Failure, Success and Improvisation of Information Systems Projects in Developing Countries - Heeks, Richard (Development Informatics Working Paper Series, No.11/2002, 2002)
Research on the Information Society, the Digital Divide and Information and Communication Technologies for development

Information Systems and Developing Countries: Failure, Success, and Local Improvisations - Heeks, Richard (The Information Society, 2002)
This article presents evidence that–alongside the successes– many information systems in developing countries can be categorized as failing either totally or partially. It then develops a new model that seeks to explain the high rates of failure. The model draws on contingency theory in order to advance the notion of design-actuality gaps: the match or mismatch between IS designs and local user actuality. This helps identify two high-risk archetypes that affect IS in developing countries: country context gaps and hard-soft gaps. The model is also of value in explaining the constraints that exist to local IS improvisations in developing countries. Overall, the article shows how model and theory help understand IS cases in developing countries, and equally, how those cases provide valuable data to help develop IS models and theories.
Keywords: Developing Country; Evaluation; Failure; Information System; implementation

Most egovernment-for-development projects fail: how can risks be reduced? - Heeks, Richard (Development Informatics Working Paper Series, No.14, 2003)
Research on the Information Society, the Digital Divide and Information and Communication Technologies for development

Success and Failure in eGovernment Projects - Heeks, Richard (eGovernment for Development, 2008)

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

Making Outcome Mapping Work - Volume 2 - Innovations in Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation - Hearn, Simon; Schaeffer, Heidi; van Ongevalle, JAn (Outcome Mapping Learning Community, 2009)

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.

What is impact? - Hearn, Simon; Anne, Buffardi (2016)
• Impact is a multi-dimensional concept. Some definitions focus on very precise understandings of impact, while others cast a much broader net. • How impact is defined and used has a significant effect on the design, management and evaluation of development programmes. • Development programmes should hold explicit conversations with different stakeholders about how impact is used and understood, in order to come to a shared understanding. • There are six dimensions of impact that may help development programmes be clearer about what they mean.

What we’ve learned about adaptive management from our Somalia education programming - Heales, Charlotte (Care Insights, 2020)
Adaptive management in its various incarnations has long been a focus of a development community that is more and more frequently bumping up against the barriers of complexity, and looking for ways to overcome its challenges. In a field where we consistently have to deal with multifaceted problems,...

Large language model applications for evaluation: Opportunities and ethical implications - Head, Cari Beth; Jasper, Paul; McConnachie, Matthew; Raftree, Linda; Higdon, Grace (New Directions for Evaluation, 2023)
Large language models (LLMs) are a type of generative artificial intelligence (AI) designed to produce text-based content. LLMs use deep learning techniques and massively large data sets to understand, summarize, generate, and predict new text. LLMs caught the public eye in early 2023 when ChatGPT (the first consumer facing LLM) was released. LLM technologies are driven by recent advances in deep-learning AI techniques, where language models are trained on extremely large text data from the internet and then re-used for downstream tasks with limited fine-tuning required. They offer exciting opportunities for evaluators to automate and accelerate time-consuming tasks involving text analytics and text generation. We estimate that over two-thirds of evaluation tasks will be affected by LLMs in the next 5 years. Use-case examples include summarizing text data, extracting key information from text, analyzing and classifying text content, writing text, and translation. Despite the advances, the technologies pose significant challenges and risks. Because LLM technologies are generally trained on text from the internet, they tend to perpetuate biases (racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, and more) and exclusion of non-majority languages. Current tools like ChatGPT have not been specifically developed for monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) purposes, possibly limiting their accuracy and usefulness for evaluation. In addition, technical limitations and challenges with bias can lead to real world harm. To overcome these technical challenges and ethical risks, the evaluation community will need to work collaboratively with the data science community to co-develop tools and processes and to ensure the application of quality and ethical standards.

Digital Principles into practice - HDIF (HDIF, 2018)

Beneficiary Feedback Mechanisms - Hayman, Rachel (INTRAC, 2020)
There is a growing emphasis among NGOs and donors on ensuring that the voices of beneficiaries are heard. A range of beneficiary feedback mechanisms (BFMs) exist which enable beneficiary perspectives and suggestions to be gathered and used within an M&E system. BFMs are tools designed to enable a continuous cycle of interaction between those receiving and those delivering aid-funded interventions.

Program Logic Foundations: Putting the Logic Back into Program Logic - Hawkins, Andrew J. (Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, 2020)
Abstract Background: Program logic is one of the most used tools by the public policy evaluator. There is, however, little explanation in the evaluation literature about the logical foundations of program logic or discussion of how it may be determined if a program is logical. This paper was born on a long journey that started with program logic and ended with the logic of evaluation. Consistent throughout was the idea that the discipline of program evaluation is a pragmatic one, concerned with applied social science and effective action in complex, adaptive systems. It gradually became the central claim of this paper that evidence-based policy requires sound reasoning more urgently than further development and testing of scientific theory. This was difficult to reconcile with the observation that much evaluation was conducted within a scientific paradigm, concerned with the development and testing of various types of theory. Purpose: This paper demonstrates the benefits of considering the core essence of a program to be a proposition about the value of a course of action. This contrasts with a research-based paradigm in which programs are considered to be a type of theory, and in which experimental and theory-driven evaluations are conducted. Experimental approaches focus on internal validity of knowledge claims about programs and on discovering stable cause and effect relationships—or, colloquially, ‘what works?’. Theory-driven approaches tend to focus on external validity and in the case of the realist approach, the search for transfactual causal mechanisms—extending the ‘what works’ mantra to include ‘for whom and in what circumstances’. On both approaches, evaluation aspires to be a scientific pursuit for obtaining knowledge of general laws of phenomena, or in the case of realists, replicable context-mechanism-outcome configurations. This paper presents and seeks to justify an approach rooted in logic, and that supports anyone to engage in a reasonable and democratic deliberation about the value of a course of action. It is consistent with systems thinking, complexity and the associated limits to certainty for determining the value of a proposed, or actual, course of action in the social world. It suggests that evaluation should learn from the past and have an eye toward the future, but that it would be most beneficial if concerned with evaluating in the present, in addressing the question ‘is this a good idea here and now? Findings: In seeking foundations of program logic, this paper exposes roots that extend far deeper than the post-enlightenment, positivist and post-positivist social science search for stable cause and effect relationships. These roots lie in the 4th century BCE with Aristotle’s ‘enthymeme’. The exploration leads to conclusions about the need for a greater focus on logic and reasoning in the design and evaluation of programs and interventions for the public good. Science and research are shown to play a crucial role in providing reasons or warrants to support a claim about the value of a course of action; however, one subordinate to the alpha-discipline of logical evaluation and decision making that must consider what is feasible given the context, capability and capacity available, not to mention values and ethics. Program Design Logic (PDL) is presented as an accessible and incremental innovation that may be used to determine if a program makes sense ‘on paper’ in the design stage as well as ‘in reality’ during delivery. It is based on a configurationalist theory of causality and the concepts of ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’ conditions. It is intended to guide deliberation and decision making across the life cycle of any intervention intended for the public good.

Strengthening Farmers’ Capacity for Technology Development - Haverkort, Bertus; Hiemstra, Wim; Reijntjes, Coen; Essers, Sander (ILEIA Newsletter, 1988)
First Reference to Participatory Technology Development

Digitally-induced change in the public sector: a systematic review and research agenda - Haug, Nathalie; Dan, Sorin; Mergel, Ines (Public Management Review, 2023)
Digital transformation has become a buzzword that is permeating multiple fields, including public administration and management. However, it is unclear what is transformational and how incremental and transformational change processes are linked. Using the PRISMA method, we conduct a systematic literature review to structure this growing body of evidence. We identified 164 studies on digitally-induced change and provide evidence for their drivers, implementation processes, and outcomes. We derive a theoretical framework that shows which incremental changes happen in public administrations that are implementing digital technologies and what their cumulative, transformative effects are on society as a whole.

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

The Dynamics of Team Learning: Harmony and Rhythm in Teamwork Arrangements for Innovation - Harvey, Jean-François; Cromwell, Johnathan R.; Johnson, Kevin J.; Edmondson, Amy C. (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2023)
Innovation teams must navigate inherent tensions between different learning activities to produce high levels of performance. Yet, we know little about how teams combine these activities—notably reflexive, experimental, vicarious, and contextual learning—most effectively over time. In this article, we integrate research on teamwork episodes with insights from music theory to develop a new theoretical perspective on team dynamics, which explains how team activities can produce harmony, dissonance, or rhythm in teamwork arrangements that lead to either positive or negative effects on overall performance. We first tested our theory in a field study using longitudinal data from 102 innovation teams at a Fortune Global 500 company; then, we replicated and elaborated our theory in a study of 61 MBA project teams at an elite North American university. Results show that some learning activities can occur within the same teamwork episode to have harmonious positive effects on team performance, while other activities combine to have dissonant negative effects when occurring in the same episode. We argue that dissonant activities must be spread across teamwork episodes to help teams achieve a positive rhythm of team learning over time. Our findings contribute to theory on team dynamics, team learning, and ambidexterity.

Salt River Ecosystem Restoration Project - Adaptive Management Plan - Harvey, H.T. (Humboldt County Resource Conservation District, 2011)

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

How ICT4D Research Fails the Poor - Harris, Roger W. (Information Technology for Development, 2016)
Research can improve development policies and practices and funders increasingly require evidence of such socioeconomic impact from their investments. This article questions whether information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) research conforms to the requirements for achieving socioeconomic impact. We report on a literature review of the impact of research in international development and a survey of ICT4D researchers who assessed the extent to which they follow practices for achieving socioeconomic impact. The findings suggest that while ICT4D researchers are interested in influencing both practice and policy, they are less inclined toward the activities that would make this happen, especially engaging with users of their research and communicating their findings to a wider audience. Their institutions do not provide incentives for researchers to adopt these practices. ICT4D researchers and their institutions should engage more closely with the users of their research through more and better communications with the public, especially through the use of information and communication technologies.
Keywords: ICT4D; Policy making; Practice; Research; impact

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

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.

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

The Last 10 Per Cent: Why the World Needs a Leaner, More Innovative and Pragmatic Development Sector, Today - Harper, Erica (Routledge India, 2023)
Criticism that the development sector has not delivered in terms of eliminating extreme poverty, fast-tracking growth and preventing conflict, is neither new nor surprising. In fact, it may be the one thing that scholars, donors and practitioners agree on. While many of these concerns are valid, this book makes a case that the sector is closer to unlocking the gates to more effective and efficient development outcomes than is popularly believed. Specifically, it argues that by overturning a few myths, making better use of evidence and employing some different rules, practitioners, policy specialists and donors can foster the changes in the development architecture that are needed to reach the 10 percent of the world’s population still living in extreme poverty.Engaging, provocative and clear sighted, the book provides insight into interventions around democratic governance, refugee response, counterterrorism, gender mainstreaming, environmental protection and private sector engagement. It is instructive reading for professionals across the development sector, think tanks and NGOs.

