Why Adaptive Management is more important than ever. Lessons from an Indonesian Governance program. Maliki, Graham Teskey, Anna Winoto, and Michael Woolcock. In recent years, the term ‘adaptive management’ has lost some of its gravitas. As can often happen in the development sector, terminology can come in and out of fashion. However, adaptive management in …
Continue reading Responding to the COVID-19 crisis in Indonesia
By Dr Annemarie Reerink Although there has been much talk about women’s representation in Australia’s 47th Parliament, we have yet to hear how this government would prioritise local women’s leadership in our region. Yet, the political transition in Canberra and the new government’s aspirations for a “reset” with the Indo-Pacific region present a significant opportunity …
We are always looking for exciting guest content. We publish commentary on official development assistance, foreign aid, governance, economics, corruption, foreign policy, and all things relating to developing countries. Perhaps you have some research that you’d like to share, or an opinion piece on the politics of development? Maybe you were inspired by a book …
By Graham Teskey This blog can be downloaded as a pdf at the bottom of this post. ‘Good’ governance—a mix of liberal democracy and free market institutions—is often claimed to be necessary for poverty reduction, growth and development1. Abt Associates does not subscribe to this view for the reason that there is no evidence to support …
By Jane Pepperall, Principal Health Lead For those of us invested in the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) journey over recent years, the UN High Level (HLM) Meeting on UHC in New York on 21 September is a much anticipated opportunity to review progress since the inaugural UHC HLM in 2019, as well as a clarion …
Continue reading Keeping Universal Health Coverage Centre Stage
Didar Ali, Technical Advisor – Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning The unrecognizeable medical staff uses digital tablet to review medical chart. I was pleased to attend the three-day Indo-Pacific Digital Health Users Forum in Fiji last week, where I learned about the increased use of technology in the health sector, the Pacific context and the …
By Graham Teskey My colleague Dr Priya Chattier and I have just published a working paper on the Abt Governance Soapbox Website, entitled “Localisation: what could it mean for contractors?”. We wrote this paper due to our increasing frustration with the sheer unreality of the literature (and speeches) emerging within the development community on the …
By Dulce Natividade Fátima da Cunha and Rebecca Devitt Magdalena Soares, a Timor Leste woman with a disability, knows how to be resourceful. Self-taught to read and write, she has never been to school. Yet Magdalena is determined to be the best version of herself. In Magdalena’s words, ‘people stare at me often because of …
Continue reading What does ‘inclusive growth’ mean for women with disabilities?
by Tara Davda Why do ‘insiders’ resist new technologies? A new paper, Working Politically and Adaptively in Practice: The Case Study of ‘YuTru’, examines this question. Drawn from a series of interviews and key reports, it examines the ‘Yu Tru’ scheme (an Australian Government funded, now private sector-led, digital trust framework), and explores the obstacles …
By Graham Teskey FCDO/Flickr There has been much disgruntlement over the past year regarding the demise of UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), its take-over by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and the savage cuts in the aid budget. As distant but interested observers, what can we be optimistic about? Before his ignominious …
by Graham Teskey My friend and colleague Lavinia Tyrell recently posted a note on LinkedIn, highlighting a recent World Bank Independent Evaluation Group report, which reflected on various methods of monitoring and evaluation currently used in development.[1] In so doing, Lavinia referenced this diagram: As a fan of diagrams, as well as a long-time user …
This is the second part of a review of a new paper written by Graham Teskey and Lavinia Tyrrel. Find the first post on the Soapbox here. The review was written by Oxfam's Duncan Green and featured on the From Poverty to Power blog. Yesterday I summarized the thinking behind an important new toolkit on adaptive management. …
Continue reading How to do Adaptive Management in 15 easy steps – from a top new toolkit
Oxfam's Duncan Green (From Poverty to Power) reviews Graham Teskey and Lavinia Tyrrel's new paper. 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 …
Governance and Development Soapbox 