ADAPTING AID
Photo: IRC

LESSONS FROM SIX
CASE STUDIESJUNE 2016

Program Director

Photo: Peter Biro/IRC

Without donor flexibility and carefulnavigation of the context, none ofthis would have been possible.”Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

FOREWORD
Long frustrated by the rigidity of traditional tools and processes for managing
programs, practitioners are increasingly calling for new ways of working tobe effective in complex and volatile environments. The hope is that a newgeneration of adaptive programs – more attuned to the realities on the ground,more dynamic and flexible – will be better able to deliver development andhumanitarian results in complex, adaptive social systems.
ADAPT is one such initiative, and we find it remarkable on a number of counts. First of all, it isa collaboration between two organizations – the IRC and Mercy Corps – which requires trust,
openness, humility, and a willingness to put one’s own institutional priorities to the side in pursuitof a collective good: qualities often called for often but seldom seen.
Second, it is seeking to shine a light onto both the adaptive successes and challenges ofhumanitarian and development practice. This is not an easy thing to do and the collaborators areto be congratulated for their commitment to transparency.
Finally, all too often new change initiatives become policy abstractions, consider the frontline
last, or are applied in relatively safe and stable settings. Not so here. ADAPT has focused its
efforts on changing practices where it matters most – on the frontline – which is not only
admirable, we think it is essential for the ideas of adaptive development to truly take root andrealize their transformative potential.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance for the humanitarian and development
sector of the findings of these six case studies. Their empirical findings run counter to current
trends in much of the sector towards linear and control-oriented upwards accountability. Theyshow the primacy of space for flexibility, adaptability, learning and change. The tensions andcontradictions revealed between results-based and adaptive management are paradigmatic.
The case studies bring out the need for procedures and people to be flexible and adaptable andallow, value, and reward not only results but creativity, innovation to fit needs and contexts, andlearning and adapting. The challenge is to evolve procedures and requirements that allow space
for adaptation, and opportunism including budgetary flexibility.
This excellent report and the accompanying case studies deserve to be read, absorbed, explored,
debated, and applied to bring about changes in the sector as a whole.

Robert Chambers and Ben Ramalingam
Institute of Development Studies
June 2016

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Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

1. INTRODUCTION
Aid and development organizations tackle a broad range of complex problems in demanding
operating environments. However, the standard tools and processes we use are ill-suited tothe task we face. The limitations of linear programming models and bureaucratic constraints
are now widely recognized. Improving our impact requires a new generation of thinking andpractice. Fortunately, there are new approaches in the works.
Adaptive management is a programming approach thatcombines appropriate analysis, structured flexibility, anditerative improvements in the face of contextual and causal
complexity. It has implications for many facets of ourwork, from staffing to operations to planning to evaluation.
Practitioners’ experiences and academic research provide
initial evidence that this model yields greater impact on aid
and development challenges.
However, there are still practical and conceptual gaps.
Adaptive management is evolving and multi-faceted: it
includes a variety of specific techniques and approaches,
whose usefulness depends on a given context, the problems
being addressed, and the capabilities or constraints of the
program in question. There is value in this diversity, but it
complicates efforts to research and scale the approach.
The ADAPT partnership between the International Rescue
Committee (IRC) and Mercy Corps exists to addressthese gaps. The goal of ADAPT – Analysis Driven Agile
Programming Techniques – is to bring about a step change
in the way implementing and donor agencies plan, resource,
and implement programs. The partnership aims to provide
a clear articulation of field-tested techniques to plan andoperate in fluid, unpredictable, and complex contexts, alongwith the evidence to demonstrate how program adaptation
makes a difference.
Our initial work focused on identifying and researchingexamples of adaptive management in our agencies’ current
work. Over the past year, we have conducted in-depth fieldresearch into six interventions in complex and volatile
contexts. The output of this research was six case studies
that shed light on three questions:What does adaptive management look like in practice?
What impact can it have on programs?
How can it best be nurtured?

None of these interventions was a perfect example ofadaptive practice; the research highlighted both positive
and negative aspects in each case. This evidence base wasshared with a group of 50 like-minded practitioners andresearchers – including those involved in related initiatives
such as the Doing Development Differently community;
DfID’s Smart Rules framework; USAID’s Collaborating,
Learning, and Adapting work; and the Global Delivery
Initiative. This group discussed and debated the cases at aworkshop held in London on 20-21 April 2016.
This report is a reflection on the cases and the workshop.
It is not meant as a full reporting on the workshop
proceedings, nor is it the final word on adaptive
management. Rather, this report marks a critical reflection
point for the ADAPT partnership: by sharing what we arelearning about how adaptive management can advance theeffectiveness and impact of aid, we hope to engage othersin this conversation.
This report describes the case studies in brief (with links
to the IRC and Mercy Corps websites for the full cases)
and draws out the key cross-cutting themes that generated
the most discussion at the workshop. We have included
a few of our internal commitments to move Mercy Corps
and the IRC toward more adaptive management, as well asrecommendations for the sector as a whole.
ADAPT’s next phase involves field testing some of the mostpromising adaptive management techniques that surfacedin the initial research. Five pilots are already underway.

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Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

2. RESEARCH APPROACH
ADAPT’s research so far has been grounded in six cases of adaptive management inpractice. Our research approach was built on three pillars: evidence of adaptation in projects
and programs; purposive selection of a diverse set of cases; and a qualitative, inductive
research approach.

ADAPTATION IN PROJECTSAND PROGRAMSQUALITATIVE AND
INDUCTIVE RESEARCH

Our unit of analysis in each case was either a specificproject, or a set of projects implemented together as aprogram. Focusing on the project/program level gave us
an entry point for capturing insights and practices thatwould be relevant to others in the sector. We were alsoable to touch on the broader levels (e.g. enabling or
constraining aspects of organizational culture, donor
strategies, or operational context) and the more granularlevels (e.g. specific behaviors and competencies ofpractitioners, or instances of adaptation within a given
project). Other research efforts could usefully focus on
those levels more explicitly.

Data collection for each case study included: review of
documents (such as project proposals, project tools, donor
reports, and M&E reports); semi-structured key informant
interviews with approximately 15 to 20 people in each country,
both internal (covering different levels of seniority and different
departments) and external (including local partners, other
INGOs, UN agencies, and donors); and in-country reflection
workshops. Some cases also made use of focus group
discussions. Interviews, workshops, and focus groups wereconducted by members of the ADAPT team from the IRC and/or Mercy Corps, during research visits to each project.

Cases were selected to provide variety across several
dimensions: intervention sector and implementation
modality; spectrum from relief to recovery to development;
and level of stability in the context (e.g. politically stable
contexts, epidemic response, active conflicts, etc.). We also
looked at projects/programs that were designed to explicitly
and intentionally incorporate adaptive management fromthe start, as well as those that developed adaptive practices
along the way.
As noted above, the cases were not selected as perfect
examples of adaptive management. As these practices
continue to evolve, each case exhibits certain adaptive
capabilities and enablers, as well as constraints andinhibitors to adaptation. Our cross-case synthesis attempts
to draw lessons from these variations.

Photo: Mercy Corps

DIVERSITY IN CASES,
INCLUDING BOTH POSITIVE
AND NEGATIVE ASPECTS

Rather than testing an overall hypothesis, the research
took an inductive approach to understanding the context,practices, and outcomes of adaptive management as awhole. The in-country workshops combined an inductive/
deductive approach to test the case researcher’s
understanding of enablers and inhibitors of adaptive
management in that context, while still providing space for
new insights that might emerge from participants.

Miji P. and David O. from the Mercy Corps RAIN team.

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Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

3. S UMMARY OF CASE STUDIESBUILDING AN ADAPTIVE TEAM FOR MARKET SYSTEMSDEVELOPMENT IN ACHOLI, UGANDA
Since 2011, the Revitalizing Agriculture Incomes and New Markets (RAIN) program has facilitatedmarket systems development in the Acholi region in northern Uganda. Led by Mercy Corps, theprogram’s learning and adaptation hinge on the inquisitive team, culture of open communication,and reflective monitoring and evaluation practices. RAIN has faced challenges related to
implementing in partnership across two international NGOs, finance and operational systems thatare not well tuned for a market systems approach, and the loss of motivation that accompanies theend of funding. However, various project components continued under new funding sources havecarried the adaptive elements forward.

TAILORING HEALTH PROGRAMMING TO CONTEXT VARIATIONS IN
KAYAH STATE, MYANMARThe Three Millennium Development Goal (3MDG) project in Kayah State, implemented by the IRC,
used a six-month inception period to build relationships among partners and craft a context-tailoredapproach to serving basic health needs of the most vulnerable populations. The resulting program
design included health plans for each of six ethnic health organizations, as well as township-levelplans for the seven areas where those organizations work. Relationships built among the civilsociety and state partners, as well as opportunistic program funding, have been critical to adaptive
management. Onerous reporting and centralized decision making have been key constraints,
slowing implementation timelines and decisions.

4Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

ENSURING CONTEXTUAL AWARENESS AND FLEXIBLE PARTNERSHIP
IN SOUTH AND CENTRAL SYRIAThe South and Central Syria program supports local NGOs and community-based organizations
that respond to changing humanitarian needs in the midst of a war. Implemented by Mercy Corps
with funding from three donors, the program leverages an in-house team of conflict analysts to
inform response activities and forecast future needs. Critical to adaptive management have been
the program’s understanding of localized context, flexible compliance procedures to match partner
capacity, and the autonomy to evolve team structure as needed. Donor approval processes remain achallenge. Early isolation from Mercy Corps’ headquarters hampered access to internal support andlearning from other programs, but this is being addressed as the program moves forward.

LEVERAGING AN INFORMANT NETWORK FOR RAPID RELIEFRESPONSE IN DIFFA, NIGER
The IRC has responded to humanitarian needs in the Diffa region of southeast Niger since 2013.
Facing a shifting context and challenging operational environment, the team built a networkof informants that feeds into a mechanism for rapid programmatic responses as populations
move or new needs arise. An internal team culture of open communication facilitates the
program’s analysis and adaptation. The IRC also leverages this information to influence thewider humanitarian community’s response. Despite procurement constraints and government
restrictions, the program has dramatically increased its scale and the diversity of support itprovides to people displaced by violence and insecurity.