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure - Harford, Tim (Abacus, 2012)
Everything we know about solving the world's problems is wrong. Out: Plans, experts and above all, leaders. In: Adapting - improvise rather than plan; fail, learn, and try againIn this groundbreaking new book, Tim Harford shows how the world's most complex and important problems - including terrorism, climate change, poverty, innovation, and the financial crisis - can only be solved from the bottom up by rapid experimenting and adapting.From a spaceport in the Mojave Desert to the street battles of Iraq, from a blazing offshore drilling rig to everyday decisions in our business and personal lives, this is a handbook for surviving - and prospering - in our complex and ever-shifting world.

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

Guide to Innovation Partnerships – A United Nations Ghide - Halse, Michelle; Ginsberg-Fletcher, Gabriella; Balbi, Luisa (UN Global Pulse, 2023)

System Stewardship. The future of policy making? - Hallsworth, Michael (Institute for Government, 2011)
This working paper looks at the future of policy making in a world of decentralisation and more complex problems. It argues that policy makers need to see themselves less as sitting on top of a delivery chain, but as stewards of systems with multiple actors and decision makers – whose choices will determine how policy is realised. We are keen to open up a debate on what this means.

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

Accountability ecosystems: directions of accountability and points of engagement - Halloran, Brendan (IDS, 2016)
Accountability, the obligation of those in power to take responsibility for their actions, is a process involving relationships between different actors (in state and society) and mechanisms, and is influenced by many contextual factors. Using the lens of an accountability ‘ecosystem’ focuses our attention on the complexity of accountability processes. An ‘ecosystem’ perspective suggests that simple ideas about accountability – such as citizen feedback reaching decision-makers ensures more accountability, or that greater transparency equals greater accountability – are often actually much more complex.

Getting Strategic about Technology and Accountability: MAVC Learning and Inspiration Event in Manila - Halloran, Brendan (Politics, Governance and Development, 2016)
Two years ago, Jonathan Fox released a widely read and well-received paper looking at the evidence for citizen-led accountability.  In it, he noted the proliferation of short-term, isolated interve…

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.

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…

Politics, Political Change and International Development - Halloran, Brendan (Politics, Governance and Development, 2013)
As my inaugural post on my new blog, I thought I would re-post a short piece I wrote earlier this year about foreign aid (original here). Thomas Carothers and Diane de Garamont address this issue i…

Strengthening Accountability Ecosystems: a Discussion Paper - Halloran, Brendan (Think Piece, 2015)

Thinking and working politically in the transparency and accountability field - Halloran, Brendan (Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 2014)

Why Learning & Adaptation are Central to Making All Voices Count - Halloran, Brendan (Making All Voices Count, 2014)

We have experimented with different approaches to systems transformation — here are five insights - Haldrup, Søren Vester (UNDP Innovation, 2021)
At UNDP Innovation we are on a journey to shift our approach to innovation to help tackle complex development challenges. In short, we are moving away from single point solutions, and instead we are…

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

Reflections on applying iterative and incremental software development methodologies to aid and development work in developing countries - Haikin, Matt (MattHaikin.com, 2013)

Understanding Indicators And Monitoring For Sustainability In The Context Of Complex Social-Ecological Systems - Haider, L. Jamila; Iribarrem, Alvaro; Gardner, Toby; Latawiec, Agnieszka E; Alves-Pinto, Helena; Strassburg, Bernardo (De Gruyter Open, 2015)

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

Learning to Learn: Improving International Governance - Haas, Peter M.; Haas, Ernst B. (Global Governance, 1995)

When Knowledge is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations - Haas, Ernst B. (University of California Press, 1991)
Do governments seeking to collaborate in such international organizations as the United Nations and the World Bank ever learn to improve the performance of those organizations? Can international organizations be improved by a deliberate institutional design that reflects lessons learned in peacekeeping, the protection of human rights, and environmentally sound economic development? In this incisive work, Ernst Haas examines these and other issues to delineate the conditions under which organizations change their methods for defining problems. Haas contends that international organizations change most effectively when they are able to redefine the causes underlying the problems to be addressed. He shows that such self-reflection is possible when the expert-generated knowledge about the problems can be made to mesh with the interests of hegemonic coalitions of member governments. But usually efforts to change organizations begin as adaptive practices that owe little to a systematic questioning of past behavior. Often organizations adapt and survive without fully satisfying most of their members, as has been the case with the United Nations since 1970. When Knowledge Is Power is a wide-ranging work that will elicit interest from political scientists, organization theorists, bureaucrats, and students of management and international administration.

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

Voice or chatter? Making ICTs work for transformative engagement: research report summary - Gurumurthy, Anita; Bharthur, Deepti; Chami, Nandini (MAVC Research Report, 2017)
What are the conditions in democratic governance that make information and communication technology (ICT)-mediated citizen engagement transformative? While substantial scholarship exists on the role of the Internet and digital technologies in triggering moments of political disruption and cascading upheavals, academic interest in the sort of deep change that transforms institutional cultures of democratic governance, occurring in ‘slow time’, has been relatively muted. This study attempts to fill this gap. It is inspired by the idea of participation in everyday democracy and seeks to explore how ICT-mediated citizen engagement can promote democratic governance and amplify citizen voice. The study involved empirical explorations of citizen engagement initiatives in eight sites – two in Asia (India and Philippines), one in Africa (South Africa), three in South America (Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay) and two in Europe (Netherlands and Spain).

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

Reforming donors in fragile states: using public management theory more strategically - Gulrajani, Nilima; Honig, Dan (Overseas Development Institute, 2016)
This paper identifies ways in which donors can be more effective in fragile and conflict-affected states by exploiting theories and concepts drawn from public management.

Inspiring Radically Better Futures - Evidence and Hope for Impact at Scale in a Time of Crisis - Guijt, Irene; Mayne, Ruth (Oxfam, 2020)
The world faces converging crises of health, climate, gender and racial injustice and extreme economic inequality. The calls are mounting to ‘build back better’ to create more inclusive, caring and environmentally sustainable futures. But what evidence exists that this is possible? The Inspiring Better Futures case study series investigates whether radical change at scale is possible and how it was achieved. This paper synthesises 18 cases which show that people are already successfully building better futures, benefitting millions of people, even against the odds in some of the world’s toughest contexts in lower-income countries. Together they offer hope that transformative change and radically better futures after the pandemic are within reach.

The Learning Power of Listening - Guijt, Irene; Gottret, Maria Veronica; Hanchar, Anna; Deprez, Steff; Muckenhirn, Rita (PRACTICAL ACTION PUBLISHING, 2022)
Steff had the pleasure to co-author the first SenseMaker Practitioner Guide with a group of friends and colleagues supported and published by Oxfam and CRS. This practical guide is for those who wish to use SenseMaker to conduct assessments, monitor progress, and undertake evaluations or research. Drawing on more than a decade of experience, the authors share dozens of examples from international development, providing practical tips and ideas for context-specific adaptations. They show how the method can be used to for difficult-to-measure outcomes related to poverty reduction, social justice, peacebuilding, resilience, gender norms, behavior change, governance and environmental management. ​ SenseMaker is a unique participatory method of inquiry that encourages and enables novel insights not obtained from conventional quantitative and quantitative and qualitative methods. It is action-oriented and, therefore, well-suited for people needing data- informed insights for adaptive management. "Writing this guide together with Irene, Veronica, Anna and Rita was an enormous learning process in itself and has further shaped our thinking and practice. We hope it will support first-time and experienced users to enhance their practice and that it will inspire people to explore and innovate further with the method."

Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation: Learning from change - Guijt, Irene; Gaventa, John (IDS Policy Briefing, 1998)
Development organisations need to know how effective their efforts have been. But who should make these judgements, and on what basis? Usually it is outside experts who take charge. Participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) is a different approach which involves local people, development agencies, and policy makers deciding together how progress should be measured, and results acted upon. It can reveal valuable lessons and improve accountability. However, it is a challenging process for all concerned since it encourages people to examine their assumptions about what constitutes progress, and to face up to the contradictions and conflicts that can emerge.

Accountability and Learning: Exploding the Myth of Incompatibility between Accountability and Learning - Guijt, Irene (NGO Management - The Earthscan Compendium, 2010)
When accountability is understood as reporting on pre-deined deliverables, it is often considered to be irreconcilable with learning. This conventional wisdom inhibits an appreciation of their connection. In this chapter, Irene Guijt exposes the laws and traps in reasoning that keep accountability and learning apart. She provides practitioners with principles and basic good ideas that open up prospects for accountability and learning to complement each other.

ALPS in action: a review of the shift in ActionAid towards a new Accountability, Learning and Planning System | Participatory Methods - Guijt, Irene (2004)

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."

Scaling up Social Accountability in Complex Governance Systems: A Relational Approach for Evidencing Sustainability - Guerzovich, Florencia; Wadeson, Alix (World Bank, 2024)
When social accountability interventions scale up and their sustainability depends on the interactions of many agents and system components, related results are rarely observable at the end of an intervention. The 2019 OECD Development Assistance Committee’s (OECD DAC) revamped evaluations criteria for assessing sustainability acknowledges that such results are often emergent, and should be monitored and evaluated with this in mind. It therefore emphasizes a turn towards assessing complex processes prospectively. It also asks evaluations to consider how likely it is that these results are evident at the time they are monitored or evaluated. However,the social accountability field continues to have gaps regarding doing this effectively in practice. This paper presents and provides evidence from testing an innovative operational approach that has promising potential to support this aim - a sequential, relational rubric. This approach can support practitioners to monitor, evaluate and learn about the causal processes of scale up of social accountability interventions with an eye towards sustainability i.e., considering prospective sustainability. It is grounded in systems thinking, co-production and social learning theory, as well as links with collective governance and social contract theory for development. Evidence yielded from the authors’ testing of this approach on a sample of diverse projects from the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) program revealed that the alleged ‘absence of evidence’ dilemma of social accountability scale up is due to ill-fitting concepts and methods for assessment. It challenges existing assumptions and findings that claim that social accountabilityprocesses do not scale and are unsustainable. The authors propose that by using fit-for-purpose concepts and methods with a focus on social learning and compromise – also called a ‘resonance pathway to scale’ which this paper discusses in detail – it is possible to observe loosely coordinated scale up processes at work in many (but not all) social accountability interventions and identify tangible evidence of prospective sustainability. An important caveat is that these processes, the outcomes they generate, and the corresponding evidence often look qualitatively different than the original intervention design and predictions for scale-up at that point in time. This is because the process of deliberation and compromise inherent to social accountability work in dynamic local systems introduces changes and new conditions for uptake by diverse actors in the public sector, civil society, and donor institutions. The paper concludes that even relatively small-scale localized projects of three to five years with budgets of less than one million USD, across different contexts and sectors can produce processes and outcomes which contribute to many forms of sustainability, including via scaleup.Furthermore, the cross-fertilization of learning and aggregation of results for scale-up across projects within and beyond the GPSA (and other programs) can help monitoring evaluation and learning (MEL) and social accountability practitioners alike to deliver on a program’s mandate. Doing so can also create new knowledge for the wider social accountability field that siloed interventions, lacking suitable concepts and methods for assessing scale-up and prospective sustainability, often fail to produce. The paper ends with recommendations for taking forward this approach and the associated benefits, implications and required investments.

