Yesterday I summarized the thinking behind an important new toolkit on adaptive management. In this second post, I want to have a look at the tools themselves. These come in the form of 15 ‘guidance notes’. The 15 notes cover the 3 elements of Adaptive Management that Angela Christie and I identified a couple of years ago – adaptive governance,

In recent years, I’ve been one of a crowd of people thinking and pontificating about ‘adaptive management’. The debate has been rather dominated by academics and thinktankers, fond of hand-waving generalizations and rather better at taking down the bad stuff that suggesting what might replace it. In those conversations, Graham Teskey has played the role of the stroppy practitioner, demanding

Continuing on the theme of how aid agencies can work better in fragile and conflict affected settings (FCAS), there’s a new e-book (Advocacy in Context) looking at the work of national NGOs in South Sudan, Nigeria, Burundi, Central African Republic and Afghanistan. The researchers, Margit van Wessel, Wenny Ho, Edwige Marty and Peter Tamas, talked to local partners of the

Guest post by water policy consultant Henry Northover (twitter: @Henrynorthover) I’ve sat through too many presentations in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector that end with the neat conclusion: “all that’s needed is greater political will”.  Thank you and goodnight!  And this comes from a sector that’s pretty well-served by high level statements of political commitment.  The AU has

I’ve been bouncing some ideas around with Irene Guijt on how aid agencies can/should work in what we call ‘fragile and conflict-affected settings’ (FCAS). This matters because FCAS are where a lot of the aid business (both donors and INGOs) will end up, as more stable countries grow their way out of aid dependence (and a good thing too). Let’s

I love it when a book nails something that’s been lurking at the back of my mind, but never pinned down. The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa, by Nic Cheeseman, Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis, does just that. It explores the gulf between how politicians (and not just in Africa) see themselves (motivated by ideas of virtue as well

The Emerging Agency in a Time of Covid project is buzzing along nicely. Today (12.30pm, London time, 6th April) Niranjan Nampoothiri will summarize his findings from sorting, summarizing and coding the 200 cases for the project database. Register here. Headline findings here. We had a stocktake webinar recently looking for common patterns from a burgeoning set of discussion groups on

John Gaventa has been thinking, writing and theorising about power for at least four decades. His new essay ‘Linking the prepositions: using power analysis to inform strategies for social action’ should be on the reading lists of anyone at the wonkier end of the activist spectrum. It summarizes and reflects on some of the main frameworks for understanding power that

Guest post from Heather Marquette and Sian Herbert, both University of Birmingham. Their paper on ­­COVID-19, Governance and Conflict: Emerging Impacts and Future Evidence Needs, reviews hundreds of pieces of research and analysis and is published by the Knowledge for Development (K4D) COVID-19 Resource Hub. COVID-19 has so far proven to be a unique – and ongoing – global natural

The ‘Emergent Agency in a Time of Covid-19‘ research project is churning out some interesting findings and a flurry of webinars. Here Niranjan Nampoothiri and Filippo Artuso give some headline findings on the 200 case studies Niranjan has analysed and coded. We aim to publish the database later this year. Niranjan will present his findings on 6th April, 12.30 UTC

This post by my LSE colleague Tom Kirk is part of a series exploring ‘public authority’ based on research at LSE’s Centre for Public Authority and International Development at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa. It was first published on the Africa at LSE blog A ‘public authorities’ lens seeks to understand the full range of actors claiming power and governing people in the

This piece by Jackline Atingo is an edited version of a post first published on the Africa at LSE blog The conviction of Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity has been met with mixed reactions in northern Uganda, where many survivors live today. Jackline Atingo watched the Judgement