PROMOTING PARTNER AUTONOMY AND LEARNING TO FIGHT EBOLAIN LIBERIAAs the Ebola crisis reached its peak in Liberia, the Mercy Corps team launched an ambitious
experiment in adaptive management: to implement an emergency, social mobilization programwith a technology-intensive learning platform. The Ebola Community Action Platform (ECAP)
gave significant autonomy to 77 partner organizations to design their own outreach efforts.
ECAP encouraged localized decision-making and supported a number of learning channels whichenabled partners to make regular improvements during implementation. The ECAP team learned
from many challenges, including the burden of their technology-intensive monitoring system, rapid
team growth, internal communication challenges, and strained operational capacity. Despite theseissues, the program reached 2.4 million people in nine months and helped drive improved learning
systems in later programs.

PIVOTING APPROACHES IN THE FACE OF A CRISIS IN SIERRA LEONE:COMPARATIVE CASE
Two education projects operating in Sierra Leone prior to Ebola responded to the crisis indramatically different ways. Both implemented by the IRC, they demonstrate how adaptive
management allows projects to achieve outcomes in the face of a changing context. One project
had an iterative design from the beginning, with a flexible donor that trusted the implementing
agency and empowered field staff. The project quickly shifted its approach and continued tosupport education in Kenema district in southeastern Sierra Leone throughout the crisis. The
other project had a convoluted consortium and rigid donor requirements. It suspended activities
for nearly nine months at the peak of the Ebola crisis, before finally re-launching with a new
approach that quickly became irrelevant. Staff from both projects, and across the IRC, worked
flexibly to support the overall Ebola response.
You can access and download the full case studies from either:
www.rescue.org/AdaptCaseStudies
www.mercycorps.org/research-resources/adaptive-management-case-studies

5Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

4. WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED SO FAR
The six case studies form the basis for an initial set of lessons and insights into how we canmake adaptive management a reality. These lessons fall broadly into five categories:
Dynamic and collaborative teams

Agile and integrated operations

Appropriate data and reflective analysis

Trusting and flexible partnerships

Responsive decision-making and action

DYNAMIC ANDCOLLABORATIVE TEAMSHire local and hire for an adaptive mindset. Though hiring
local staff has long been important for aid work, cases ofadaptive management add further evidence for the valueof the local networks, contextual knowledge, and personal
investment of staff hired from the communities being served.
In addition, hiring practices should seek staff with “adaptive
mindsets”: inquisitive by nature, able to ask the right questions,and bringing broad, flexible competencies and skillsets.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
Hiring Syrian staff means the South and Central Syria
program has better access to information on the
evolving conflict, and deeper understanding of thegeographic challenges and operating norms facing
in-country partners.
In Uganda’s RAIN program, recruitment interviews
included problem-solving scenarios or trips to themarket to see how candidates analyzed context inreal-time. The contextual knowledge and analyticalskills of these team members were invaluable inseveral program pivots.

Foster open communications and a collaborative culture.
Successful adaptation is more likely when teammatesbuild trust, communicate openly, and support one anotherin taking risks. The habits and norms of organizational
culture are important. Program leaders can set the tone in
how they interact with staff, including actively seeking input
from field staff and demonstrating commitment to act on it.
Relationships and common identity built across the team,including outside work hours, can facilitate collaboration.
Quarterly reviews, weekly staff meetings, and even daily
briefings provide further opportunities to reinforce this culture.
EXAMPLE FROM THE CASES:
Open communication across three different teams(financial services, tillage, and M&E) helped the RAIN
program in Uganda to develop new loan productswith the potential to help farmers increase crop
production through tillage.

Provide mentorship and coaching. The behaviors andcompetencies needed for adaptive management are quite
different from those instilled by traditional management

approaches. Staff need supportive criticism and advice
to help them adopt these behaviors and steer theirwork appropriately. This can occur through formalized
mentorship and coaching, perhaps as part of supervisors’
roles, or through more informal channels.
EXAMPLE FROM THE CASES:
In Uganda, leadership modelled coaching behavior
and encouraged mentorship to such an extent thatthese became norms within the RAIN program.
Because staff at multiple levels learned to regularly
help each other improve their work, the team carriedthese habits forward even after the program’s central
leader transitioned to a new role.

APPROPRIATE DATA AND
REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS
Keep an eye on the context and surrounding systems,by leveraging multiple forms of data through multiple
channels. Adaptive management requires mechanisms forbuilding and maintaining an understanding of context. This
enables a project to refine its approach, as more is learned
about the context and the project’s impacts on it; and to
shift the project approach as the context shifts, including
as new needs or opportunities arise. Practically, traditional
M&E systems (focused on tracking activities, outputs,
and outcomes) often fail to provide sufficient contextual
awareness or feedback to inform programming. Adaptive
programs deliberately build large networks of external
informants, including partner organizations and community
leaders, which contribute data back to the program. “Soft”
data sources, such as field staff observations, are also valued
for the insights they bring, especially when combined with“hard” data and structured assessments.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
In Niger, community focal points alerted the response
team to increasing numbers of people moving
towards Lake Chad. The team launched a rapid
assessment that revealed over 10,000 newly arrived
people living on islands in the lake, with massive
unmet needs for health care and clean water.
Dedicate analytical capacity, with time and space forreflection. In complex and fluid environments, finding time6

Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

to “see the bigger picture” is more difficult but also more
important. Incoming data may not tell the whole story
until it is combined with other sources and subjected tointerrogation and interpretation by team members withmultiple perspectives. The likelihood of useful synthesis canbe increased through: dedicated staff to conduct context
analysis; greater integration of M&E functions into programs;
allowing deliberate time for incubating new approaches orsystems (e.g. through extended inception periods); external
networks of informants; and iterative use of tools like results
chains, network analysis, and scenario forecasting. These are
all ways to make sense of the context, detect shifts in that
context, and gauge the results of a team’s work. It does not
happen naturally when needs are great and resources are
stretched, but building this analytical capacity can help teams
to focus their work in the right ways.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
The South and Central Syria program’s “HumanitarianAccess Team” (HAT) is composed of five analysts
who leverage their networks, including through theprogram’s partners, to supply the program with conflict
analysis and forecasting across the response region.
Early separation between the analytical team and theprogram team allowed space to incubate the analytical
capacity, though this initially reduced the usefulness of
the analysis. The two functions now collaborate moreclosely, and the HAT has begun expanding into political
economy analysis and other areas.
In the Niger response, team members participated ina scenario planning workshop, which identified likely
ways that the conflict with Boko Haram might evolve.
The workshop led the team to raise funding for a“rapid response” mechanism.

RESPONSIVE DECISION-MAKING
AND ACTION
Connect decision-making to the analysis and reflection
processes. To be useful, appropriate data and reflective
analysis cannot be isolated. They must feed into decisionmaking and action. Accomplishing this requires cross-team
integration and structured processes, such as: integrating M&E
or other analytical functions into program teams, as mentioned
above; building response capacity (i.e. funding and/or staff)
that will be ready to address opportunities and needs identified
over the course of the program; and allowing for extended
inception periods for research and design that shapes program
budget, staffing, and strategies.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
Based on forecasting by the HAT, the South andCentral Syria program has been able to pre-position
food baskets and other items for areas that are likely
to face sieges, whereby Syrian government and otherforces cut civilian populations off from food andhumanitarian assistance.

A six-month inception period allowed the 3MDG
project in Myanmar to build trust among theconsortium members, conduct stakeholder
analysis, identify the needs of multiple partners andcommunities, and develop a detailed budget andapproach for the full project.
Place decision-making authority as close to front-line
staff and partners as possible. Those who are closer to a
problem usually understand it more thoroughly and are better
positioned to quickly try new things, see whether they are
working, and iterate accordingly. This is critically importantin complex aid and development efforts, where difficulty
understanding context reduces the value of initial plans
and where shifts in that context can make current activities
irrelevant. Centralized decisions often take too long and aremade without nuanced understanding of on-the-groundrealities. Adaptive programs allow significant field staff andpartner autonomy. Where oversight is needed, short decisionmaking chains can support informed and rapid decisions.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
Partners in the ECAP project in Liberia faced very few
restrictions in how they used their grant funding. They
could define mobilization strategies that drew on theirown strengths and shift strategies as needed. This
allowed them to quickly tailor their messaging andapproaches as they learned what resonated with theircommunities or saw new needs arise.
The LWOL project in Sierra Leone responded tofield staff’s observations with multiple pivots, suchas providing stipends to community teachers after
school closures reduced their funding from the hostcommunities, and providing small learning groups
with pencils, papers, and books when the economic
shut-down made these unaffordable. These
decisions were made by the field-based project
manager, in consultation with the senior education
manager and education coordinator.

AGILE AND INTEGRATEDOPERATIONS
Bridge the gap between programs, operations, and financeteams. Programmatic adaptation has ripple effects acrossan organization. Operations and finance teams that would
otherwise default to standardized procedures – which typicallyare designed for a stable context and pre-designed program –must find ways to adapt accordingly. These support teams are
better placed to facilitate adaptation if they work closely withthe program team, so that they better understand why they arebeing asked to take new approaches. Likewise, program teams
that understand existing operational and financial procedures
are more likely to understand the flexibility they have. Together,teams can tailor standardized procedures to the context andpartners, finding creative solutions as needed.

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Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

EXAMPLE FROM THE CASES:
The South and Central Syria program developed amatrix of alternative documentation for sub-granted
partners, allowing them to provide compliancedocumentation that makes sense for their capacity
and context. Developing and improving this matrix
required close collaboration between programs,
compliance, finance, and operations.