Adaptive Learning - Guerzovich, Florencia; Poli, Maria (GPSA Note 5, 2014)

Anatomy of Social Accountability 3.0: A working framework for moving forward - Guerzovich, Florencia; Aston, Tom (Florianopolis, SC, Brazil: Grupo Politeia, ESAG, University of the State of Santa Catarina and act4delivery, 2023)
This note presents the key components of a potential next generation of social accountability programming. The key aspects outlined emerge from a review of over 150 cases as well as tacit knowledge from dozens of practitioners (Guerzovich and Aston, 2023).The main thread of social accountability 3.0 and what distinguishes it from previous generations is a focus on its contribution towards more responsive systems and accountable social contracts. In particular, social accountability should be considered as an operational means to rework social contracts.Over the last two decades, the field has been defined by a supposed dichotomy between minimalist (i.e., “widget” based) approach or a maximalist (“go big or go home”) approaches. Yet, most practice sits somewhere between these extremes. The paper presents various options derived from practice; practitioners should choose whichever best fits their own particular circumstances.Those hoping to improve and expand their practice with a systems-lens may benefit from considering how they approach the key elements of social accountability 3.0.
Keywords: accountability; development; responsiveness; social accountability; social contract; systems

Social Accountability 3.0: Engaging Citizens to Increase Systemic Responsiveness. Background Paper - Guerzovich, Florencia; Aston, Tom (Grupo Politeia, ESAG, UDESC and act4delivery, 2024)
Social accountability has become increasingly important to development programming since the 2004 World Development Report spearheaded its first generation of programming. In 2016, Thomas Carothers synthesized global experts’ perspectives on what became known as the second generation. With an evolving global context, new research and evaluations and tacit knowledge on how those assumptions played out in practice, the time is ripe for asking what the evidence since 2004 can tell us about what the social accountability’s next generation might look like? This meta-analysis takes stock of that knowledge through a systems lens and presents a possible “social accountability 3.0.” It draws on a database of 157 cases of initiatives implemented by different civil society organizations around the world and the lived experience of practitioners. Scholarly debates present practitioners’ options in binary terms, contrasting 1.0 minimalist and 2.0 maximalist options. The review finds that this binary is inaccurate and misleading; it masks practitioners’ diverse interpretations of 2.0 and range of feasibility considerations. Instead, work in the last decade looks more like a mosaic. By opening the analysis to the broader range of evidence, and reflecting more critically on scholars’ assumptions, a more adaptable middle path for social accountability 3.0 emerges. Its key outcomes include contributing to systemic responsiveness and an operational mechanism to rework the social contract.

Adaptive Management Across Project Cycles: Look into Coherence in Time - Guerzovich, Florencia (Medium, 2023)
This is a series about Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning (MEL) whether sets of interventions/portfolios are adding more together than each one would produce on their own. In post 1, I pointed to coherence, the new OECD-DAC evaluation criteria as a way to bridge the ambition of bringing bigger change with the MEL world. In post 2, I shared 3 of 4 practical lessons I’ve learned in experimenting with MEL systems and exercises that focus explicitly on interactions of interventions/portfolios. In the third post, I bring Paul Pierson’s groundbreaking argument for social science to MEL. Paraphrasing, most contemporary MEL takes a “snapshot” view of interventions and portfolios, distorting their effects and meaning by ripping them from their temporal context. Instead, we should place in time interventions/portfolios with the ambition to add more than the sum of the part by constructing MEL systems looking at “moving pictures” rather than taking snapshots. ...

Addressing the evaluation-of-sustainability-paradox: A relational rubric for evidencing… - Guerzovich, Florencia (Medium, 2024)
Florencia Guerzovich and Alix Wadeson

Does the whole add more than the SUM of its parts? - Guerzovich, Florencia (Medium, 2023)
This is a series about Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning (MEL) whether sets of interventions/portfolios are adding more together than each one would produce on their own. In post 1, I pointed to coherence, the new OECD-DAC evaluation criteria as a way to bridge the ambition of bringing bigger change with the MEL world. In post 2, I shared 3 of 4 practical lessons I’ve learned in experimenting with MEL systems and exercises that focus explicitly on interactions of interventions/portfolios. In the third post, I bring Paul Pierson’s groundbreaking argument for social science to MEL. Paraphrasing, most contemporary MEL takes a “snapshot” view of interventions and portfolios, distorting their effects and meaning by ripping them from their temporal context. Instead, we should place in time interventions/portfolios with the ambition to add more than the sum of the part by constructing MEL systems looking at “moving pictures” rather than taking snapshots.

Storytelling and Evaluation: Can Pathways be the Theory Missing in Explanatory Narratives? - Guerzovich, Florencia (Medium, 2023)
Florencia Guerzovich

Three out of Four Practical Lessons about right fitting MEL for Additive Effects - Guerzovich, Florencia (Medium, 2023)
This is a series about Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning (MEL) whether sets of interventions/portfolios are adding more together than each one would produce on their own. In post 1, I pointed to coherence, the new OECD-DAC evaluation criteria as a way to bridge the ambition of bringing bigger change with the MEL world. In post 2, I shared 3 of 4 practical lessons I’ve learned in experimenting with MEL systems and exercises that focus explicitly on interactions of interventions/portfolios. In the third post, I bring Paul Pierson’s groundbreaking argument for social science to MEL. Paraphrasing, most contemporary MEL takes a “snapshot” view of interventions and portfolios, distorting their effects and meaning by ripping them from their temporal context. Instead, we should place in time interventions/portfolios with the ambition to add more than the sum of the part by constructing MEL systems looking at “moving pictures” rather than taking snapshots.

Scaling Up Development Impact - Guerrero, Isabel; Gokhale, Siddhant; Fahsbender, Jossie (Bowker, 2023)
Today, nearly one billion people lack electricity, over three billion lack clean water, and 750 million lack basic literacy skills. Many of these challenges could be solved with existing solutions, and technology enables us to reach the last mile like never before. Yet, few solutions attain the necessary scale to match the size of these challenges. Scaling Up Development Impact offers an analytical framework, a set of practical tools, and adaptive evaluation techniques to accompany the scaling process. It presents rich organizational experiences that showcase real-world journeys toward increased impact. From the people from IMAGOgg.org

Beyond the log frame: a new tool for examining health and peacebuilding initiatives - Grove, Natalie J.; Zwi, Anthony B. (Development in Practice, 2008)
How do we move from identifying ethical principles to enhancing development practice? How can donors and NGOs move beyond the reporting of technical outputs to explore less tangible aspects of their health projects: contributions to rebuilding trust, promoting social cohesion, and enhancing good governance at community level? This article considers these questions in relation to health and peace-building activities in conflicted settings. It describes difficulties facing practitioners and donors seeking to undertake health and peace work, in particular focusing on the lack of appropriate tools for screening, monitoring, and evaluating projects. It critiques the logical framework, a tool commonly used in project planning, monitoring, and evaluation, and considers it alongside a new tool, the Health and Peace Building Filter, which has been designed to reflect on health programming in fragile or conflicted settings. The authors argue that such tools can help to move us beyond focusing on inputs and outputs to examining processes, relationships, and the indirect consequences of aid programmes.

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

Information Technology and Political Engagement: Mixed Evidence from Uganda - Grossman, Guy (2016)

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

Good Enough Governance Revisited - Grindle, Merilee S. (Development Policy Review, 2007)
The concept of good enough governance provides a platform for questioning the long menu of institutional changes and capacity-building initiatives currently deemed important (or essential) for development. Nevertheless, it falls short of being a tool to explore what, specifically, needs to be done in any real world context. Thus, as argued by the author in 2004, given the limited resources of money, time, knowledge, and human and organisational capacities, practitioners are correct in searching for the best ways to move towards better governance in a particular country context. This article suggests that the feasibility of particular interventions can be assessed by analysing the context for change and the implications of the content of the intervention being considered.

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

The Radical How - Greenway, Andrew; Loosemore, Tom (Nesta and Public Digital, 2024)
Any mission-focused government should be well equipped to define, from day one, what outcomes it wants to bring about. But radically changing what the government does is only part of the challenge. We also need to change how government does things. The usual methods, we argue in this paper, are too prone to failure and delay. There’s a different approach to public service organisation, one based on multidisciplinary teams, starting with citizen needs, and scaling iteratively by testing assumptions. We’ve been arguing in favour of it for years now, and the more it gets used, the more we see success and timely delivery. We think taking a new approach makes it possible to shift government from an organisation of programmes and projects, to one of missions and services. It offers even constrained administrations an opportunity to improve their chances of delivering outcomes, reducing risk, saving money, and rebuilding public trust. The Radical How in a nutshell The struggles and shortcomings of delivering in government are well rehearsed. Many of the root causes that make it tough have been restated several times over several decades. But what to do? We believe the government can and should change how it delivers, by: organising around multidisciplinary teams embracing incremental, feedback-driven iteration focusing more on outcomes. The Radical How is a change of mindset as much as a change in organisation. It promotes methods and processes that have been shown to work, multiple times, at scale. They are the default ways of working for many of the world’s most successful companies. However, the occasions where they have been deployed are rare in government. These occasions have come about thanks to exceptional leaders, exceptional circumstances, or both. We think they’d make a big difference if they became the norm, rather than the exception. We also think that without them, mission oriented government will not become a reality. New policy ideas will remain just that, rather than translating into profound improvements to society. Central to this approach is the widespread adoption of internet-era ways of working. This paper explains both those and our thinking in more detail, with reference to real examples.

