development to succeed, there needs to be greater attention and investment in both knowledge, information and data systems and in appropriate enabling environments
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Learning to Adapt: Exploring Knowledge, Information and Data for Adaptive Programmes and Policies - Workshop Summary Report - fhi360 (IDS, 2015)
Adaptive management is increasingly seen as critical capability for development programmes and policies that are more effective, efficient, relevant and sustainable. There is increasing recognition that such work requires significant changes to the organizational structures, management processes, accountability and performance cultures and indivi

Learning to ADAPT: monitoring and evaluation approaches in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction – challenges, gaps and ways forward - Silva Villanueva, Paula (SRC Discussion Paper, 2011)
This working paper is a methodological contribution to the emerging debate on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the context of climate change adaptationand disaster risk reduction. Effectively managing disaster risk is critical for adapting to the impacts of climate change, however disasters risk reduction M&E practice may be limited in capturing progress towards adaptation. The unique nature of adaptation to climate change calls for experience-based learning M&E processes for discovering the key insights into adaptive capacity and its links to adaptation processes, and to risk and vulnerability reduction at large. The ADAPT guiding principles and indicators set the foundations towards this end.

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

Learning to make all voices count: Lessons and reflection on localising the Open Government Partnership - Moses, Michael (2017)
This report 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 overarching sets of lessons emerge from the experiences of L-MAVC grantees. First, supporting citizen engagement and government accountability in subnational contexts, and localising the 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 the OGP and its partners, donors and multilateral institutions, and practitioners and policy-makers. The evidence from L-MAVC suggests that 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 and to grant-making practices – may be warranted

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.

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)

Leather sector reform in Bangladesh - Harris, Dan (Working Politically in Practice, 2016)
This paper examines the Asia Foundation’s efforts to support change in Bangladesh’s leather sector. Working closely with local partners, the Asia Foundation team has specifically supported efforts to move tanneries out of a dangerously polluted location to a modern industrial park that will improve compliance with health and environmental protection standards, and potentially lead to growth in the sector. At the time of release, this critical relocation has already begun. This case study lays out the real-time decisions and processes which drove the strategy and implementation of this project, providing useful insights into how politically astute and flexible programs can be successfully implemented. This case has emerged from an action research process, which was led by a researcher from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and conducted over the course of almost two years. By capturing and analyzing the experiences of the program team in Bangladesh, the paper intends to provide practical insights for others in the development community aiming to implement similar kinds of programming. This is the seventh paper in the DFAT-TAF Partnership Working Politically in Practice Paper Series released under the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and The Asia Foundation (TAF) Partnership.

Leaving No One Behind in a Digital World - Hernandez, Kevin; Roberts, Tony (K4D Emerging Issues Report, 2018)

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

Lessons for Effective resilience programs: a case study of the RAIN program in Ethiopia - Kleiman, Shanti (Mercy Corps, 2013)
The RAIN program experience affirms the importance of multi-year and flexible funding as key program design features if progress in resilience building is to be supported in areas with high levels of structural and temporal vulnerability. These features enable management to respond effectively to changing circumstances in order to better meet the needs of communities and to create the necessary conditions for relief-to-development strategies to take hold. Finally, this study found that deliberate and effective coordination between donor agencies can ensure that development gains achieved during one program period are directly leveraged by subsequent programs, thereby increasing the effectiveness of resilience programs.

Lessons from a trial of the Success Case Method - McGuinness, Liz (Better Evaluation, 2017)
The Success Case Method approach is useful for documenting stories of impact and for understanding the factors that help or hinder impact. It is particularly useful for uncovering the contextual forces that influence impact. Originally designed for evaluating corporate training programs, the Success Case Method is now being applied to other programs including international development interventions. Last year, I provided technical assistance to a pilot of the Success Case Method as part of the USAID-funded Complexity-Aware M&E Trials.

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

Life and death in the App Store - Newton, Casey (The Verge, 2016)
As last year began, the app developer Pixite held its company retreat at a converted Old West movie set outside of Palm Springs. They spent a few days dreaming about the future while eating...