Create mechanisms for rapid procurement, grants, andcontracts. The time needed to procure items or structure
partnership agreements (whether grants or contracts)
adds to delays for projects in emergency contexts, where
delays can be ill-afforded. By bridging the gap between
programs, operations, and finance, many projects havecrafted mechanisms for speeding up these processes. These
include “master purchase agreements” that pre-approvevendors, increased financial approval levels of field staff, anduse of “fixed amount awards” that allow sub-grants withoutburdensome screening or financial reporting. The efficiencyof such mechanisms frees up more time for reflection andreduces barriers to program pivots.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
The ECAP project in Liberia funded a majority ofthe partners through Fixed Obligation Grants (morerecently renamed “Fixed Amount Awards”) which
did not require burdensome screening or financial
reporting. To spread the management burden, somehigher-capacity partners received standard grants,
which they then sub-granted onward through fixed
obligation mechanisms.
The South and Central Syria program has faced delays
when adding new partners and providing sub-grants
under funding from the US Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance (OFDA), whose approval process cantake up to five weeks. In contrast, the UK Department
for International Development (DfID) requires only
notification (rather than approval) of new partnerships.

TRUSTING AND FLEXIBLEPARTNERSHIPS
Plan for adaptation in budgets and outcomes reporting.
Two of the biggest constraints on adaptation are rigid
reporting (which lock projects into focusing only on preplanned activities, outputs, and outcomes) and rigid budgets(including both spend/burn rates that require hasty program
activity, without time for analysis or reflection, as well as
immovable budget lines that prevent allocation of funding toexperimentation and new adaptations). Adaptive programs
find ways to loosen both of those constraints. Reporting canbe made less rigid through the use of higher-level, fewer, and/or optional indicators, allowing teams to flexibly pursue sharedoutcomes; narrative reporting can be used to explain decisions
made. Similarly, budgets can be loosened by: allocating
funding in broad categories, with the opportunity for flexibility
within each category; holding a reserve of funding for learningand adaptation; or ensuring that budget changes receive rapid
approvals from donors.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
In the Myanmar 3MDG project, a combination of coreand opportunistic programming allowed the team tocapitalize on emerging opportunities and mitigate
risks. A flexible budget line funded important
activities that were not originally planned, like a
vaccination campaign run jointly by the state healthdepartment and ethnic health organizations.
In the Niger program’s “rapid response” mechanism,
multi-sector assessments can trigger distributionsof food or non-food items, as well as water andsanitation interventions.

Keep organizational boundaries permeable. “Partnership”
is a common mantra in aid and development, but it
often means little more than finding organizations withcomplementary strengths. In adaptive management,
partnership goes further than that: organizational boundaries
become more permeable, with ideas and information flowing
more freely among partners, including donors, implementers,
civil society, private sector, and government. This leads togreater trust and mutual understanding. For example, more
frequent communication with donors improves the ability tochange budgets and outcomes, as described above, because
donor counterparts are more likely to be “up to speed” on how
the context and program are evolving. Permeable boundaries
with implementing partners, such as private sector actors
and sub-grantees, likewise improves a project’s contextual
understanding and ability to adapt.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CASES:
Close relationships with the funder enabled Sierra
Leone’s LWOL project to change its approach, both
before and after the outbreak of Ebola. The donor
provided bridge funding when normal activities had
to be suspended, allowed staff to be seconded toEbola response activities, and allowed funds to be
re-allocated as needed under a new design. This
flexibility was made easier by a lack of intermediaries
between the project team and the donor.
The Niger response team shares data fromits informant networks with donors and otherhumanitarian actors, helping to build common
understanding and better collaboration in the
response efforts.

8Adapting Aid Lessons from Six Case Studies

5. ENABLING ADAPTATION ACROSS THE SECTOR
Mercy Corps and the IRC are committed to harnessing the potential of adaptive management,
both for our own work and for the wider sector. The cases studied in this research form asmall part of that work. We have a three-part strategy for further spreading these approaches.

INSTITUTIONALIZE: Our agencies will conduct adaptive management self-assessments inten country programs over the next year, and make changes in response to identified adaptive
capacities and constraints. At the agency level, our organizations are planning for, and putting
into practice, new strategies and systems that will emphasize the importance of an adaptive
mindset and adaptive approach in the people we recruit, train, mentor, and support – with theaim of infusing our field programs with an adaptive culture and delivering greater impact.

INNOVATE: Building on the adaptive management self-assessments, the ADAPT partnershipteam will work with the same ten country programs over the next two years to further
pilot adaptive programming techniques. These will include new design processes, funding
arrangements, implementation approaches, and specialized teams providing context analysis.

INFLUENCE: We will continue to conduct field research that builds evidence on the impactof adaptive management, to share the research findings with others, and to convene events
to explore with other agencies and donors how we can make adaptive management the norm
across the sector.
In addition, making adaptive management practices
the norm across the broader aid and development
sector will require concerted effort by donors,
implementers, and researchers. Zooming out from the
project level, our work so far points to several ways thatorganizations can put this agenda into practice and help
move it forward.
All organizations in the sector, and especially implementers,
can promote adaptive management in their work bybuilding a clear commitment to its principles acrossthe organization.
RECOMMENDATIONS:RECOMMENDATIONS:Expect, acknowledge, and reward learning (as well as results),
and recognize that iterative improvement takes time.
S olicit concepts and proposals based on broad
outcomes, giving implementers the flexibility to define
their own approaches, work plans, reporting, andindicators, and adapting them toward shared goals.
Provide funding for activities focused on context
analysis and ongoing learning, allow flexibility acrossbudget lines in both overhead and program costs, andprovide multi-year funding mechanisms that enable
flexibility and experimentation.

Enable flexible competency prioritization in hiring key
positions, placing value in soft skills, adaptive mindset,
and change management experience.

Finally, there is a significant research agenda around adaptive
management, which academics and think tanks can support.

Build in time and budget space for adaptation in any
program, project, or initiative, including through pilot/
inception phases that enable a range of strategies to betested in “small bets”.

Document and share cases of adaptive management.

P ilot, iterate, document, and share practices that
support adaptive programming in your organization.
Any organization in a position to fund others – whether apublic-sector donor, private foundation, or re-granting NGO– has the ability to enable adaptation by those they fund.

RECOMMENDATIONS:S hape the conceptual and analytical frameworks forstudying adaptive management.
Craft measures to demonstrate the impact of adaptive
management on programs and development outcomes.
The ADAPT collaboration would like to thank Sida for its
generous contribution to this research, Dave Algoso for
his writing and editorial support and Ric Allen and Ivan
Nascimento for their graphic design work.

9

ANNEX ONE
ADAPT Case Study

BUILDING AN ADAPTIVE TEAM FOR
MARKET SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT
IN ACHOLI, UGANDACASE IN BRIEF

Since 2011, the Revitalizing Agriculture Incomes and New Markets (RAIN) program has promoted market
systems development in the Acholi region in northern Uganda. The program’s learning and adaptation hingeon the inquisitive team, culture of open communication, and reflective monitoring and evaluation practices.
RAIN has faced challenges related to implementing in partnership across two international NGOs, finance andoperational systems that are not well tuned for a market systems approach, and the loss of motivation that
accompanies the end of funding. However, various project components continued under new funding sources
have carried the adaptive elements forward.

PROJECT BACKGROUND
Mercy Corps has been implementing the Revitalizing
Agriculture Incomes and New Markets (RAIN) program in
the Acholi region in northern Uganda since October 2011.
In a context where recovery from two decades of conflicthas been marked by rapid economic and social shifts, theprogram has pursued three core objectives: enhancing
smallholder production and profitability; improving agribusiness and trade performance in input and output markets;and expanding access to agriculture financial services.
Though RAIN’s original approach focused on direct trainingof farmers, it was redesigned in the first year to incorporatea market systems approach. Rather than directly delivering
goods and services to households, the program would
instead support local actors to create long-run economic
opportunities for poor farmers and others.
RAIN’s new focus required team members to design theirworkflows to monitor and respond dynamically as markets
developed. They adopted a set of tools and systems centeredon testing, learning from, and improving interventions
throughout the program’s lifecycle. The program also madea series of strategic and tactical alterations throughout
implementation. For example, the team repeatedly tested
and altered their approach to input vouchers, dropped anddeveloped partnerships in financial services, integrated
gender into marketing and messaging, and diversified theprogram’s focus crops.
Initially funded for three years by the US Department ofAgriculture (USDA), the program was extended for an
additional two years. Mercy Corps also attracted additional
funding for the same program portfolio, but continued to
manage all donors’ activities under a single management

structure. TechnoServe was initially a sub-granted partner
focused on agribusiness, though Mercy Corps moved forwardwith the USDA extension without them.

ADAPTIVE CAPABILITIESAND ENABLERSRECRUITMENT, COACHING, AND
STAFF DEVELOPMENT
The Mercy Corps country and program leadership focusedon recruiting and building the kind of dynamic team thatwould be able to carry out an adaptive market development
program. They focused on hiring team members from the
Acholi region, in order to ensure strong localized knowledge
and increase retention. They also made a dedicated effort to
attract women, who could communicate with and understandthe program’s female target group (see text box).
Finding candidates who were inquisitive by nature wasprioritized and supported by creative recruiting techniques.
Interviews included problem-solving scenarios; occasionally,
they would also involve trips to the market to assess how wella candidate could observe and analyze context. Once on board,
this inquisitiveness carried over into the team’s culture. The
opportunity to learn and challenge themselves has been a key
motivator for staff, even as the team has weathered turnover.
Building team members’ skills was prioritized beyond what
is seen in most programs. Team members attended external
and internal training courses in market systems programming,and successfully advocated for TechnoServe’s team to invest
in and join training. The team received support from Engineers
without Borders, Mercy Corps’ technical unit in headquarters,
and a learning-focused monitoring and evaluation (M&E)

ADAPT Case Study – Building an adaptive team for market systems development in Acholi, Uganda

2

IMPORTANCE OF GENDER ON THE RAIN TEAM
Building a team that retains women and gives them voice
was critical to gender-focused shifts in program strategy. In
2013, as part of a country-wide Mercy Corps initiative, theRAIN team conducted an internal gender analysis, started
tracking gender-disaggregated recruitment metrics against
targets, and began to proactively recruit and promotewomen. When a few of the newly recruited women on theteam struggled to have their voices heard, the Mercy Corps
Uganda gender advisor, HR department, and the RAIN
Program Director held a meeting to identify ways to resolve
the problem. The Program Director focused attention on
attracting women to join the team, and called on malegender champions within the team to support the women’s
integration. By the start of 2016, the program staff was 48%
women, up from 22% at the start of the program.