From Thinking Politically To Working Politically: Are We Really Doing Development Any Differently? (2019)
In June it will be seven years since the Center for Global Development published the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) paper. Few academic papers have had such an impact on development thinking. The question is whether the paper – and subsequent debate and experimentation - have had a demonstrable and beneficial impact on development practice. Experience to date suggests thinking politically is easier than working politically. Practitioners in development agencies, governments and contractors find that convincing theoretical literature can be tricky to operationalize in a fractious environment. Still, a growing number of programs have set out to be politically informed in design and politically savvy in implementation. Engaging the reality of politics creates the potential to promote change. To consider these issues, Abt Associates is hosting a workshop for international development practitioners in Washington, DC, on June 18th, 2019, to discuss the successes and failures in operationalizing this agenda. The session will allow practitioners to discuss experiences in TWP and propose solutions or approaches. Please join us in this Innovations in Governance series finale where four internationally renowned thinkers and doers will join us to offer their perspectives.

Adaptive Programming in Fragile, Conflict and Violence-Affected Settings, What Works and Under What Conditions?: The Case of Institutions for Inclusive Development, Tanzania - Green, Duncan; Guijt, Irene (Action for Empowerment and Accountability Research Programme, 2019)
Adaptive Management involves a dynamic interaction between three elements: delivery, programming and governance. This case study focuses on a large DfID governance project, the Institutions for Inclusive Development (I4ID), a five-year initiative in Tanzania. The study forms part of a research project to examine whether and how adaptive approaches can strengthen aid projects promoting empowerment and accountability in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings (FCVAS). The research examines some of the assertions around the adaptive management approach and explores if and how adaptive approaches, including rapid learning and planning responses (fast feedback loops and agile programming) are particularly relevant and useful for citizen empowerment and government accountability (E&A) in FCVAS.
Keywords: A4EA; Adaptive Development; Economy; Fishery

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

A top Toolkit on Adaptive Management. But is that a good idea? – FP2P - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2021)

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

Book Review: ‘Thinking and Working Politically in Development’ - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2020)
Review of a new book that explores the 'secret sauce' of Coalitions for Change - an unusually successful governance programme in the Philippines

From poverty to power: how active citizens and effective states can change the world - Green, Duncan (2012)
From Poverty to Power From Poverty to Power argues that a radical redistribution of power, opportunities, and assets rather than traditional models of charitable or government aid is required to break the cycle of poverty and inequality. The forces driving this transformation are active citizens and effective states. Published in association with Oxfam GB. Full description

How Change Happens - Green, Duncan (OUP Oxford, 2016)
Human society is full of would-be 'change agents', a restless mix of campaigners, lobbyists, and officials, both individuals and organizations, set on transforming the world. They want to improve public services, reform laws and regulations, guarantee human rights, get a fairer deal for those on the sharp end, achieve greater recognition for any number of issues, or simply be treated with respect. Striking then, that not many universities have a Department of Change Studies, to which social activists can turn for advice and inspiration. Instead, scholarly discussions of change are fragmented with few conversations crossing disciplinary boundaries, rarely making it onto the radars of those actively seeking change. This book bridges the gap between academia and practice, bringing together the best research from a range of academic disciplines and the evolving practical understanding of activists to explore the topic of social and political change. Drawing on many first-hand examples from the global experience of Oxfam, one of the world's largest social justice NGOs, as well as the author's insights from studying and working on international development, it tests ideas on How Change Happens and offers the latest thinking on what works to achieve progressive change. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is available as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

How to do Adaptive Management in 15 easy steps – from a top new toolkit – FP2P - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2021)

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

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

Rules of Thumb – good idea or double-edged sword? - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2020)
A recent conversation with a good governance programme in Myanmar tried to identify its underlying rules of thumb. Was that a good idea?

Second (and Third) Thoughts on Adaptive Management and Thinking and Working Politically - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2022)
Self-Critical reflections on AM and TWP. Linking it with The Hype Cycle - "it feels like we are heading downward to the ‘trough of disillusionment’ form the initial peak of ‘inflated expectations’, but we will bounce back to something more sustained, that becomes a permanent feature of the aid landscape".

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

The Hidden Life of Theories of Change - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2020)
A smart new report explores how a good idea - theories of change - is distorted by the way it is implemented in the aid sector

The NGO-Academia Interface: Realising the shared potential - Green, Duncan (The Social Realities of Knowledge for Development, 2017)
This edited collection of peer-reviewed papers explores critical challenges faced by organisations and individuals involved in evidence-informed development through a diverse set of case studies and t...

Theories of Change for Promoting Empowerment and Accountability in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings - Green, Duncan (IDS Working Paper, 2017)
This paper explores the current state of thinking among a range of aid actors (multilaterals, bilateral, applied scholars and international non-governmental organisations) on how to promote empowerment and accountability in fragile, conflict and violence affected settings. It seeks to identify trends, gaps and weaknesses in that thinking, and propose research questions and hypotheses to test. Three underlying sources of confusion are identified that are hindering progress on both understanding empowerment and accountability in fragile, conflict and violence affected settings, and taking helpful action to promote it. They are: Theory of endogenous change (e.g. on how empowerment and accountability arise in situ) versus the theory of action of an external intervention; Fragility versus conflict: there is no clear justification for combining these different aspects into a single category; and Empowerment versus accountability: donor analysis and practice has been overwhelmingly weighted towards accountability, exhibiting limited understanding or interest in the nature of power.
Keywords: A4EA; External actors; Participation

Thinking and working politically: What have we learned since 2013? – FP2P - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2022)
It’s always a red letter day when a new paper from Graham Teskey drops. His most recent is Thinking and working politically: What have we learned since 2013? For those that don’t know him, Graham is a consummate insider-outsider within the aid sector – long stints at DFID (UK), DFAT (Australia) and now Abt (Management Consultants). From this vantage point he has been one of the leading proponents of ‘thinking and working politically’, always ready to call out the hand-wavey academics and demand some practical lessons, please. This paper is part biography of an idea, setting out the timeline, moments and key documents and policy wins in the evolution of TWP (which seems to have involved a lot of seminars that I missed due to Oxfam’s meagre travel budget). The other part is, to be honest, a bit of a lament – a study in ‘Why Change Hasn’t Happened’, because TWP has ‘got lost in the maelstrom’ of the wider, largely negative, changes in the aid sector. Overall, it’s a brilliant summary, and one I’ll be recommending to my increasingly long-suffering activism students….

What are the Simple Rules that guide our Strategies? - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2019)
A management treatise on 'simplre rules' for companies facing unpredictable situations could provide useful guidance to aid organizations

What is different about how INGOs do Adaptive Management/Doing Development Differently? - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2019)

Where have we got to on Thinking and Working Politically? Update and a Mildly Heretical Thought. – FP2P - Green, Duncan (From Poverty to Power, 2022)
Headed off recently to discuss the state of Thinking and Working Politically within the aid sector. This is a loose network of aid wonks that came together to try and move aid from a pure focus on technical issues, towards taking account of power and politics and why they can facilitate/frustrate attempts to make change happen in any given context. It was great to be in a room with others (50/50 in person and online) – the neurons fire in a way that just doesn’t happen online (but I also need to brush up on my meeting skills, as when I accidentally clicked on a random video in my timeline and it started playing at full volume. Super awkward). On to the content (Chatham House rule, so no names or institutions). Some observations about the evolution of a movement I’ve been connected with for over a decade. I got a lot of pushback from participants on an earlier draft and have made quite a few changes, but they should definitely feel free to set me straight in comments!

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

The Difference Learning Makes - Factors that enable and inhibit adaptive programming - Gray, Stephen; Carl, Andy (Christian Aid, 2022)
Executive Summary When Christian Aid (CA) Ireland devised its multi-country and multi-year Irish Aid funded Programme Grant II (2017-2022), they opted to move away from a linear programme management approach and to explore an adaptive one. Across seven countries: Angola, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, CA and partner organisations support marginalised communities to realise their rights, reduce violence and address gender inequality. Since 2019, Adapt Peacebuilding has accompanied CA Ireland, CA country teams and partner organisations as they experimented with using a deliberate adaptive approach. The authors were also asked to follow up on an initial study by CA Ireland and Overseas Development Institute in 2018, which described the rationale for adopting this new approach and included early lessons from its first year of implementation. The aim of this study is to help deepen CA Ireland, CA country teams’ and partners’ understanding of (a) whether their application of adaptive programming has resulted in better development outcomes, and (b) how they can better understand the factors that enabled or inhibited the effectiveness of using this approach. Over the past three years, this study has found evidence and multiple examples that show adaptive programming contributed to better development outcomes. The main reasons cited were that these were made possible both from improvements to programming strategies based on proactive reflection and learning, as well as those that stem from the reactive capacity of adaptive programmes to change course in response to unanticipated changes in operating conditions. This study found that adaptive programming has enabled better development practice where organisations are enhancing their skills to better respond and be flexible to contextual challenges. 72% of partners surveyed described adaptive programming as the most useful approach to programme management that they have used. The programme approach has meant that CA and partner staff were better able to explore the significance of change in the context and their contributions to them. It also enabled spaces for meaningful engagement with communities in learning and programme planning processes and encouraged opportunities for experimentation in programming. The study also found that adaptive programming has supported flexible delivery. This led to better outcomes that would not have been possible were the programme not able to make flexible adjustments. The main focus has been the analysis of nine factors that can determine the effectiveness and impact (or otherwise) of using an adaptive approach, flagging important issues for understanding. These factors are identified as: 1) Leadership; 2) Organisational culture; 3) Conceptual understanding; 4) Staff capacities; 5) Partnership approaches; 6) Participation; 7) Methods and tools; 8) Administrative procedures; and 9) The operating context. Together these can provide an analytical framework for assessing an organisation’s ‘adaptive scope’, which can be used as a tool for better understanding an organisation’s potential to generate improved development outcomes via adaptive programming and how to strengthen them. The study concludes with several recommendations for CA Ireland, all of which have relevance for a broader community of donors and implementing organisations interested in the potential of adaptive programming.

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

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things - Grant, Adam (WH Allen, 2023)
#1 New York Times bestseller "This brilliant book will shatter your assumptions about what it takes to improve and succeed. I wish I could go back in time and gift it to my younger self. It would've helped me find a more joyful path to progress."-Serena Williams, 23-time Grand Slam singles tennis championThe #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again illuminates how we can elevate ourselves and others to unexpected heights.We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distances we ourselves can travel. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess – it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.This book reveals how anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.