Lifestyle politics and the concept of political participation - Moor, Joost de (Acta Politica, 2017)
Van Deth’s comprehensive ‘conceptual map of political participation’ has reinstated a lively debate about the concept of political participation, and provides some compelling solutions to it. However, an important question that has been raised is whether van Deth’s map actually achieves its main goal of unambiguously identifying and classifying emerging, complex types of participation, like online political activism – or lifestyle politics. To contribute to this debate, this article aims to evaluate the usefulness of van Deth’s approach for the analysis of lifestyle politics. Such an evaluation requires a clear classification of lifestyle politics. This, however, is still missing from the literature. The second aim of this article, therefore, is to identify and classify different types of lifestyle politics. On the basis of a literature review, this article argues that lifestyle politics are often enacted throughout different private, public and institutional arenas, and that they are often targeted at various social, economic and political actors at once. Applying van Deth’s conceptual map to these empirical realities, then, suggests that it cannot always account for their complexity sufficiently. Therefore, this article proposes a modification of van Deth’s framework that increases its usefulness for analyzing emerging, complex political participation repertoires.

Livelihoods in the Za'atari Camp: Impact evaluation of Oxfam’s Cash for Work activities in the Za’atari camp (Jordan) - Lombardini, Simone; Mager, Franziska (http://hdl.handle.net/10546/620883, 2019)

Local Empowerment Through Rapid Results - Matta, Nadim; Morgan, Peter (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2011)
Why local ownership and commitment are the exception in most development efforts—and what development professionals can do about this problem.

Local First in practice - Pinnington, R (Peace Direct, 2014)

Local Systems: a framework for supporting sustained development - USAID (USAID, 2014)

Local Works Guidance - Round 4 - USAID (USAID, 2019)

Localizing Development : Does Participation Work? - Mansuri, Ghazala; Rao, Vijayendra (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013)
The Policy Research Report Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? brings analytical rigor to a field that has been the subject of intense debate and advocacy, and billions of dollars in development aid. It briefly reviews the history of participatory development and argues that its two modalities, community-based development and local decentralization, should be treated under the broader unifying umbrella of local development. It suggests that a distinction between organic participation (endogenous efforts by civic activists to bring about change) and induced participation (large-scale efforts to engineer participation at the local level via projects) is key, and focuses on the challenges of inducing participation. The report provides a conceptual framework for thinking about participatory development and then uses this framework to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature. The framework develops the concept of “civil society failure” and explains its interaction with government and market failures. It argues that participatory development, which is often viewed as a mechanism for bypassing market and government failures by ”harnessing” civic capacity, ought to be seen instead as a mechanism that, if done right, could help to repair important civil society failures. It distills literature from anthropology, economics, sociology, and political science to outline the challenges for effective policy in this area, looking at issues such as the uncertainty of trajectories of change, the importance of context, the role of elite capture and control, the challenge of collective action, and the role of the state. The review of the evidence looks at a variety of issues: the impact of participatory projects on inclusion, civic capacity, and social cohesion; on key development outcomes, such as income, poverty, and inequality; on public service delivery; and on the quality of local public goods. It draws on the evidence to suggest several recommendations for policy, emphasizing the key role of learning-by-doing. It then reviews participatory projects funded by the World Bank and finds the majority lacking in several arenas – particularly in paying attention to context and in creating effective monitoring and evaluation systems that allow for learning.

Logics of Government Innovation and Reform Management in China - Husain, Lewis (STEPS centre, 2015)
Since the beginning of reforms in the late 1970s, China has developed rapidly, transforming itself into a middle-income country, raising hundreds of millions out of poverty and, latterly, developing broad-based social protection systems. The country’s approach to reform has been unorthodox, leading many to talk of a specific Chinese model of development. This paper analyses the role of innovation (chuangxin) and experimentation in the Chinese government repertoire and their contribution to management of change during the rapid, complex and interconnected reforms that China is undergoing. ‘Innovation’ is understood as the process of generation, putting into use, and spread, of new ideas. This contemporary focus on innovation is an extension of an older Chinese government attachment to sub-national initiative in policy formulation and development that goes back to the beginnings of the PRC and before. Central government backing for, and endorsement of, proactive agency on the part of sub-national governments responds to a belief that China is too large, and conditions around the country too diverse, to allow adoption of ‘one size fits all’ policy. Sub-national governments are expected to show initiative in adapting policy locally, and creating locally-useable policy solutions within the overall scope of central policy mandates/ paradigms. The paper argues that innovation by sub-national government is systemically embedded: while central government sets the policy agenda, local governments are frontline managers, and develop a range of policy practices. Differences in conditions between localities mean that multiple variant policy practices are often in circulation at any one time. While innovation is not quantifiable in the aggregate, there is much controlled experimentation, freewheeling innovation, and trial and error, all of which are part of a search for new policy fixes and institutional solutions. Many forms of policy transfer and learning are in evidence, including much central learning from sub-national models, as well as sub-national circulation of a range of innovative policy practices. While much government innovation is not ‘original’, and may be ‘inefficient’ or of little systemic usefulness, overall, the churn of government innovation remains valuable in underpinning systemic adaptation and reform. The paper situates the analysis of government innovation within a larger framework on the functioning of Chinese government and international literature on policy transfer, and outlines an agenda for future research on the structural bases of Chinese government innovation and its contribution to adaptive management.