Without deliberate efforts to support women’s voice andretention, critical gender-focused shifts in program strategy
would likely not have occurred. Mirroring internal increases,
the RAIN team helped the Gulu Agricultural Development
Company (GADC) increase their recruitment of female
extension agents from zero in 2012-2013 to 20 in 2014-2015.
These efforts helped GADC increase the number of organic
female farmers registered and trained with GADC from 26% to
48% over the same time period. This shift required dedicatedresources: in addition to support from the country office’s
gender advisor, the team leveraged gender-focused grantfunding in pushing forward the changes.

consultant. The external attention further motivated the teamand created a connection to the broader Mercy Corps world.

Quarterly and semi-annual meetings were the most usefulfor learning and idea generation when they included local
government and private sector partners. Both the RAIN
team and its external partners would make presentations
about their strategies and challenges, which helped identify
information sharing gaps, strengthened trust and support(especially with local government), and allowed RAIN teammembers to learn about implementation challenges directlyfrom local actors. For example, information sharing between
the field agents of one private sector partner, Gulu Agriculture
Development Company (GADC), and Mercy Corps staff
helped to address key challenges around uptake of tillage
services (see text box).

Finally, leadership modelled coaching behavior andencouraged team members to mentor one another to suchan extent that coaching and mentorship became norms
within RAIN. Team members gave one another supportive
criticism and advice, helping to improve one another’s criticalquestioning skills and the overall program’s ability to learn
and adapt. In the most important test, the team carriedforward these habits even after the program’s central leader
transitioned to a new role. The attentive focus on soft aspects
of program culture and team management in the context of
on-boarding and handover proved critical to maintaining one
of RAIN’s strongest assets for adaptive management.

CULTURE OF OPEN COMMUNICATIONAND EXCHANGE
The norms around coaching and inquisitiveness were
reinforced by a culture of open communication andexchange. This culture built trust, helped team members
feel valued, improved information sharing, and supported
program shifts. Open communication and willingness toaccept criticism were particularly important given how fieldlevel learning is often founded on local storytelling and verbal
communication: much of the most important knowledge wastacit, held in team members’ heads.
Operating norms and management techniques built on these
existing communication streams and styles in order to draw
important information to the forefront and support joint
problem solving. Weekly Monday morning meetings served
as regular touch points for open communication; teammembers raised issues in these meetings that they would
then go and solve in smaller groups after the main meeting
had ended. Quarterly and semi-annual reviews motivatedteam members to think more deeply about challenges in theirsectors and the results they had achieved.

On a more daily basis, RAIN’s Program Director modeled
good relationships and communications with his teammembers, fostering a safe environment where staff felt
open to raise ideas, experiment, and fail. He also maintained
an “open door” policy and took time to build personalconnections with team members, in order to fight thetraditional hierarchical structures that often serve as barriers
to critical information and idea sharing. This culture of
openness propagated throughout the team.

Even with your crazy idea that you (bring), they
allow you to try, and they don’t blame you for
failing, and you come and sit down and talkabout how you could do it differently… Also theway the team relates, there is that free flow ofconversation, when you come up with something,it’s not taken as a personal thing, it’s taken as ateam responsibility.”
RAIN team member

ADAPT Case Study – Building an adaptive team for market systems development in Acholi, Uganda

3

Photo: Mercy Corps

quarterly) donor reports. This gave the inquisitive M&E teamthe capacity to focus on learning and programmatic decisions.

Miji P. and David O. from the Mercy Corps RAIN team.

We were blending so much with the teamleaders and the bosses: you could reach apoint when everyone is valuable...
When you met everyone under the tree you
wouldn’t know who is who.”
RAIN team members

ENSURING M&E SUPPORTS
LEARNING AND PROGRAMMATIC
DECISION MAKING
RAIN’s M&E staff focused on helping the broader team learn,
improve interventions, and evolve the theory of change. This
departure from M&E’s typical focus on measurement forreporting was enabled by the relatively limited number ofrequired reporting indicators and semi-annual (rather thanA substantial portion of the M&E team’s time went tosupporting frequent mini-assessments (covering topics
such as cross-border trade, gender, and financial services)
and internal evaluation activities (focused on understanding
the impact of seed subsidies and contract farming). The
ideas for these investigative exercises frequently arose fromprogram reviews or weekly meetings, carried forward by theteam’s culture of open communication and joint problem
solving. The assessments would then be led by the M&E
team, but conducted jointly with implementation teams.
Though the most important information for programmatic
decisions often came from one-off assessments carried out
on a weekly or monthly basis, the team also participated in
the design and review of a large mid-term evaluation which
helped the program make broader, strategic shifts, such as
diversifying the focus crops to support household resilience.
As the program evolved, so too did the M&E team’s tools andsystems. Quarterly and semi-annual reviews started as long,
unstructured story-telling sessions; they shifted under theguidance of the M&E manager to focus on results achieved
and challenges faced. Similarly, the team started out using
after-action reviews, but usage dropped after reflections were
integrated into event reporting. Various other monitoring tools
were set aside as the program progressed and they were
found to be time consuming or limited in value.
The team depicted its theory of change in a results chain – avisual format that is often more detailed and less linear thanothers, with the intent of being a more useful tool for ongoing,
activity-level program management. Many team members
found that the results chains helpfully clarified how their work
connected to the program goal. After the first growing season,
the M&E team restructured the results chain in order to better

CROSS-TEAM COMMUNICATION: DEVELOPING CASHLESS LOANS FOR TILLAGETeam members used weekly meetings and team brainstorming
sessions to discuss the barriers they saw. They organizedmonitoring and assessments to understand the issue better.
Pulling together the ideas and expertise of three different
teams (financial services, tillage, and M&E) as well as that ofpartners, they developed a solution: a cashless loan productthat would allow farmers to receive vouchers for tillage andthen gradually make payments to the bank for the services. The
success of this product relied heavily on repeated informal andformal cross-team meetings and close collaboration to identify
issues and develop solutions based on the team’s experience.

Meetings with partners like GADC also helped to uncoverother opportunities to improve tillage service use, such asemphasizing the importance of tree stump removal.

Photo: Corinna Robbins/Mercy Corps

Increasing farmers’ use of tillage services (which havethe potential to increase crop production) represented asignificant challenge in the RAIN program. Farmers lacked
the on-hand cash needed to pay for the service, and loans forthese services were seen as too risky because households
tend to spend any available cash on other needs.

Mercy Corps team member, Molly, talks with Pauline. Pauline
owns a farm supply store and has completed trainings inbusiness management and best practices in farming, which
helped her expand her business and become and agent for GADC.

ADAPT Case Study – Building an adaptive team for market systems development in Acholi, Ugandaalign with the broader team’s understanding of its strategy andorganizational structure. However, evolving the results chains
alongside the program created significant work for the M&E
team to document changes, update indicators, and revise
measurement plans. There was also a hesitance to makeupdates to the program strategy through the results chain, outof the fear of getting it wrong. As one team member said, “It’slike a scary thing, and I just don’t want to mess it up.” In theend, RAIN only made two significant results chain revisions in
the three years after its redesign as a market systems program(with a few smaller shifts along the way as well).

With our tools, you always get to build things– they’re not rigid.”
M&E team member

As Mercy Corps’ work in the Acholi region has expanded andbrought on additional donors, each with their own funding
requirements, the country program invested in a monitoring
database to reduce data aggregation efforts and protect the
M&E team’s time for learning and reflection. As a result of thedatabase, the team estimates that reporting that previously took
a full week of M&E staff time each month now takes less than
two days – a significant reduction. Unfortunately, the increased
administrative and reporting requirements across the broader
team resulting from funding increases have inevitably come at
the expense of time for learning and reflection.

CONSTRAINTS AND INHIBITORS ON
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENTLOSS OF MOTIVATION AS PROGRAM ENDED
The team has been able to leverage new funding sources
to enhance its broader approach, building upon key
components of RAIN’s core strategy: women’s economic
empowerment, resilience, youth economic empowerment,
and value chain linkages.

4

However, uncertainty over employment began to affectthe team’s focus as the end of RAIN drew near. Staff were
understandably concerned about their job security. Even
though new funding was received near the end of the programand management informed the team about new opportunities,
there was not enough security given to keep team members
motivated on a daily basis. The team became comfortablewith the status quo of their work as RAIN neared its end.
There was a drop in energy in program reviews, and anincrease in missed opportunities. Some of these opportunities
will be seized under new funding sources, but only after an
additional time gap before new activities can begin.