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

Evaluating with the Success Case Method - Gram, Tom (Performance X Design, 2011)
The method was developed by Robert Brinkerhoff as an alternative (or supplement) to the Kirkpatrick approach and its derivatives. It is very simple and fast (which is part of it’s appeal) and goes something like this: Step 1. Identify targeted business goals and impact expectations Step 2. Survey a large representative sample of all participants in a program to identify high impact and low impact cases Step 3. Analyze the survey data to identify: a small group of successful participants a small group unsuccessful participants Step 4. Conduct in-depth interviews with the two selected groups to: document the nature and business value of their application of learning identify the performance factors that supported learning application and obstacles that prevented it. Step 5. Document and disseminate the story report impact applaud successes use data to educate managers and organization The process produces two key outputs In-depth stories of documented business effect that can be disseminated to a variety of audiences Knowledge of factors that enhance or impede the effect of training on business results. Factors that are associated with successful application of new skills are compared and contrasted with those that impede training. It answers practical and common questions we have about training and other initiatives: What is really happening? Who’s using what, and how well? Who’s not using things as planned? What’s getting used, and what isn’t? Which people and how many are having success? Which people and how many are not? What results are being achieved? What value, if any, is being realized? What goals are being met? What goals are not? Is the intervention delivering the promised and hoped for results? What unintended results are happening? What is the value of the results? What sort of dollar or other value can be placed on the results? Does the program appear to be worthwhile? Is it producing results worth more than its costs? What is its return on investment? How much more value could it produce if it were working better? How can it be improved? What’s helping? What’s getting in the way? What could be done to get more people to use it? How can everyone be more like those few who are most successful?

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

Enhancing partner and system-level learning: 8 Tips from MEL Managers - Gover, Dun; Nasution, Zulka; Okutu, David; Bolder, Meghan; Henao, Lina (MSD in MEL Brief, 2023)
Effective learning is a key driver of market systems change, with the potential to enhance system competitiveness, resilience, and inclusiveness. Shifting the Locus of Learning: Catalyzing Private Sector Learning to Drive Systemic Change recently outlined a rationale for enhancing the scale and quality of learning in a system and identifying 10 strategies programs can contextualize to catalyze learning. These strategies are also backed with robust examples from 13 programs doing this work across 11 countries. To deepen insights on what MSD Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Managers have experienced in putting several of those strategies into practice, the Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) Activity convened a series of peer discussions as part of a larger initiative (see Figure 1). This brief shares the collective learning and experience on this topic of three senior MEL Managers who were interested in and had experience with this topic. The group represented full-time, program-based MEL Leads working on MSD programs funded by USAID and DFAT, based in Fiji, Albania, and Kosovo working for Adam Smith International, SwissContact, and DT Global, respectively. From those discussions, this paper synthesizes eight tips from MEL Managers for practically enhancing partner and system-level learning: 1. Identify the right decision-maker(s) at potential partners. 2. Use a co-creation process to identify learning opportunities. 3. Use diagnostics and assessments to strengthen partner and system capacity for actionable learning. 4. Use a phased capacity strengthening process tied to behavior change. 5. Measure partners’ continued investment in and use of learning—not the continuation of specific learning activities. 6. Work with sector-level institutions for scale but be aware of risks. 7. Leverage informal communities of practice to share learning. 8. Use the right terminology to talk about partner and system-focused learning.

Practioners Guide to Assessing Systems Change - Gover, Dun; Nasution, Zulka; Okutu, David; Bolder, Meghan; Henao, Lina (MSD in MEL Brief, 2023)

Practitioners Guidance to Assessing Systems Change: Co-Authors Preview - Gover, Dun; Nasution, Zulka; Okutu, David; Bolder, Meghan; Henao, Lina (USAID, 2023)
Check out this video to see what’s inside our new resource: Practitioners' Guidance to Assessing Systems Change, developed by MEL Managers for MEL Managers. (Check out the Guidance here https://bit.ly/MSPMELClinics.) Hear from the authors about which parts they love the most and how this guide challenges MEL managers to assess systems change as an ongoing aspect of implementation, generating feedback that teams need to better understand and catalyze change, for more impact.

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)

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

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

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.

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

Fostering Systems Change - Gopal, Srik; Kania, John (2015)
Five simple rules for foundations seeking to create lasting social change.

State of the Art on Use of Theory of Change in the Development Sector - Goodier, Sarah; Apgar, Marina; Clark, Louise (SDC-IDS Briefing Note 7, 2018)
The purpose of this briefing note is to add to SDC’s understanding of Theory of Change (ToC), drawing on the literature and practice to sketch out the current state of the art approach. This involves expanding on ToC beyond SDC’s current practice of using Impact Hypotheses (IH) to bridge it to operational practice and use ToC more explicitly in the project/programme cycle management (PCM) processes. Sharing the state of the art on use of ToC in the development sector, this briefing note outlines what a ToC is, what it is used for and why it is needed in the development sector. It discusses ToC as both a process and a product, providing step by step guidance on how to facilitate a ToC process. The differences between a ToC and a logframe are highlighted. Some key criteria for recognising when you have a ‘good’ ToC are also included. This brief is aimed at SDC staff, in particular Programme Officers, and staff of partner organisations involved in the management of SDC interventions.

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.

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.

Integrating Livelihood and Conservation Goals: A retrospective Analysis of World Bank Projects - Gómez, Andrés; Price, Claire (Measuring Impact, 2017)
Using a database of World Bank project evaluations, E3/FAB’s new study called “Integrating Livelihood and Conservation Goals: A Retrospective Analysis of World Bank Projects” aims to contribute to building the evidence base around the integration of biodiversity conservation and livelihood goals.

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

The Innovative Power of Positive Deviance - Goldstein, Jeffrey; Hazy, James; Lichtenstein, Benyamin B. (Complexity and the Nexus of Leadership, 2010)

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement - Goldratt, Eliyahu M.; Cox, Jeff (North River Press, 1992)
Over 2 million copies sold! Used by thousands of companies and hundreds of business schools! Required reading for anyone interested in the Theory of Constraints. This book, which introduces the Theory of Constraints, is changing how America does business. The Goal is a gripping, fast-paced business novel about overcoming the barriers to making money. You will learn the fundamentals of identifying and solving the problems created by constraints. From the moment you finish the book you will be able to start successfully addressing chronic productivity and quality problems.

Theory of Constraints - Goldratt, Eliyahu M. (North River Pr, 1999)
Theory of Constraints walks you through the crucial stages of a continuous program: the five steps of focusing; the process of change; how to prove effect-cause-effect; and how to invent simple solutions to complex problems. Equally important, the author reveals the devastating impact that an organization's psychology can have on the process of improvements. Theory of Constraints is a crucial document for understanding what it takes to achieve manufacturing breakthroughs.

Adaptive Evaluation: A Complexity-based approach to Systematic Learning for Innovation and Scaling in Development - Gokhale, Siddhant; Walton, Michael (CID Faculty Working Paper, 2023)
Nearly all challenges in international development tend to be complex because they depend on constantly evolving human behaviour, systems, and contexts, involving multiple actors, entities, and processes. As a result, both the discovery and scaling of innovations to address challenges in development often involve changes in system behaviour or even system-level transformation. This is rarely a linear process over time and can result in unexpected outcomes. Existing evaluation techniques commonly used in international development, including Randomized Control Trials (RCT) and quasi-experimental methods, are good at assessing specific effects of interventions but are not designed for the change processes inherent to innovation and scaling within a system. There is a need to reconstruct how we use existing measurement tools, techniques, and methodologies so that they capture the complexity of the environment in which an intervention or change occurs. We introduce Adaptive Evaluation, designed to learn at various levels of complexity while supporting the transformation needed to foster sustainable change. An Adaptive Evaluation uses three main approaches to work with complex questions—systems diagnosis, theorybased assessment of change processes, and iterative designs. An Adaptive Evaluation typically builds hypotheses from field-based interactions, emphasizes learning over testing, advocates open-mindedness with techniques, and appreciates the value of dialogue and participation in navigating complex processes. It can use RCT or similar techniques to analyse specific processes within a system or a development cycle, but these are embedded in a broader approach to assessment and interpretation. It is designed to be flexible and adjust to shifting contexts. Finally, an Adaptive Evaluation can be applied at any stage in a complex intervention's lifecycle, from the interpretation of the system and change processes to rapid experimentation, prototyping, and testing of select interventions, and then adaptation to different settings for impact at scale. This paper provides the theoretical basis for an Adaptive Evaluation—the main approaches, core ideology, process, and applications.

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

Appreciative Inquiry: Three decades of generative impact - Godwin, Lindsey N. (AI Practitioner, 2016)

Assessing Innovation Potential for Social Impact: Overview for Social Sector Leaders - Global Knowledge Initiative (2016)

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

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 …

GLAM Monitoring and Learning Strategy (internal document) - GLAM (ODI, 2018)

GIZ’s evaluation system - GIZ Evaluation Unit (GIZ GmbH, 2018)
This provides a general description of GIZ’s new evaluation system, which is designed to implement our new policy and to achieve the objectives of evaluation reform. This general description is accompanied by two other documents that provide supplementary details of GIZ’s key evaluation instruments: project evaluations for BMZ business and corporate strategic evaluations. They are geared in particular to GIZ staff members who commission, implement or support evaluations and to evaluators who conduct evaluations on behalf of GIZ as well as repre-sentatives of commissioning parties, clients and cooperation partners. The current versions are very much a ‘work in progress’ in many regards. We are well aware that we will only be able to meet our own high expectations of our evaluations if we continue to develop their quality in dialogue with project staff, our commissioning parties, clients and partners and with evaluation practitioners and experts from the academic, scientific and research community. We look forward to taking on this task and to sharing our experience with all interested parties.