M&E Universe - intrac (INTRAC, 2019)
The M&E Universe is a free, online resource developed by INTRAC to support development practitioners involved in monitoring and evaluation (M&E). It consists of a series of short papers (2-6 pages) on different subjects related to M&E. It can be explored through an online platform (intrac.org/universe) that is compatible with most web browsers. The M&E Universe is designed for M&E practitioners with different levels of experience and expertise in M&E, from those new to M&E who want an entry level into the subject to experienced practitioners wanting to broaden their knowledge. Initial contact with the Map will provide people with a starting point for understanding different aspects of M&E and how they link to each other. More experienced practitioners can browse the Map to identify more advanced subjects of interest, such as sampling methods, different forms of evaluation, organisational M&E systems and complex methodologies for data collection and analysis.

Making adaptive rigour work - Principles and practices for strenghening monitoring, evaluation and learning for adaptive management - Ramalingam, Ben; Wild, Leni; Buffardi, Anne L (ODI/GLAM, 2019)
Adaptive programmes can be accountable, rigorous and high quality in how they use evidence by taking an ’adaptive rigour’ approach. Core development and humanitarian challenges are complex, and require processes of testing, learning and iteration to find solutions – adaptive management offers one approach for this. Yet large bureaucracies and development organisations can have low tolerance for experimentation and learning, and adaptive management can be viewed as an excuse for ‘making things up as you go along’. This briefing from the Global Learning for Adaptive Management (GLAM) initiative argues that adaptive programmes can be accountable, rigorous and high quality in how they use evidence – but this requires rethinking some key assumptions about how they are practised. The paper sets out three key elements of an ‘adaptive rigour’ approach: - Strengthening the quality of monitoring, evaluation and learning data and systems. - Ensuring appropriate investment in monitoring, evaluation and learning across the programme cycle. - Strengthening capacities and incentives to ensure the effective use of evidence and learning as part of decision-making, leading ultimately to improved effectiveness.

Making All Voices Count: A Slam Dunk? - Global Integrity (Global Integrity, 2012)
Yesterday, I had the chance to attend the public launch of a new government transparency and accountability funding mechanism – Making All Voices Count. Held at USAID headquarters, the discussion featured a veritable who’s who of open government and transparency practitioners in the Washington area; probably 250 people were packed into the room. (Announcing a …

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

Making design core to the agile process: a look into how we built Salesforce's Lightning Experience - Schoen, Ian (Medium, 2016)
A look into how we built Salesforce’s Lightning Experience

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

MAKING - Fostering new ideas for social inclusion and accountable, responsive governance - Edwards, Duncan (Think Piece, 2014)

Making good on donors’ desire to Do Development Differently - Honig, Dan; Gulrajani, Nilima (Third World Quarterly, 2018)
AbstractForeign aid donors are increasingly focused on changing the way their development agencies function. This discourse has focused on desired qualities, including greater knowledge of local contextual realities, appropriate adaptation to context and greater flexibility to respond to changing circumstances. We argue that more attention needs to be devoted to the achievement of these qualities and turn to contingency theory to identify some under-exploited ways to ?do development differently?. The qualities sought by donors are emergent properties of complex organisational systems and will only be achieved through a micro-level and interlinked focus on the fundamentals of organisation.