INFLEXIBILITY OF FINANCE AND
OPERATIONAL SUPPORT
Despite a culture of open communication within the
program team, challenges of mutual understanding andcollaboration among finance, operations, and programs
are an issue in the broader Mercy Corps Uganda country
program. Leadership has attempted to address thesechallenges by having operations and finance teams present
in program review meetings.
In the RAIN program, the team faced the added challengeof building a shared understanding of the market systems
approach and the non-traditional partnerships needed to
expand market opportunities for the poor. Market systems
programs often require cost-sharing agreements and loan
guarantees with private sector partners in order to stimulate
pro-poor investment. Despite Mercy Corps’ agency-levelpromotion of market systems programming and lessons
learned from financing these interventions in other locations,the team struggled to identify and properly structureagreements. Few external examples were available.
The RAIN program was forced to choose between two
partnership tools – service contracts and sub-grant
agreements – that were both inflexible and too burdensome
for a program which needed to work with non-NGO partners
and regularly adapt its strategies. They chose to use service
contracts, but these agreements can easily misrepresent

DRIVING LOCAL SAVINGS THROUGH IMPROVED ASSESSMENTS
The RAIN program’s mid-term evaluation in 2014 revealed
that increasing formal savings might limit householdspending on alcohol—a social issue which contributes togender-based violence and limits household investments
in farming. At the same time, local savings and credit
cooperatives (SACCOs) were struggling to recruit and retain
members and to mobilize savings.
As the program’s financial services team conducted anassessment of SACCOs to understand the problem better,
the M&E manager realized that the team was not capturing
the most critical information. He started working with thefinancial services team to ensure they understood the
SACCOs’ business constraints, improving their assessment
questions and data analysis. The resulting information wasshared back with the SACCOs.
Based on the assessment, the RAIN team supported the
local SACCO to pilot a mobile-based savings drive in one
branch. The SACCO then independently repeated the drive inall of their other branches, increasing their membership from10,000 to 16,000 members overall and attracting savings ofover $750,000 and distributed loans over $40,000 in the first
three months.

ADAPT Case Study – Building an adaptive team for market systems development in Acholi, Uganda

the intent of a cooperative and adaptive partnership.
Structuring and negotiating financial agreements throughinappropriate, rigid mechanisms slowed the team’s work with
its partners and constrained its ability to revise partnerships
as strategies changed.

CONFLICTING SYSTEMS WITH
CORE PARTNER
Implementing RAIN across two different organizations, Mercy
Corps and TechnoServe, created several obstacles. Beyond
typical differences in organizational culture, the partners’ HR
policies and operational systems were not in sync. They had
different salary scales and per diems. Even traveling together
was difficult, as the two organizations had different vehicles,
different field accommodation policies, and kept separate
movement plans. More than mere operational differences,these issues undermined team motivation, detracted
attention from program implementation, and limited the open
communication that was so central to RAIN’s ability to adapt.

in part due to the extra effort and resources required to work
adaptively across organizations.

We made deliberate efforts to build one
team culture, very deliberately acknowledging
that there are different HR systems, but
creating a leveled ground and breaking
interpersonal barriers...”Technoserve DCOP

KEY REFLECTIONSLeadership sits at the center of many of RAIN’s successes.
Investments in building a collaborative, inquisitive teamand promoting a culture of open communication made it
possible to learn and adapt. Orienting M&E functions toward
programmatic and strategic questions, rather than reporting,increased the analytical capacity of the team. There werechallenges in each of these, but the practical effect ofleadership in this program was to build a team that had theentrepreneurial spirit to test new strategies and tactics, andthe discipline and tools to reflect on them and overcome
challenges as they arose. This approach was especially
useful for a market development program that aimed to makechange at the level of systems as well as individual farmers.

Photo: Mercy Corps

Leadership from both teams invested significant effort toovercome these issues. They co-located their teams andsat together in the same office; they took time to discussproblems jointly and seek each other’s feedback for staff
performance reviews; they negotiated shared use of resources;
and they made some small shifts in salary scales to reduce
compensation gaps. Over time, the two organizations madegradual progress toward a healthy working relationship and acollaborative, cohesive team. Nonetheless, when Mercy Corps
applied for a program extension, they chose to do so alone,5

A woman in East Acholi province cleans sesame seeds after harvest.
She sells her produce to a local output buyer, GADC.

Written in April 2016 based on interviews
conducted in February 2016

ANNEX TWO
ADAPT Case StudyTAILORING HEALTH PROGRAMMING
TO CONTEXT VARIATIONS IN KAYAH
STATE, MYANMAR
CASE IN BRIEF

The Three Millennium Development Goal (3MDG) project in Kayah State used a six-month inception period
to build relationships among partners and craft a context-tailored approach to serving basic health needs ofthe most vulnerable populations. The resulting program design included health plans for each of six ethnic
health organizations, as well as township-level plans for the seven areas where those organizations work.
Relationships built among the civil society and state partners, as well as opportunistic program funding, havebeen critical to adaptive management. Onerous reporting and centralized decision making have been key
constraints, slowing implementation timelines.

CONTEXT
Conflict, inaccessibility, and resource limitations standin the way of health services in Kayah State in eastern
Myanmar. These challenges stem from decades of civil warthat continue to impact the state’s population of 230,000
people. Though the government has established ceasefire
agreements with almost all ethnic armed opposition groups,
some townships in Kayah are still under complete control
of ethnic armed groups, and others have active conflict.
Even in places without violence, ethnic minority groups
have underlying grievances related to a lack of influence
over political decisions, an absence of economic and social
development, and the repression of cultural rights andreligious freedoms.

PROJECT
Launched in July 2014, the Three Millennium Development
Goal (3MDG) project aims to address the basic health needsof the most vulnerable people in Kayah State, with a focus
on supporting maternal, newborn, and child health service
provision across all seven townships. This project is one ofmany across Myanmar that have been supported through the
3MDG Myanmar Fund, managed by the United Nations Officefor Project Services (UNOPS) with contributions from sevendonor countries.1
In Kayah, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) leads acore consortium that includes the International Organization
for Migration (IOM) and the Civilian Health and Development
Network (CHDN)—a local organization consisting ofrepresentatives from six ethnic health organizations that are
1

active in the state. The IRC works principally with CHDN andthe ethnic health organizations, while the IOM works with theState Health Department (SHD).
The 3MDG project in Kayah involves state and non-state
health services, as well as mobile health teams supporting
remote populations. The program approaches are tailored intownship, state, and organization-specific plans.
Improved access to quality health care has provided a sharedobjective for the parties in this conflict. The IRC and partners
have sought to capitalize on this opportunity by encouraging
increasing levels of collaboration. Key accomplishments overthe project period to date include:C HDN has the respected and active participation of all
ethnic health organizations;J oint training and regular coordination meetings between
SHD and CHDN;J oint immunisation campaign and coordinated response tocyclone Komen by SHD and ethnic health organizations.

Photo: Peter Biro/IRC

BACKGROUND

A woman is examined by a nurse from the state health department.

Australia, Denmark, the European Union, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America

ADAPT Case Study – Tailoring health programming to context variations in Kayah State, Myanmar

Without donor flexibility and careful navigation of
the context, none of this would have been possible.”
Program Director

ADAPTIVE CAPABILITIESAND ENABLERS
PROJECT APPROACH TAILORED BY EACH
LOCAL PARTNER
3MDG’s contextually tailored approach was built on anunderstanding of local dynamics. This foundation was laid
during a six-month inception phase, funded by an initial
grant of $530,000 from the 3MDG Fund. The IRC used theperiod to build trust within the consortium through a small
number of activities, while also working together to conduct
a stakeholder analysis and develop a detailed budget andapproach for the full project.

2

inception period, the project grant was increased to $8 million
and extended to December 2016.

We didn’t initially ask for a detailed project
proposal or budget. Instead we asked for an
estimate of operational costs. We said we want
you to implement a package of services, howmuch will it cost? They started with little funds– for interventions to react to needs, to getthings started. They worked with all the partners– did (their) analysis, then provided us with adetailed plan.... Then came the contract anddetailed activities.”
Donor representative

RELATIONSHIPS BUILTAMONG PARTNERS

The inception phase was critical to crafting a project that
responded to the heterogeneity and needs of the six ethnic
health organizations. For the IRC and IOM, this was a period
for building understanding of the different goals, capacities,
and cultures of their partners. This allowed the consortium topresent a nuanced approach to the 3MDG Fund, which had
previously emphasized a standardized process whereby eachtownship developed a single health plan that contributed to theachievement of a state-level health plan.

To achieve the project’s goals, stakeholders from different
sides of the conflict need to collaborate. To increase
collaboration, the project team has focused the various parties
on the overarching and shared ambition of meeting basic
health needs, while managing the concerns and motivations ofdifferent actors and facilitating productive engagements. For
example, activities like joint trainings have helped to build trust
and personal connections.

Instead, the consortium worked toward organization-specificplans that supported township and state plans. This approach
was tailored to partners’ capacities and the specific context,
which increased participation and ownership. At the end of the

In February 2016 the team conducted a social network
analysis of actors involved in health care provision in order toinform its strategies and approaches. The analysis mappedstate actors, ethnic organizations, community organizations,Social network analysis of health actors in Kayah State: The IRC (orange dot) managed to build trust (green lines) within the network of ethnic
health organizations (purple dots) and capitalize on opportunities for joint engagement between them and the state (yellow dots).

ADAPT Case Study – Tailoring health programming to context variations in Kayah State, Myanmarinternational organizations, donors, and mothers and children
accessing care. Among those actors, the team identified
connections of trust, technical/material support, financial
support, and conflict. This data was visualized for analysis
by the team (see diagram on page 2).The result proved
invaluable for establishing a common understanding of therelationship dynamics in Loikaw, Kayah and for capitalizing on
opportunities and addressing tensions.
The program team used the information from the social network
analysis to strengthen relationships between partners over thecourse of the project. The CHDN is now recognized by all ethnic
health organizations and is a respected partner of the SHD. These
partners – CHDN and the ethnic health organizations on the civilsociety side, and SHD on the government side – hold regularcoordination meetings, collaborate to organize joint trainings,
and are able to engage in sensitive issues like immunization
protocols in areas controlled by ethnic armed groups.

initiate a systematic and collaborative approach to identifying,
analyzing, and responding to opportunities and needs. The
project complemented core programming, in line with thelogframe, with opportunistic programming that capitalized on
emerging opportunities and/or mitigated risks.
Opportunistic programming facilitated some of the mostsignificant relationship-building achievements such as thereferral of complex cases from ethnic armed group-controlledareas to the SHD, and even a joint campaign between the SHD
and ethnic health organizations to vaccinate 2,400 children in
80 villages against Rubella.

Photo: Peter Biro/IRC(The) IRC’s role is about creating an enabling
environment for change, rather than being thedriver of it.”
Project staff

The project is led by compromises within CHDN,
and between CHDN and the government.”