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

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

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

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

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

Exploring the potential for interactive radio to improve accountability and responsiveness to small-scale farmers in Tanzania - Gilberds, Heather; Handforth, Calum; Leclair, Mark (IDS, 2016)
What are the possibilities of using new digital technologies alongside radio to help ensure that agricultural development projects are farmer-centred, and meet the needs of the rural citizens they intend to serve? This research assesses Farm Radio International’s Listening Post – a model that combines radio and digital technologies with the aim of collecting and aggregating farmer feedback to aid decision-making and adaptive project implementation. The research shows that linking a mobile-based crowd-sourcing tool with radio is effective at ensuring engagement from a large number of farmers, who felt it was a useful way of raising their questions and concerns to NGOs, policy-makers and experts. The model has clear potential to strengthen the chain of relationships between citizens, extension services suppliers, projects and policymakers. It has also demonstrated its potential to collect real-time feedback from farmers that could be used to aid decision-making and improve accountability in agricultural development initiatives, helping to ensure they are more responsive to farmers. However, it also concludes that ‘closing the feedback loop’ – ensuring that farmer’s comments, questions and concerns are responded to – is a challenge for the Listening Post. Sometimes, the interactive radio programmes close the loop by disseminating answers to questions or concerns raised by farmers, or by connecting farmers to extension services – but only when a solid and systematic process had been developed for this to happen. Therefore is critical to identify and incentivise actors who are capable of responding during the design phase of a Listening Post, and to ensure that they are involved in every stage of the process. It also important that project partners who are interested in beneficiary feedback identify the flexible or actionable points in their project frameworks from the outset, rather than collecting data that they are not able to use to adapt their programmes

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

Evolutionary Delivery Versus the "Waterfall Model" - Gilb, Tom (SIGSOFT Softw. Eng. Notes, 1985)
The conventional wisdom of planning software engineering projects, using the widely cited "waterfall model" is not the only useful software development process model. In fact, the "waterfall model" may be unrealistic, and dangerous to the primary objectives of any software project.The alternative model, which I choose to call "evolutionary delivery" is not widely taught or practiced yet. But there is already more than a decade of practical experience in using it. In various forms. It is quite clear from these experiences that evolutionary delivery is a powerful general tool for both software development and associated systems development.Almost all experienced software developers do make use of some of the ideas in evolutionary development at one time or another. But, this is often unplanned, informal and it is an incomplete exploitation of this powerful method. This paper will try to expose the theoretical and practical aspects of the method in a fuller perspective. We need to learn the theory fully, so that we can apply and learn it completely.

The Samaritan's Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid - Gibson, Clark C.; Andersson, Krister; Ostrom, Elinor; Shivakumar, Sujai (Oxford University Press, 2005)
What's wrong with foreign aid? Many policymakers, aid practitioners, and scholars have called into question its ability to increase economic growth, alleviate poverty, or promote social development. At the macro level, only tenuous links between development aid and improved living conditions have been found. At the micro level, only a few programs outlast donor support and even fewer appear to achieve lasting improvements. The authors of this book argue that much of aid's failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. In their analysis, the authors apply the theoretical insights of the new institutional economics to several settings. First, they investigate the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, to analyze how that aid agency's institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, the authors use cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries also mediate the effectiveness of aid. Throughout the book, the authors offer suggestions about how to improve aid's effectiveness. These suggestions include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as "owners" in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation processes of development assistance programs.

Producer-led value chain analysis: The missing link in value chain development - Ghore, Yogesh (Coady, 2015)
Introduction and rationale The concept of a value chain is increasingly being applied in the design and implementation of development programs aimed at poverty reduction. As an analytical tool, it provides a useful framework for understanding key activities, relationships, and mechanisms that allow producers, processors, buyers, sellers, and consumers—separated by time and space—to gradually add value to products and services as they pass from one link of the chain to another, making it a “value chain” (UNIDO, 2009). While it has been popular in the private sector ever since it was conceptualized by Michael Porter in the 1980s, more recently various donors and governments have shown interest in its use and have applied it to a range of development interventions, particularly in the area of sector development, livelihoods promotion, small and medium enterprise (SME) development, and rural and economic development. Academics and development organizations have designed numerous instruments for value chain analysis (VCA) and implementation. Beginning in the early 2000s, international organizations and donor agencies have sponsored the development of these tools, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the International Labour Organization (ILO). These guides and tools have been used in many development programs to address organizational, donor and local and regional priorities for development. While VCA guides and tools are important in understanding markets and relationships among key stakeholders, a recent comparative review of popularly used guides by Donovan et al. (2013) suggests that most of these guides are designed to be implemented independently of the local context and do not sufficiently focus on mutual learning, whether related to tool design or to the outcomes and impacts of the designed project activities. VCA is often conducted by external experts and the knowledge generated in the process is often confined to reports. Without the capacity building and effective participation of women and men producers—smallholder farmers who hold critical knowledge about the local context—an important link is missing in the entire process of VCA. The insufficient attention to the human, social, and other contextual factors undermines the full potential of the value chain systems approach, not only for economic outcomes, but for the long term sustainability of the intended benefits. So what are the ways to effectively engage producers in the community in the VCA? The producer-led process described here tries to address this basic question. It introduces simplified tools and an approach that ensures farmer participation in data collection, analysis, and identification of opportunities and constraints, and design of value chain interventions. This participation requires: a) an environment in which they feel comfortable to share their knowledge and insights, which is often not the case when extractive surveys and questionnaires are administered to collect information; and b) the use of simple and participatory tools that will allow them to provide inputs into the process of VCA and also help them to understand complex value chain systems and use this understanding for making livelihood decisions. The key steps and tools described are aimed at empowering the women and men farmers to make informed decisions about their own enterprises and how they relate to the value chain, thereby directly contributing to, and influencing, the overall process of value chain development. The process of VCA involving these steps and tools was developed at Coady Institute and first tested with Oxfam Canada and its local partners in Ethiopia in August 2012.

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

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

The Social Realities of Knowledge for Development - Georgalakis, James; Jessani, Nasreen; Oronje, Rose; Ramalingam, Ben (IDS, 2017)
This edited collection of peer-reviewed papers explores critical challenges faced by organisations and individuals involved in evidence-informed development through a diverse set of case studies and t...

Advancing urban adaptation where it counts: reshaping unequal knowledge and resource diffusion in networked Indonesian cities - Geldin, Samuel (Environment and Urbanization, 2019)
Climate adaptation literature vocalizes the need for transnational municipal networks (TMNs) to expand activities in vulnerable medium-sized cities, but little work has examined the granular extent of city participation and processes constraining TMN growth. This study explores the effectiveness of TMNs in reaching adaptation outcomes and how financial, material, and knowledge exchanges of TMNs tend to exclude adaptation in high-priority intermediary cities. Nearly 40 semi-structured interviews with Indonesian city actors and a preliminary catalogue of cities participating in TMNs reveal that risk-averse selection criteria, insufficient impact assessments, and duplicative institutional efforts reinforce disparities between primary and intermediary cities. To effectively build adaptive capacity in the most vulnerable regions, TMNs should remove participation barriers for intermediary cities, improve incentives for institutional collaboration, and adopt more rigorous evaluative metrics. These results directly inform the governance, resource allocation, and operational goals of TMN stakeholders to advance distributive climate justice.

Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways - Geels, Frank W.; Schot, Johan (Research Policy, 2007)
Contributing to debates about transitions and system changes, this article has two aims. First, it uses criticisms on the multi-level perspective as stepping stones for further conceptual reﬁnements. Second, it develops a typology of four transition pathways: transformation, reconﬁguration, technological substitution, and de-alignment and re-alignment. These pathways differ in combinations of timing and nature of multi-level interactions. They are illustrated with historical examples.

Global Delivery at the World Bank Group - GDI (Global Delivery Initiative, 2014)

Everyday patterns for shifting systems - GCSI (GCSI, 2022)

Everyday patterns for shifting systems - Right scaling - GCSI (GCSI, 2022)

Empowerment and Accountability in difficult settings: What are we learning? - Gaventa, John; Oswald, Katy (Key messages emerging from theAction for Empowerment and Accountability Programme, 2019)
Empowerment and Accountability in Difficult Settings: What Are We Learning? Key Messages Emerging from the Action for Empowerment and Accountability Programme Empowerment and accountability have long been part of the international development vocabulary and a core part of governance, social development and civil society programmes. Yet, much of what has been learnt about these approaches has been drawn from studies in somewhat stable, open and middle-income places around the world. Less is known about how empowerment and accountability are achieved through social and political action in more difficult settings – those faced by institutional fragility, conflict, violence, and closing civic space. This document highlights key messages emerging from the work of the Action for Empowerment and Accountability Research Programme (A4EA), and the implications for how donors, policy makers and practitioners support strategies for empowerment and accountability in fragile, conflict and violence affected settings (FCVAS). Our eight key messages have strong implications for the theories of change used for effective programming in the field.

Introduction: Making change happen–citizen action and national policy reform - Gaventa, John; McGee, Rosemary (Citizen Action and National Policy Reform. London: Zed Books, 2010)

The Impact of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives - Gaventa, John; McGee, Rosemary (Development Policy Review, 2013)

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

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

5 Emerging Lessons from new research into Empowerment and Accountability in Messy Places - Gaventa, John (From Poverty to Power, 2019)
Research guru John Gaventa summarizes the emerging lessons from a new research programme on 'action for empowerment and accountability' in messy places

Applying Power Analysis: Using the ‘Powercube’ to explore forms, levels and spaces - Gaventa, John (Power, Empowerment and Social Change, 2019)
In a complex, globalised and rapidly changing world, power dynamics are multidimensional, constantly evolving, and full of complexity. The ‘powercube’ (Gaventa, 2006) is an approach to power analysis which can be used to examine the multiple forms, levels and spaces of power, and their interactions. Building on earlier work on power, and elaborated and popularised in collaboration with other colleagues through the web site powercube.net and numerous other resources, the powercube has been widely used around the world for analysis of power, education and awareness building, context analysis, programme and strategy development, and monitoring and evaluation. This article briefly outlines the evolution of the powercube, and provides examples of the issue areas in which it has been used, and for what purposes. Drawing on these, we then offer eight lessons of how to apply the powercube framework for analysing and transforming power relations.

Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis - Gaventa, John (IDS Bulletin, 2006)

Linking the prepositions: using power analysis to inform strategies for social action - Gaventa, John (Journal of Political Power, 2021)
This article reviews longstanding debates about the relationship between power over and power to – often posed as the tension between domination and emancipation. It then turns to several frameworks which integrate these approaches to inform strategies for social action. In particular, it focuses on recent empirical studies which apply one such framework, the ‘powercube’, to glean insights into how social actors navigate across multiple forms, spaces and levels of power. In so doing, we gain clues into how relatively powerless groups develop the capacities for agency and action which challenge domination and in turn give new possibilities for emancipation.
Keywords: Lukes; Power; agency; collective action; empowerment

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

Evaluating the ‘logical framework approach’ towards learning-oriented development evaluation - Gasper, Des (Public Administration and Development, 2000)
The logical framework approach has spread enormously, including increasingly to stages of review and evaluation. Yet it has had little systematic evaluation itself. Survey of available materials indicates several recurrent failings, some less easily countered than others. In particular: focus on achievement of intended effects by intended routes makes logframes a very limiting tool in evaluation; an assumption of consensual project objectives often becomes problematic in public and inter-organizational projects; and automatic choice of an audit form of accountability as the priority in evaluations can be at the expense of evaluation as learning.