Making Good Use of Adaptive Management - Doremus, Holly; Andreen, William L.; Camacho, Alejandro E.; Farber, Daniel A.; Glicksman, Robert L.; Goble, Dale D.; Karkkainen, Bradley C.; Rohlf, Dan; Tarlock, A. Dan; Zellmer, Sandra B.; Jones, Shana Campbell; Huang, Yee (White Paper #1104, 2011)

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

Making humanitarian response more flexible: Challenges and questions - Obrecht, Alice; Bourne, S. (ALNAP/ODI, 2018)

Making politics work for development: harnessing transparency and citizen engagement - Khemani, Stuti; Ferraz, Claudio; Finan, Frederico S.; Johnson, Stephenson; Louise, Corinne; Abrahams, Scott David; Odugbemi, Adesinaola Michael; Dal Bó, Ernesto; Thapa, Dikshya (Policy Research Report, 2016)
Too often, government leaders fail to adopt and implement policies that they know are necessary for sustained economic development. They are encumbered by adverse political incentives, which prevent them from selecting good policies, and they run the risk of losing office should they try to do the right thing. Even when technically sound policies are selected by leaders, implementation can run into perverse behavioral norms among public officials and citizens, who seek to extract private benefits from the public sector. Such behavior might be supported by widespread beliefs that corruption is the norm. Even countries with low corruption and strong institutions experience problems of political incentives and behavior that prevent the public sector from solving shared problems. Ideological polarization among citizens and capture by special interests can lead to policy gridlock and the failure of the state to provide public goods, even in advanced economies. Even educated citizens can hold ideological beliefs about the role of public policy that lead them to deny technical evidence contrary to these beliefs. Too often, government leaders fail to adopt and implement policies that they know are necessary for sustained economic development. Political constraints can prevent leaders from following sound technical advice, even when leaders have the best of intentions. Making Politics Work for Development: Harnessing Transparency and Citizen Engagement focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. In today’s participative world, citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using modern communication technology to select, sanction, and pressure the leaders who wield power within government. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways even within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Political engagement becomes unhealthy when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, giving rise to a range of government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency—citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government and the consequences of these actions—can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement. The report distills policy lessons for governments, international development partners, and civil society on how best to target transparency initiatives so that the provision of public goods becomes the focus of political contestation. Even so, unhealthy political engagement may persist. But to build institutions that are capable of tackling public goods problems, politics needs to be addressed and cannot be side-stepped. Targeted transparency is one way to move in the right direction: it complements everything else policy makers do and holds the potential to make politics work for development rather than against it. " This pathbreaking report places politics at the heart of the development dialogue—exactly where it belongs. It provides constructive ideas for harnessing the forces of transparency and citizen engagement in ways that are suited to diverse institutional contexts so that reform leaders can overcome political constraints to their countries’ development goals. " Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Director of Research, Development Research Group, The World Bank "This book not only provides an authoritative statement of what we know about how to align political incentives with the interests of society, but it does so with an eye to making change happen even in the face of political opposition. The World Bank will never be the same again. " James Robinson, University Professor, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago " A lesson for us at the World Bank also comes out of this research. We can do more…to work with our clients to diminish political constraints to achieving development goals…To do this we have to overcome the fear of talking about politics, and confront it as part of the challenge of development. That is what we are doing through this report. " Kaushik Basu, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, The World Bank

Making Sense of Complexity: Using SenseMaker as a Research Tool - Van der Merwe, Susara E.; Biggs, Reinette; Preiser, Rika; Cunningham, Charmaine; Snowden, David J.; O’Brien, Karen; Jenal, Marcus; Vosloo, Marietjie; Blignaut, Sonja; Goh, Zhen (Systems, 2019)
There is growing interest in studying processes of human sensemaking, as this strongly influences human and organizational behavior as well as complex system dynamics due to the diverse lenses people use to interpret and act in the world. The Cognitive Edge SenseMaker® tool is one method for capturing and making sense of people’s attitudes, perceptions, and experiences. It is used for monitoring and evaluation; mapping ideas, mind-sets, and attitudes; and detecting trends and weak signals. However, academic literature describing the tool-set and method is lacking. This introduction aims to guide researchers in choosing when to use SenseMaker and to facilitate understanding of its execution and limitations. SenseMaker can provide nuanced insight into system-level patterns of human sensemaking that can provide insight to nudge systems towards more desirable futures, and enable researchers to measure beyond what they know.
Keywords: Mixed methods; SenseMaker tool; complex systems; sensemaking; social complexity

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

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

Management not models: adaptability, responsiveness, and a few lessons from football - Maclay, Christopher (Development in Practice, 2015)
Despite a swathe of critiques of logframes and other blueprint approaches to development over the last 30 years, most aid infrastructure continues to concentrate on the design and subsequent implementation of closed models. This article does not propose an alternative to blueprints, but challenges the inflexibility of their implementation, which is inadequate given the complex nature of social change. It proposes a supplementary management and learning approach which enables implementers to be dynamic, adaptive, and responsive to problems and opportunities. Emphasising the role of donors, the paper presents a case study of one donor-led programme in Bangladesh doing just this.