3

A child is examined by the health team.

Project staff member

COMBINATION OF CORE AND
OPPORTUNISTIC PROGRAMMING
The project partners and donors have a shared understandingthat progress in a context like Kayah’s is not fully predictableand does not follow work plans. However, as is often the case,the logical framework (logframe) that is used as the primarymanagement reporting tool between the implementers and
UNOPS does not reflect this complexity.
Appreciating the complexity of the context, UNOPS introduced
a flexible funding line, which enabled project partners to

In a situation such as Kayah progress doesn’t
happen at a constant rate or necessarily in linewith program implementation work plans. It rather
is a start-stop process with slow periods, sudden
spurts forward as well as some steps back.”
However, the project logframe is: “outdated
and too rigid… our major stumbling block tobeing flexible.”
Donor representative

ADAPTING TO URGENT NEEDS FOLLOWING CYCLONE KOMEN
In October 2015, heavy rain from Cyclone Komen triggered aseries of landslides in Hpa-saung Township of Kayah State.
At least 28 people were killed, 60 homes destroyed, and 800
residents forced to temporarily relocate to camps opened on
the grounds of schools and hospitals.
The 3MDG project partners shared information on the needsof affected villages, and then collectively determined how
to respond. The SHD expedited the temporary evacuation of

those at risk of landslides in Kone village, while the CHDN,
ethnic health organizations, and local partners rapidly
distributed relief items to people in Lo Kha Lo camp.
The speed of the response was possible only because the
SHD and ethnic health organizations had built sufficient trustfrom previous engagements to be willing to work together
and permit access to one another, and the IRC was confident
in the 3MDG Fund’s resource flexibility.

ADAPT Case Study – Tailoring health programming to context variations in Kayah State, Myanmar

CONSTRAINTS AND INHIBITORS ON
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENTREPORTING BURDENS AND AUTHORIZATIONDELAYS
Grant compliance and financial management burdens resulted
in implementation delays for 3MDG. Though the relationshipbetween the project team and donor was characterized byregular communication, mutual respect, and joint problem
solving, various aspects of the bureaucratic requirements were
inflexible and time consuming.
For example, the grant amendment that allowed fororganization-specific (rather than township) health plans
took five months and ten budget iterations to complete,cutting significantly into implementation time. As one staff
member put it: “There is flexibility with funding, but it takes
forever to negotiate.”
In a similar gap between intended flexibility and reality, the
UNOPS team initially planned a relatively simple financial
reporting system but instead reverted to more detailed andtime consuming reporting system due to the discomfort
of some staff on their side. The result was what a DfID
representative called “overly onerous” planning and budgeting
frameworks, which were perceived to be “quite inflexible andvery time consuming.”

CENTRALIZED DECISION MAKING
The 3MDG project’s effectiveness has relied heavily on thedecision making of a few champions within the project
team and donor. These key people invested heavily in athorough understanding of the context, and decided that
this detailed knowledge was less critical for junior staff who
were responsible for implementing more standard aspects of
the intervention.

4

The dependence on a few individuals’ decision making has
slowed down implementation, especially as communication
can be difficult between Loikaw (the capital of Kayah State)
and Yangon. More recently, efforts have been made toempower mid-level managers and to encourage deeper
contextual understanding, in order to allow for more
rapid and nuanced approaches to changing conditions or
new information.

KEY REFLECTIONS
In some ways, the results for 3MDG have been slow in coming.
However, as one donor representative put it: “Some politicalanalysts think it’s amazing that (the) IRC are even there” andthe project has created the conditions for future success in achallenging context. The progress made in coordination andcollaboration among previously conflicting parties is arguably
more impressive than the gains made in health outcomes,
and the relationships built will contribute to further healthoutcomes going forward.
As the Program Director observed: “There has been a change
in mindset over the past year. Whereas previously they (theSHD and ethnic health organizations) wouldn’t speak, now theyseek to understand the other. They try to find common groundand are willing to compromise. This change has been brought
about by building trust, which has been facilitated by making
the most of opportunities for engagement when they arise.
Without donor flexibility and careful navigation of the context,
none of this would have been possible.”

Written in April 2016 based on interviews conductedin August 2015 and January 2016.

ANNEX THREE
ADAPT Case StudyENSURING CONTEXTUAL
AWARENESS AND FLEXIBLEPARTNERSHIP IN SOUTH AND
CENTRAL SYRIACASE IN BRIEF

The South and Central Syria program supports local NGOs and community-based organizations that respondto changing humanitarian needs in the midst of a war. Implemented by Mercy Corps with funding from threedonors, the program leverages an in-house team of conflict analysts to inform response activities and forecast
future needs. Critical to adaptive management have been the program’s flexible compliance procedures tomatch partner capacity, and the autonomy to evolve team structure as needed. Donor approval processes
remain a challenge. Early isolation from Mercy Corps’ headquarters hampered access to internal support andlearning from other programs, but is being addressed as the program moves forward.

BACKGROUNDCONTEXTThe humanitarian consequences of the Syrian war havebeen far-reaching. The UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs estimates there are 13.5 million people
in need of assistance, including 4.8 million refugees and 6.6
million displaced within Syria. Now in its sixth year, the war
has had a dramatic effect on service provision, with healthfacilities, schools, and other essential services across thecountry closed or operating at reduced capacity. Spiraling
food and fuel prices, a deep economic recession, sanctions,fluctuating national currency, and disrupted markets haveworsened vulnerability. The use of sieges – cutting civilian
populations off from food and humanitarian assistance – by
the Syrian government and other forces have exacerbatedmalnutrition and the lack of access to essential services.
In response to the war, nascent civil society and communitybased organizations have had to rapidly develop the capacity
to partner with international NGOs to deliver aid. However,their staff face a constant threat of being detained, tortured,or killed by the government or other parties to the conflict
who seek to control delivery of aid and services. Receiving
funds from international partners is further complicated by thefinancial infrastructure, embargoes on Syria, counterterrorism
regulations, and the regulations of the surrounding countries
where many international NGOs base their relief operations.

partners inside Syria to provide food assistance; non-fooditems (NFIs); water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); livelihoods
support; and limited activities in child protection and education.
The SCS program has always taken a partner-led approach,whereby partners propose projects based on their local
knowledge of needs and what is possible. However, certain
aspects of this approach have evolved over time. Mercy
Corps has moved from working largely through umbrellagroups and international NGOs that were still able to workwithin Syria to working more directly through smaller
community-based organizations. Current program partners
range from relatively well established local NGOs to more
informal networks of activists and volunteers. In addition, theSCS team has come to recognize that many partners do notconsider methods beyond in-kind distributions. Mercy Corps
has started to offer more strategic guidance to help partners
think through alternative approaches, such as livelihoods
activities and pre-positioning.

You can’t cut short this process as it’s all basedon relationships and trust. We couldn’t do it
without the partners. They have access andunderstand the communities. Partnership is notjust a thing. It’s the thing.”
Humanitarian Director

PROGRAM
Mercy Corps maintained a presence in Damascus until 2014,
when it moved its operational base outside Syria. Since then,the South and Central Syria (SCS) program has worked with

In 2015, the SCS program reached 847,179 people in some of
Syria’s hardest to reach areas. It is funded by grants from the
UK Department for International Development (DFID), the US

ADAPT Case Study – Ensuring contextual awareness and flexible partnership in South and Central Syria

Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), and Canada’s
Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development(DFATD—now called Global Affairs Canada).1

ADAPTIVE CAPABILITIESAND ENABLERS
INTERNAL CAPACITY TO
PROVIDE CONTEXT ANALYSISAND FORECASTINGThe SCS program has deliberately built its internal capacity
to understand the context, analyze conflict dynamics, andforecast future events in order to support a more agile andstrategic response. The core of this capacity is a five-person“Humanitarian Access Team”, which draws on informant
networks within Syria, social media reports, the knowledge
of Syrian staff on the team, observations of implementing
partners, and experience gained over the last two years ofanalyzing the Syrian conflict. The team invests heavily inreport writing, mapping skills, and a website for information
sharing, though the use of their information hinges more on
personal connections and a team that work closely together.

Within two months of the Humanitarian Access
Team, I learned more about Syria then I knew inthe whole year before.”
Program Director

This team’s analysis has supported a shift away from thereactive model typical of humanitarian aid, toward a more
anticipatory approach that prepares for likely scenarios. Thishas been particularly important as the number and severityof sieges has increased, with humanitarian aid often arriving
too late. Forecasting has allowed the SCS program to preposition food baskets while access is still possible, ensuring
aid is ready for release when certain triggers occur.
Having a detailed understanding of the Syrian context also
makes the SCS program a better partner. It increases thefeasibility of the requests Mercy Corps makes of partners andimproves communication. The team has also been able tooffer more strategic advice to partners, exploring alternatives
to in-kind assistance (food baskets or NFIs) such as providing
vouchers or supporting localized livelihoods strategies
alongside emergency activities.
In a striking example, the Humanitarian Access Team’s
knowledge of a local court system in northern Homs helped
the SCS program advise a local partner who was encountering
problems with armed groups stopping shipments of aid.
The partner had sought extra funding to hire armed security
for their distributions – a request which Mercy Corps felt
could further fuel a cycle of violence. Knowing that the local
court system was fairly well-functioning and respected by
1

2communities, Mercy Corps suggested that the partner raise
the issue with the court and ask for mediation support. Withina week, the court came down in favor of the partner and aid
reached the besieged area.