Building a Learning Organization - Garvin, David A. (Harvard Business Review, 1993)
Beyond high philosophy and grand themes lie the gritty details of practice.

Scaling Science - Gargani, John; McLean, Robert (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)

Adaptive Management in the Face of Climate Change and Endangered Species Protection - Gardner, Emily (Ecology Law Quarterly, 2013)

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

Assessing the Demand for a Global Evidence Network. Mapping Existing Initiatives and Understanding Network Lessons and Opportunities - Gandolfo, Ari; Taddese, Abeba (Results for all, 2018)

A developmental Evaluation Primer - Gamble, Jamie A.A. (J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, 2008)

Reframing Complexity: A Four-Dimensional Approach to Organizational Diagnosis, Development and Change - Gallos, Joan V. (Organization Development: A Jossey-Bass Reader, 2006)
This is the third book in the Jossey–Bass Reader series, Organization Development: A Jossey–Bass Reader. This collection will introduce the key thinkers and contributors in organization development including Ed Lawler, Peter Senge, Chris Argyris, Richard Hackman, Jay Galbraith, Cooperrider, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Bolman & Deal, Kouzes & Posner, and Ed Schein, among others. "Without reservations I recommend this volume to those students of organizational behavior who want an encyclopedia of OD to gain a perspective on the past, present, and future...." Jonathan D. Springer of the American Psychological Association.

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

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

Global Affairs Canada: an approach to development innovation - GAC (Global Affairs Canada, 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.

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.

The Whistler principles to accelerate innovation for development impact - G7 (G7, 2018)
The Whistler principles to accelerate innovation for development impact : 2018 G7 Summit – Canada 2018 G7 Presidency – Charlevoix, Quebec

Purposeful Program Theory: Effective Use of Theories of Change and Logic Models - Funnell, Sue C.; Rogers, Patricia J. (Wiley, 2011)
Program Theory in Evaluation Practice is a ground-breaking reference that teaches how to develop an explicit causal model that links an intervention (project, program or policy) with its intended or observed impacts and using this to guide monitoring and evaluation. Peerless in its explanation of why and how to use and develop program theory, the book is rich with examples and alternative approaches. The book is an invaluable resource to faculty and students as well as professionals in professional development programs, education, social work, and counseling.

Purposeful Program Theory: Effective Use of Theories of Change and Logic Models - Funnell, Sue C.; Rogers, Patricia J. (2011)
Between good intentions and great results lies a program theory—not just a list of tasks but a vision of what needs to happen, and how. Now widely used in government and not-for-profit organizations, program theory provides a coherent picture of how change occurs and how to improve performance. Purposeful Program Theory shows how to develop, represent, and use program theory thoughtfully and strategically to suit your particular situation, drawing on the fifty-year history of program theory and the authors' experiences over more than twenty-five years."From needs assessment to intervention design, from implementation to outcomes evaluation, from policy formulation to policy execution and evaluation, program theory is paramount. But until now no book has examined these multiple uses of program theory in a comprehensive, understandable, and integrated way. This promises to be a breakthrough book, valuable to practitioners, program designers, evaluators, policy analysts, funders, and scholars who care about understanding why an intervention works or doesn't work." —Michael Quinn Patton, author, Utilization-Focused Evaluation"Finally, the definitive guide to evaluation using program theory! Far from the narrow 'one true way' approaches to program theory, this book provides numerous practical options for applying program theory to fulfill different purposes and constraints, and guides the reader through the sound critical thinking required to select from among the options. The tour de force of the history and use of program theory is a truly global view, with examples from around the world and across the full range of content domains. A must-have for any serious evaluator." —E. Jane Davidson, PhD, Real Evaluation Ltd.Companion Web site: josseybass.com/go/funnellrogers

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

Technology for Democracy in Development: Lessons from Seven Case Studies - Fung, Archon; Gilman, Hollie Russon; Shkabatur, Jennifer (Deliberation and Development: Rethinking the Role of Voice and Collective Action in Unequal Societies, 2015)

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

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.

Recipes for Public Spheres: Eight Institutional Design Choices and Their Consequences - Fung, Archon (Journal of Political Philosophy, 2003)

Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance - Fung, Archon (Public Administration Review, 2006)
The multifaceted challenges of contemporary governance demand a complex account of the ways in which those who are subject to laws and policies should participate in making them. This article develops a framework for understanding the range of institutional possibilities for public participation. Mechanisms of participation vary along three important dimensions: who participates, how participants communicate with one another and make decisions together, and how discussions are linked with policy or public action. These three dimensions constitute a space in which any particular mechanism of participation can be located. Different regions of this institutional design space are more and less suited to addressing important problems of democratic governance such as legitimacy, justice, and effective administration.

Beyond the tools: supporting adaptation when organisational resources and capacities are in short supply - Fünfgeld, Hartmut; Lonsdale, Kate; Bosomworth, Karyn (Climatic Change, 2018)
Climate change adaptation is increasingly concerned with how organisations develop capacity to adapt to uncertain futures. A participatory action research project conducted in Victoria, Australia, examined how health and social service organisations developed their organisational adaptive capacity through the use of adaptation decision-support tools. It can be challenging for any organisation to select and apply a decision-support tool, but this is particularly the case where resources and capacities are limited. For most organisations, climate change is only one of a complex set of dynamic stressors they must consider in meeting organisational goals. This paper shows that while decision-support tools can help co-generate knowledge and facilitate customised organisational adaptation processes, for them to be practically helpful for organisations with limited resources and capacities, intensive collaborative and discursive processes are needed to adjust such tools to fit specific organisational contexts and needs. Facilitators and participatory approaches that enable co-inquiry can play a critical role in supplementing scarce resources and initiating adaptation processes that go well beyond the scope and purpose of the decision-support tool used. Organisations working effectively with decision-support tools to adapt to climate change will need to feel ownership of them and have confidence in modifying them to suit their particular adaptation needs and organisational goals.
Keywords: Adaptive capacity; Climate change; Community services; Decision-support tools; Facilitation; Health and social services; Organizational change

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

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.

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

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

Re-imagining Inclusive Urban Futures for Transformation - Friend, Richard M; Anwar, Nausheen H; Dixit, Ajaya; Hutanuwatr, Khanin; Jayaraman, Thiagarajan; McGregor, J Allister; Menon, Meena R; Moench, Marcus; Pelling, Mark; Roberts, Debra (Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2016)

Foreign policy and complex adaptive systems: Exploring new paradigms for analysis and action - Frej, William; Ramalingam, Ben (Santa Fe Institute, 2011)

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

Integrated Governance: Achieving Governance Results and Contributing to Sector Outcomes - Frazer, Sarah; Granius, Mark; Brinkerhoff, Derick W.; McGregor, Lisa (RTI Press Publication, 2022)
Achieving broad-based socio-economic development requires interventions that bridge disciplines, strategies, and stakeholders. Effective sustained progress requires more than simply an accumulation of sector projects, and poverty reduction, individual wellbeing, community development, and societal advancement do not fall neatly into sectoral categories. However, researchers and practitioners recognize key operational challenges to achieving effective integration that stem from the structures and processes associated with the current practice of international development. Integration calls for the intentional linking of intervention designs, implementation, and evaluation across sectors and disciplines to achieve mutually reinforcing outcomes. In this report, we summarize the results of a study we conducted to explore the challenges facing governance programs that integrate with sector interventions to achieve governance outcomes and contribute to sector outcomes. Through a review of policy documents and project reports from recent integrated governance programs and interviews with donor and practitioner staff, we found three integrated governance programming variants, an emphasis on citizen and government collaboration to improve service delivery, interventions that serve as the glue between sectors, and a balancing act for indicators to measure contribution to sectoral outcomes. Our analysis identified four key success factors: contextual readiness, the application of learning and adapting approaches, donor support, and recognition of the limitations of integrated governance. We then discuss recommendations and implications and for answering the challenge of integrating governance and sector programming to achieve development outcomes.

The Art of Scaling Deep - Research in Summary - Fraser, Tatiana (The Systems Sanctuary, 2023)
Over the last 15 years the concept of scale has become a foundational part of the apparatus of the social and environmental change sector. A business mindset of growth has been seamlessly transferred to the social and environmental problems we are collectively trying to shift in the world. Scaling up, (influencing policy) has been considered the strategic pathway to systems change. Scaling out (spreading new models) is seen as a pathway to success. The allure of these scaling theories lies, in part, in their tangibility, and the easy way in which they can be measured. However this focus on growth has shifted our attention away from a series of messy truths. Sometimes bigger isn't better. Endless growth is not sustainable and our urgency to try to fix the problem and seek solutions may be part of the crisis we are in. One unintended consequence of this has been that another type of scale has been devalued and as a result, under-resourced. It’s a scale that values the slow steady work of deepening relationships. It recognizes the significance of context, building connections that bridge diverse communities and it prioritizes inner work and healing as integral components of the scaling process. We call this type of scale ‘Scaling Deep’ and we believe that adequately supporting it, and funding it, holds the greatest potential for long lasting systemic change. The purpose of this research has been to delve deeper into the art and craft of Scaling Deep. Ultimately, our goal is for it to become firmly ingrained within the recognized realm of social change, alongside the well-established concepts of scaling up and scaling out. We want practitioners who are Scaling Deep to be able to harness the wisdom and power of this work and to talk about it openly, with confidence and credibility. We want understanding of this approach to flourish and evolve and for it to be appropriately celebrated and supported. We want decision-makers to be informed and inspired by the principles and practices of scaling deep. For it to be embedded in theories of change as an essential component of decision-making processes within the wider change discourse. Importantly we want leaders who are Scaling Deep to have access to sufficient resources and to receive the care from the field that they need to thrive. We would like to see organisations that have the power to invest, to align their efforts with the profound impact that scaling deep aspires to cultivate in the world. Before we begin, let us be crystal clear. We are not opposed to scaling up and out as strategies for change. Innovation and scaling what is working is part of how we evolve as humanity. As social entrepreneurs ourselves, we have both done this twice over. We value it and we know it’s important. We recognize these are strategies for creating widespread impact and effecting positive change. Our intention here is not to dismiss or undermine the value of scaling up and out, but rather to encourage a broader and more holistic perspective that includes other dimensions of scale. There is a need to understand how the different scaling approaches can work together, rather than seeing them as hierarchical and disconnected. Our ultimate goal is to equip the change sector with a more inclusive, expansive, and powerful approach to tackling the myriad challenges we face, by exploring the potential of Scaling Deep as a transformational strategy for systems change.