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

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

Managing Facilities: a stock-take from the first 12 months - Tyrrel, Lavinia; Teskey, Graham; de Lacy, Jacqui (Governance Working Paper 3, 2017)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Measuring Impact: A Learning Approach to Strengthening USAID Biodiversity Programs - Lauck, Liz (Updates from the field: perspectives on Learning from USAID-funded Activites, 2014)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mind the gaps: What's missing in political economy analysis and why it matters - Hudson, David; Marquette, Heather (A Governance Practitioner’s Notebook: Alternative Ideas and Approaches, 2015)
The Governance Practitioner’s Notebook takes an unusual approach for the OECD-DAC Network on Governance (GovNet). It brings together a collection of specially written notes aimed at those who work as governance practitioners within development agencies. It does so, however, without attempting to offer definitive guidance – instead aiming to stimulate thinking and debate. To aid this process the book is centred on a fictional Governance Adviser. The Notebook’s format provides space for experts to speak on today’s governance issues: politics, public sector reform and stakeholder engagement. It encourages debate, charts the evolution of donor thinking, and highlights future challenges in the age of the Sustainable Development Goals. Each section introduces both technical issues and major areas of debate, providing ideas for future development support to institutional reform.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

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

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

MIRADI: Adaptive Management Software for Conservation Projects (2018)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday morning in Kigali: what do you do when you get off the plane? Practical guidance for PDIA practitioners - LASER (Synthesis Paper, 1, 2016)
In order to help enhance the effectiveness of donors and development practitioners on the ground, LASER has produced a range of practical guidance and tools. These are primarily intended for the international development community engaged in designing and implementing investment climate programmes, though can also be used more widely by other stakeholders across sectors. General guidance and tools: Monday morning in Kigali January 2016 - what do you do when you get off the plane? Practical guidance for PDIA practitioners
Keywords: IMPORTANT; Practice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning for Complex Programs in Complex Contexts: Three Facility Case Studies - Davda, Tara; Tyrrel, Lavinia (Governance Working Paper 6, 2019)

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

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning approaches in an adaptive management context - Tsui, Josephine (Helpdesk Request, 2016)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nairobi Outcome Document (2016)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

NetworkWeaver (NetworkWeaver, 2018)
Weaving Smart Networks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Operationalizing the Science of Delivery Agenda to Enhance Development Results - Gonzalez Asis, Maria; Woolcock, Michael (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015)
The clear development gains achieved in recent decades should not deflect attention from the scale and type of challenges that remain. The strategies largely responsible for these initial gains have been technical reforms promoting economic growth and logistical systems supplying basic inputs. Today, strategies are needed that focus on enhancing the quality of implementation— for example, ensuring learning and not just building schools and enrolling students. This concern now spans numerous domains of professional practice (especially health) and has entered World Bank discussions framed as the “science of delivery.” At the World Bank, the Global Delivery Initiative (GDI) is an operational manifestation and extension of these ideas. To date, the GDI has prepared a number of different case studies across numerous sectors on ways in which innovative teams solve particular problems during project implementation. On the basis of the initial case studies, the authors outline five key principles of how high-quality implementation occurs and invite others to add to this growing storehouse of knowledge. Specifically, task teams are encouraged to develop “live” case studies by and for their staff, documenting how, in real time, implementation challenges are being met. Projects must “learn” more rapidly and systematically how to solve the myriad range of complex implementation challenges they inevitably encounter, since most of these (by definition) cannot be anticipated ex ante. Delivery challenges of this kind will only intensify in the coming years as citizens demand effective responses to ever-more complex—and contentious—policy domains, such as justice, regulation, and taxation.

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

Opportunities for Using Complexity-Aware Approaches to Theory of Change - Goodier, Sarah; Apgar, Marina (SDC-IDS Briefing Note 8, 2018)
The purpose of this briefing note is to review opportunities for using complexity aware approaches to Theory of Change (ToC) to inform the SDC approach. It provides an overview of complexity-aware approaches and then focuses on demonstrating how complexity thinking can support programming by building on the frameworks currently being used in the project/programme cycle management (PCM) processes. It is aimed at SDC staff, in particular Programme Officers and staff of partner organisations involved in the management of SDC interventions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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