Partners don’t have the ability to analyze andforecast these things, even if they have theinformation. We’re shifting a bit more to giving
them a framework for what they should bedoing. It will always be owned by them, but
shifting in a good way where we’re actuallygiving a bit of advice.”
Program Director

The capacity for this contextual awareness took a long time
to develop. The Humanitarian Access Team was initiallyformed as a security team. It was given space to learn during
its first six months, developing an in-depth understandingof the dynamics in Syria and producing conflict analyses.
However, it was not expected to provide any value forprogrammatic decision making during this period. Separated
from program activities, the team struggled to understandprograms and present information whose form or content
could be easily used by the program team.
Mercy Corps also struggled with large amounts of potentiallyunreliable data. Vast amounts of secondary information
on humanitarian needs in Syria proved a huge burden for
information management and analysis. Investments madein analyzing this information have proven to have limited
returns: the data is often too late, inaccurate, or simply
irrelevant for programmatic decisions. Having information
available but not transformed into actionable analysis is a
missed opportunity.
Since late 2015, the products of the Humanitarian Access
Team have become much more usable, driven by a newleader of the SCS program who emphasized greater crossteam collaboration. The team has been working with theInformation Management Team to overlay humanitarian
data with conflict analysis. Reports increasingly incorporate
scenario forecasting and recommendations. Even simple
presentation changes, such as the use of bullet points, havehelped programs teams to make better use of the analysis.
Finally, the very presence of a team focused on context
analysis and “big picture” understanding of the conflict has
been influencing strategic debates and decisions. Promptedby the Humanitarian Access Team, the SCS team is now
planning to investigate how private actors are supported
or undercut by local power structures in the conflict. This
political economy analysis could potentially inform the team’s
future efforts to work with non-traditional partners, suchas business communities, which may have the strongest
capacity to address localized needs.

 n $11m grant from DFID (July 2014 - June 2016) for food assistance, WASH, NFIs and livelihoods; a $3.5m grant from OFDA (October 2015 - September 2016) for WASH and NFIs; and aA$1.4m grant from DFATD (March 2014 - February 2016) covering child protection and education.

ADAPT Case Study – Ensuring contextual awareness and flexible partnership in South and Central Syria

3

Likely Intensified Siege Areas: Qalamoun/Eastern Ghouta (14 January 2016): Example of map produced by Humanitarian Access Team helps
program teams foresee siege areas.

There is a logic to conflict. If you can figure that
out, you can change how you work.”
Humanitarian Access Team Leader

CREATIVE COMPLIANCE TO MATCH
PARTNER CAPACITYThe SCS team’s work has required a nuanced understandingof each partner’s capacities, the ability to respond todifferences in capacity and the operating environment, andstrong relationships of reciprocal trust.
The ability to respond to the contextual nuance started withan early recognition that Mercy Corps’ standard compliance
procedures were often unworkable in the Syrian context. For
example, requirements like collecting three quotations for
procurements over a certain value are impossible to satisfy
where there are limited suppliers and where partners could be
put at risk holding or transferring such documentation. Early
partners might say they could provide certain documentation,
only to reveal later that it was impossible to obtain.
This led the SCS program to adapt financial and compliance
processes, and develop robust alternatives such as a matrix

of supporting documentation. Finance and compliance staff
use this tool in working with partners to identify what is
feasible. Basing requirements on what is feasible has helped
create a more honest relationship between Mercy Corps andits partners.
The willingness to be flexible with financial documentation
requirements is accompanied by an expectation of
improvement. Capacity development, always a core focus of
SCS, has shifted from one-off trainings to regular coaching,facilitation support and peer meetings. This has proved to be
more effective and appreciated by partners.
The SCS team has encouraged awareness of its partnershipapproach and alternative compliance procedures within
Mercy Corps’ headquarters and among donors, helping tobuild trust in the approach. This creates space for the team towork in ways appropriate to the context, quickly responding
to partner needs with clear answers, while understanding
when and how to escalate issues for headquarters or donor
approval. The team’s clear understanding of its decision
making authority in turn helps the partners understand theirown latitude for rapidly responding to context shifts andemerging needs.

ADAPT Case Study – Ensuring contextual awareness and flexible partnership in South and Central Syria

4

ENABLING RAPID PARTNER RESPONSES
One of the SCS program’s longest standing partners saw thestrength of the flexible approval process when an emergency
started in northern Homs. Observing the widespread
displacement that was underway, the partner requested
permission to move activities into a new area. Mercy Corps
rapidly gave permission, first communicating it informally sothat activities could start, and then following up with a formal
approval process.
This nimble reaction was only possible due to the relationshipof mutual trust that had been built between the partnerand Mercy Corps. Over the prior one and a half years, theSCS team had invested considerable time in supporting thepartner’s organizational development, with a staff member
visiting the partner’s offices twice a week during a particularly
intensive period of support. This extensive engagement
gave Mercy Corps confidence in allowing the partner greater
freedom in decision making and flexibility within budget lines.

This takes more time at the beginning but itsaves a lot of time later.... It used to take six
months to close financial reports but now it
can be done in one month.... Compared to other
INGOs we do a lot of follow up, which builds
trust. In this line of work, you really need to beable to trust our partners.... Through regularcontact you learn more about what they really do.
Partnership Finance Coordinator

A lot of the enabling solutions and drive comesfrom the partners themselves. We’re reallyresponding to partners’ creativity and innovation.”
Compliance Advisor

PROGRAM AUTONOMY TO GROW THE
TEAM ORGANICALLYThe SCS program’s adaptations were possible as a resultof a dynamic team with an evolving structure, driven andprotected by strong leadership at the program and regional
level. Significant autonomy from external interference during
the first year and a half gave the program time to experiment,
make mistakes, and improve.
Departments have grown organically and roles have evolved
in response to emerging needs. For example, the finance andcompliance team grew from two staff to seven (out of a total

This stands in contrast to the partner’s relationships withother international NGOs, which often request that quotations
for every activity are sent first to their office and then onwards
to the headquarters for approval. Minor procurements suchas purchasing a water pump can take a week. Given the
difficulty in predicting in advance exactly what support will be
required in a specific location, Mercy Corps’ flexibility allows
the team inside Syria to react rapidly.

Promptness and speed is vital, as access tobesieged areas can close quickly.”
Partner representative

team of 22 staff). This large size reflects the unusual levelof effort devoted to building partners’ finance capacity. Such
growth is unlikely to occur in programs that design rigid orgcharts at inception.
The team also recruited an Operations Manager – a potentiallyunnecessary position given that Mercy Corps is not directly
implementing program activities. In this case, the role wasfilled by someone who brought an inquisitive mindset andyears of experience with Mercy Corps systems. He took on
mentorship with the team and strategic problem solving
for the program. For example, he developed a way to allow
Mercy Corps to hire Syrians, despite a regulatory environmentthat sought to prevent this. Careful recruitment, including
a conscious drive to hire more Syrians, has led to a teamcomposed of people with diverse and complementary skills
who are willing to try doing things differently.

CONSTRAINTS AND INHIBITORS ON
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENTDONOR APPROVAL DELAYSThe SCS program’s donors have largely supported its
partnership approach, but certain OFDA requirements have
reduced Mercy Corps’ and its partners’ abilities to respond tothe volatility that characterizes the Syrian conflict. Notably,
OFDA must approve all new partners and sub-grants, witha process that can take up to five weeks. The burdens anddelays imposed by the process prevent the SCS program’s
partners from initiating new activities in a timely manner.
Separately, an exhaustive waiver process is required forthe procurement of any vehicles made outside the UnitedStates, with partners putting themselves at risk to collectsome of the required information; adding to the frustration,

ADAPT Case Study – Ensuring contextual awareness and flexible partnership in South and Central Syria

waivers only last for 180 days. Finally, OFDA only supports
a limited number of sectors: it is unable to fund food aid
due to departmental barriers within USAID, so the program’s
OFDA grant only covers WASH and NFI distributions. This has
inhibited the program’s ability to initiate new food-focused
sub-grants, even in cases when access to food has been
identified as the primary humanitarian need.
In contrast to OFDA’s regulations, DFID allows for notification,rather than approval, of new partners and sub-grants. The
result is nimbler responses to developments within Syria.
Challenges to rapid responses are ongoing. In February 2016,
the Humanitarian Access Team shed light on a worsening
situation in Dar’a as Russian airstrikes intensified andarmed opposition groups initiated a new campaign to repel
government forces. While the SCS program was aware of theescalating emergency, it was unable to respond in a timely
way: not enough funding remained under their DFID grant,
and OFDA’s partner pre-approval would not have moved
quickly enough.

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY AND
CONNECTION TO HQ

5

KEY REFLECTIONSThe SCS program’s three adaptive capabilities – theinternal analytical capacity provided by the HumanitarianAccess Team, creative compliance methods to match
partner capacity, and program autonomy to grow theteam organically – all combine to support one another invarious ways. The context analysis guides specific partner
engagements, partners provide information for that analysis,
the organic team growth has allowed both the evolution of
the operations team to support partner capacity and also thedevelopment of the program’s analytical capacity, and theanalysis helps to make the case for the program’s autonomy.
This mix of capabilities has not been enough to eliminate
the constraints on adaptive management, but it has
mitigated them. The result is a program approach thatenables the flexible and adaptive work of its partners.
The move to pre-positioning and livelihoods programming inconflict zones also marks an important shift from reactive
to anticipatory and nuanced humanitarian work. This would
not have been possible without the program’s investments
in contextual understanding.

The inception of the SCS program was somewhat
clandestine. Given general fears that sharing information
might put partners and activities inside Syria at risk, andspecific issues related to the legal status of cross-borderactivities, very little was communicated about the SCS
program both within Mercy Corps and externally. Thissecrecy, combined with the fact that many of the early SCS
team members were new to Mercy Corps, contributed to theseparation of the program from headquarters, which helped it
craft a different way of working.
Unfortunately, these factors also isolated the program fromheadquarters’ resources and prevented cross-learningwith Mercy Corps programs elsewhere. Mercy Corps isan organization that relies heavily on informal networks
and internal relationships to access the support and quick
approvals that can enable adaptive management. This
isolation has constrained the program’s ability to makerequests to headquarters, resulting in missed opportunities todeal with issues related to technical areas, compliance, anddonor relations. More recently, key staff visits to Mercy Corps
headquarters and the addition of a Humanitarian Director
with significant Mercy Corps experience have fostered betterinternal relationships and connections.

Written in April 2016 based on interviews
conducted in February 2016.