Transforming M&E for Uncertain and Complex Contexts: The UNDP’s Innovation Sandbox Approach - Fraser, Dugan; Haldrup, Søren (Powered by Evidence Podcast, 2022)
How can we transform monitoring and evaluation (M&E) into a more adaptive, emergent process to address uncertainty and complexity in todays’ world? How do we move from compliance and accountability to learning – to support better, more timely, decisions? Join GEI Program Manager, Dugan Fraser, as he discusses these questions and others with Special Guest, Søren Haldrup, from UNDP's Strategic Innovation Unit where he manages UNDP's innovation facility and leads a new initiative called the M&E Sandbox.

Using Adaptive Management to Meet Conservation Goals - Franklin, Thomas M; Helinski, Ronald; Manale, Andrew (Fish and Wildlife Response to Farm Bill Conservation Practices, 2007)
Natural resource professionals should know whether or not they are doing an effective job of managing natural resources. Their decision-making process should produce the kind of results desired by the public, elected officials, and their agencies’ leadership. With billions of dollars spent each year on managing natural resources, accountability is more important than ever. Producing results is the key to success. Managers must have the necessary data to make enlightened decisions during program implementation—not just at the conclusion of a program. Adaptive management is described as an adapt-and-learn methodology as it pertains to implementing Farm Bill conservation practices. Four regional case studies describe how adaptive management is being applied by practicing fish and wildlife managers. Indicators were identified to monitor and evaluate contributions to fish and wildlife habitat for each of the case studies. Data collected at each stage of the studies were used to make mid-course adjustments that enabled leadership to improve or enhance ongoing management actions.

Guidelines for designing and monitoring social accountability interventions - Franco, Erika Lopez; Shankland, Alex (IDS, 2018)

Disentangling Government Responses: How Do We Know When Accountability Work is Gaining Traction? - Fox, Jonathan; Halloran, Brendan; Fölscher, Alta; McGee, Rosie (Working Paper, 2024)
Advocacy for public accountability aims to produce certain reactions from government officials or service providers. However, the reactions can be many and diverse, and it is not always clear to advocates how to interpret them and decide on next steps—whether to intensify efforts or back off; continue the same strategy or make adjustments. This paper presents a framework to help accountability advocates and practitioners interpret government reactions to their efforts and move forward appropriately. The framework arises from learning and reflection in the context of the International Budget Partnership (IBP)’s Strengthening Public Accountability with Results and Knowledge (SPARK) program. SPARK seeks to bolster the collective agency of marginalized communities and coalitions to advance democratic and equitable fiscal governance systems that channel public resources to services that address the priority needs of these historically excluded groups. The paper: · unpacks the broad umbrella category of government responses to citizen-led accountability initiatives, discerning within it three overlapping categories of responses, responsiveness, and accountable responsiveness (RRA), and pinpointing what distinguishes them; · maps out the public financial management (PFM) system as the critical conduit for any public service to progress from non-response through these three categories, reflecting the terrain and priorities of the SPARK program and IBP more broadly. Looking at RRA in the context of this PFM map offers key insights for the twin tasks of tracing and unblocking bottlenecks in resource management systems that hinder responsiveness and accountability, as well as demanding specific reforms that make the fiscal governance system more open to citizen engagement; and · discusses how the RRA framework can be used to take stock of partial or incremental responses and assess whether change is moving towards accountable governance, by reference to the SPARK program and other IBP efforts. The RRA framework supports accountability-claiming practice by facilitating close attention to the actions of and influences on key government stakeholders, careful interpretation of these, and consequential adjustments to advocacy strategies. Its implications for monitoring, evaluating, and learning (MEL) from practice are also significant. MEL has been evolving in the accountability field in line with the thinking and practical challenges behind the development of the RRA framework. The framework adds to a range of emerging approaches that support the application theories of change, evidence-based adaptive programming, and politically aware systems thinking in the complex task of building accountable responsiveness towards constituencies historically excluded from public goods and services, and ultimately equitable development outcomes from an intersectional perspective.
Keywords: Development studies; Public policy; Social policy

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

Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say? - Fox, Jonathan A. (World Development, 2015)
Summary Empirical evidence of tangible impacts of social accountability initiatives is mixed. This meta-analysis reinterprets evaluations through a new lens: the distinction between tactical and strategic approaches to the promotion of citizen voice to contribute to improved public sector performance. Field experiments study bounded, tactical interventions based on optimistic assumptions about the power of information alone, both to motivate collective action and to influence the state. Enabling environments for collective action combined with bolstered state capacity to respond to citizen voice are more promising. Sandwich strategies can help ‘voice’ and ‘teeth’ to become mutually empowering, through state–society synergy.
Keywords: public information access; social accountability; state–society synergy; transparency; voice

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

Taking scale into account in transparency and accountability initiatives - Fox, Jonathan (MAVC Research Summary, 2016)
We know that gaining access to information and raising citizen voices are not the same as achieving accountability. It is important to look beyond the symptoms of accountability failure, and consider how to tackle the causes. This short research summary discusses different understandings of scale, one important aspect of making transparency and accountability initiatives more strategic. Scale shapes both the causes of accountability failure and the tactics and strategies needed to address it.

Lasting Roots: Naatal Mbay and the Integrated Finance Model in Senegal - Fowler, Ben; Courbois, Laura (MSP Ex-Post Study, 2023)
This report addresses the well-recognized evidence gap1 on the longer-term impacts created by marketdriven programming; specifically, programming influenced by market systems development (MSD) principles. It does so by presenting the findings of an ex-post study conducted three and a half years after the close of USAID’s Feed the Future Senegal Naatal Mbay Activity (hereafter Naatal Mbay) in 2019. It examines the scale and sustainability of changes resulting from Naatal Mbay’s introduction of an integrated finance model (IFM) – described in Error! Reference source not found. below – in the domestic rice sector. This study is one in a series of ex-post evaluations that are being conducted between 2023-2026 on USAID-funded MSD interventions around the world. This study focused on four questions, noted below in Figure 1. These were addressed using a mix of desk research, 122 key informant interviews with market actors and other stakeholders remotely and in Senegal, focus group discussions with 26 rice producers networks in Senegal, and a validation workshop with USAID/Senegal, implementing partner staff and market actors. Findings were analyzed leveraging the Disrupting System Dynamics (DSD) framework (see Figure 4 in the body of the report) as an analytical tool for understanding systems change.

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

Agency in the face of path dependence: how organizations can regain scope for maneuver - Fortwengel, Johann; Keller, Arne (Business Research, 2020)
This paper tackles a key problem in path dependence research: how can locked-in organizations regain their scope for maneuver? Leveraging insights from two surprising and thus revelatory cases of organizations that have successfully escaped from path dependence, we develop the theoretical argument that regaining scope for maneuver can be achieved by interrupting the logic of a path’s underlying self-reinforcing mechanisms. More specifically, we argue that, through a targeted interruption of the working of these mechanisms, hyper-stable patterns inscribed in an organization can be gradually rewound—and alternative futures become possible. We position our paper within larger debates around the role of agency in path dependence theorizing, and we outline research frontiers to better understand the necessary antecedents of and exact relationship between mechanisms interruption and pattern unwinding.

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

Improving our legacy: Incorporation of adaptive management into state wildlife action plans - Fontaine, Joseph J. (Journal of Environmental Management, 2011)
The loss of biodiversity is a mounting concern, but despite numerous attempts there are few large scale conservation efforts that have proven successful in reversing current declines. Given the challenge of biodiversity conservation, there is a need to develop strategic conservation plans that address species declines even with the inherent uncertainty in managing multiple species in complex environments. In 2002, the State Wildlife Grant program was initiated to fulﬁll this need, and while not explicitly outlined by Congress follows the fundamental premise of adaptive management, ‘Learning by doing’. When action is necessary, but basic biological information and an understanding of appropriate management strategies are lacking, adaptive management enables managers to be proactive in spite of uncertainty. However, regardless of the strengths of adaptive management, the development of an effective adaptive management framework is challenging. In a review of 53 State Wildlife Action Plans, I found a keen awareness by planners that adaptive management was an effective method for addressing biodiversity conservation, but the development and incorporation of explicit adaptive management approaches within each plan remained elusive. Only w25% of the plans included a framework for how adaptive management would be implemented at the project level within their state. There was, however, considerable support across plans for further development and implementation of adaptive management. By furthering the incorporation of adaptive management principles in conservation plans and explicitly outlining the decision making process, states will be poised to meet the pending challenges to biodiversity conservation.

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

The Principle of the Malevolent Hiding Hand; or, the Planning Fallacy Writ Large - Flyvbjerg, Bent; Sunstein, Cass R. (Soocial Research, 2016)
We identify and document a new principle of economic behavior: the principle of the Malevolent Hiding Hand. In a famous discussion, Albert Hirschman celebrated the Hiding Hand, which he saw as a benevolent mechanism by which unrealistically optimistic planners embark on unexpectedly challenging plans, only to be rescued by human ingenuity, which they could not anticipate, but which ultimately led to success, principally in the form of unexpectedly high net benefits. Studying eleven projects, Hirschman suggested that the Hiding Hand is a general phenomenon. But the Benevolent Hiding Hand has an evil twin, the Malevolent Hiding Hand, which blinds excessively optimistic planners not only to unexpectedly high costs but also to unexpectedly low net benefits. Studying a much larger sample than Hirschman did, we find that the Malevolent Hiding Hand is common and that the phenomenon that Hirschman identified is rare. This sobering finding suggests that Hirschman’s phenomenon is a special case; it attests to the pervasiveness of the planning fallacy, writ very large. One implication involves the continuing need to de-bias decisions and decision support tools like cost-benefit analysis; another is that accountability for decision makers, planners, and forecasters is required for such de-biasing to be effective and lasting.
Keywords: Behavioral economics; Cost-benefit analysis; Hiding hand; Planning fallacy

How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration - Flyvbjerg, Bent; Gardner, Dan (Macmillan, 2023)
World expert Bent Flyvbjerg and bestselling author Dan Gardner reveal the secrets to successfully planning and delivering ambitious projects on any scale.Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant new reality. Think of how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to an enormously successful product launch in eleven months. But such successes are the exception. Consider how London’s Crossrail project delivered five years late and billions over budget. More modest endeavours, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, also commonly fail. Why?Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg. In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors that lead projects to fail, and the research-based principles that will make yours succeed:- Understand your odds. If you don’t know them, you won’t win.- Plan slow, act fast. Getting to the action quick feels right. But it’s wrong.- Think right to left. Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there.- Find your Lego. Big is best built from small.- Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can’t, so they fail. Flyvbjerg shows how you can.Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done – on time and on budget.