ANNEX FOUR
ADAPT Case Study

LEVERAGING AN INFORMANTNETWORK FOR RAPID RELIEFRESPONSE IN DIFFA, NIGER
CASE IN BRIEF

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has responded to humanitarian needs in the Diffa region ofsoutheast Niger since 2013. Facing a shifting context and challenging operational environment, the team built
a network of informants that feeds into a mechanism for rapid programmatic responses as populations moveor new needs arise. An internal team culture of open communication facilitates the program’s analysis andadaptation. The IRC also leverages this information to influence the wider humanitarian community’s response.
Despite procurement constraints and government restrictions, the program has dramatically increased its scale
and the diversity of support it provides to people displaced by violence and insecurity.

BACKGROUNDCONTEXT
There are currently an estimated 213,000 refugees, returnees,
and internally displaced people in the Diffa region insoutheast Niger. Escalating insecurity and violence in nearby
northern Nigeria has been the main driver of this crisis: over
165,000 people fled across that porous border between
late 2013 and late 2015. In Niger itself, Boko Haram attacks
since early 2015 and forced relocations instigated by thegovernment have resulted in internal displacement.
The influx of Nigerian refugees and Nigerien returnees has
stretched already scarce resources in a region that haslong faced chronic food insecurity, poor access to basic
services, and recurrent droughts and floods. Displaced
people are spread across remote host communities, with avery small proportion (approximately 2%) residing in camps.
Humanitarian actors struggle to reach communities in needdue to limited infrastructure, a volatile security situation, andfluid population movements across a large geographic area.

Donor funding has increased to support this work.
Starting with a single grant of $330,000 in October 2013,
the IRC’s portfolio had grown to 13 grants and a total
value of $8.1 million by December 2015. The funding
has come from a range of donors, including: Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida);
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); Swiss
Agency for International Development (SDC); European
Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection
department (ECHO); Stichting Vluchteling; US Bureau ofPopulation, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM); and US Agency
for International Development’s Offices of Food for Peace(FFP) and Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA).
The diversity of activities and rapid increase in funding
have both depended on the response team’s ability to trackchanges in the context and react quickly, working with therest of the humanitarian community, despite challenges fromprocurement procedures and government restrictions.

Photo: IRC

PROGRAMS
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has beenworking in Diffa since June 2013, with a portfolio of workthat has evolved with the shifting context. The initial focus
on population monitoring and protection allowed the IRC
to develop a robust network for collecting information fromacross the region. As the crisis escalated, the response
launched activities related to food, non-food items (NFIs),
nutrition, health, livelihoods, and water, sanitation, andhygiene (WASH).

IDP/refugee settlement in Diffa.

ADAPT Case Study – Leveraging an informant network for rapid relief response in Diffa, Niger

ADAPTIVE CAPABILITIESAND ENABLERS
INFORMANT NETWORKS AND RAPIDRESPONSE MECHANISMS
The IRC’s informant network has ensured that the team cantrack population movements and rapidly respond to emerging
needs. Both of these components – the informant networkand the response mechanisms – evolved over time as the IRC
expanded its work in Diffa.
The informant network started small and grew quickly. In
October 2013, the launch of the initial project included apartnership with a local NGO, the Niger Association for the
Defense of Human Rights (known by its French acronym:
ANDDH), to recruit seven monitors to cover 81 sites. Withina few months, the number of sites hosting displaced people
had grown to nearly 200. To accommodate the growth, theresponse team switched to a system of “focal points”: in eachsite where displaced people were present or likely to arrive,
individual citizens were provided with a phone that allows
them to call the IRC and ANDDH for free. As the program
continued to expand and launch new activities, it also set up
village protection committees to help with identification andprotection support.
This network of focal points and protection committees
rapidly transfers information on population movements
and needs to the IRC’s field team and senior management.
While mostly supporting protection activities, the network
has also increased the response team’s security awareness.

Diagram: Information
flows in the IRC’s Diffa
response network.

2

The team has been better able to ascertain when it is unsafe tovisit certain areas, and to maximize periods of relative security.
The network has even served as a proxy for the IRC whensecurity restricts access; in particular, the committees are able
to carry out some program activities and provide information
about services in their areas.
The IRC’s contextual awareness was crucial to a scenario
planning exercise held in January 2015. The day-long session
pulled together team members from across multiple officesin the region to examine different ways the situation innortheastern Nigeria and Diffa might develop. Factors likethe joint Nigerien, Chadian, and Nigerian military operations,Boko Haram’s response, and potential subsequent population
displacement all fed into the development of four scenarios;
three of which actually occurred in subsequent months.
The week after the planning exercise, the team sent proposals
to emergency funders to support a rapid response mechanism.
With dedicated funding and staff on this mechanism,
information received from the focal points and committees
network can now trigger multi-sector assessments using
household surveys, key informant interviews, and focus
group discussions. A scoring system flags critical issues andprioritizes hard-to-reach and highly vulnerable areas. These
assessments have led to rapid food, NFI, and WASH activities,
as needed.

ADAPT Case Study – Leveraging an informant network for rapid relief response in Diffa, Niger

3

INFORMATION, RESPONSE, AND INFLUENCE: LAKE CHAD ISLANDSOver the course of a weekend, the IRC team developed aconcept note for a response, submitted it to UNHCR, andreceived approval with a budget of $100,000. The response
launched the following week. It provided people on 117
islands with access to clean water and better health services,
through a mobile boat clinic and provision of medical supplies
to health clinics. The assessment and intervention also had amultiplier effect, as it attracted the attention of other agencies
to the previously underserved islands and to the possibilities
of mobile clinics.

INFLUENCE ON WIDERHUMANITARIAN COMMUNITY
The informant network has proved valuable beyond the IRC’s
own projects. As demonstrated by the Lake Chad response
in March 2014 (see box), other humanitarian actors havemade effective use of the information gathered and analysis
conducted by the IRC team. Given the operational and security
challenges in Diffa, few agencies have as much on-the-groundpresence and often lack updated information on population
movements and needs.
The response team shares information through weekly reports,and switched to daily reports during the peak of the crisis.
Multi-sector assessments are also shared and distributed
by OCHA to the clusters and other humanitarian agencies.
Together, these reports and assessments have helped to set
the agenda with key actors such as UN agencies and donors,
highlighting the volatility of the situation and advocating for
appropriate and flexible responses to emerging needs.
Furthermore, the IRC leadership team has maintained regularformal and informal channels of communication with UN
agencies, donors, and local authorities. Regular updates keep
donors informed of the evolving situation, which in turn makes
it easier for the IRC to renegotiate projects and contracts as well
as secure funding for new projects to meet emerging needs.
In a few instances, the information provided by the IRC
has prompted a response by another international NGO.
However, there have been challenges with follow-through oncommitments to launch activities that are made following the
distribution of an IRC multi-sector assessment by OCHA. A
functioning official coordination system was missing for sometime, which made it difficult to hold actors accountable, thoughthat situation is improving.

This experience marked a turning point in the IRC’s Diffa
response in three ways: it expanded the number of sectors
in which the IRC worked; it was the first rapid emergency
response launched; and it demonstrated the potential of
information sharing as an advocacy tool to increase theresponsiveness of the wider humanitarian community.

Photo: IRC

In March 2014, the community focal points alerted IRC about
increasing movement towards Lake Chad and that nearly
half of the people who had arrived in Diffa were staying on
islands on the lake. Recognizing the information gap, theresponse team launched an assessment with the support oflocal authorities. It revealed over 10,000 newly arrived people
on the islands and massive unmet health and water needs. At
that point, no international NGOs were working on the islands.

Aid delivery in Lake Chad.

At the beginning our projects were based on
logframes. We’re now doing the job based moreon context than on logframes. To do this, we needto have regular communication with donors…
but what we really need is a contingency planthat identifies alternative pathways so that if thesituation changes we have automatic approval tochange the way we work.”
Deputy Director for Programs

OPEN COMMUNICATION AND
TEAM CULTURE
Team engagement is critical to working adaptively andnavigating the uncertainty of an insecure environment. The IRC
response team has managed to promote this engagement in avariety of ways.
First, the leadership has promoted open communication by
actively seeking and valuing information obtained by field staff,
and demonstrating commitment to act rapidly on it. This has
also meant modelling adaptability in the way the leadershipteam works. Management staff have sought to find or create
flexibility in rules and policies to ensure field staff are able todo their work; this has included, for example, almost doubling
the financial authorization level of field coordinators, as well as
developing a system of electronic approval and payment fromthe capital to allow for quicker action.
Second, leadership has sought to show its commitment
to supporting staff. When an attack on Diffa town seemedADAPT Case Study – Leveraging an informant network for rapid relief response in Diffa, Niger

imminent in February 2015, the IRC evacuated local staff andtheir families to safety in Zinder (see box). Combined withhazard pay for staff working in Diffa, this sort of action has
helped the IRC retain staff when many other organizations havelost significant numbers. In more mundane examples, staff haveobserved that rapid promotions are possible as recognition ofgood performance and team work. Field staff efforts are also
recognized by the Country Director through regular encouraging
messages and the communication of positive feedback received
from the IRC headquarters and donors.
Finally, open communication among team members hashelped to foster flexibility. For example, in the Diffa field office,daily briefings dispelled rumors and helped build team spirit.
These measures have supported an environment where staff
at all levels remained committed and willing to work in flexible
ways, despite the highly insecure and volatile context.

4

be activated with approval from headquarters, but theEmergency Preparedness and Response Unit determined thatthe number of people affected in Niger was too few to qualify
the emergency response for relaxed procedures.
That lack of approval means the Niger team has beenrequired to hold open tenders, taking at least three weeks, forprocurements over $20,000. For some large procurements,
the team has sought individual exemptions to hold quicker
bid processes, rather than the lengthy open tenders. Morerecently, the IRC in Niger has created Master Purchase
Agreements which pre-approve vendors who can deliver
goods at pre-determined prices within three days. These
agreements (used for NFIs, transportation, and latrine andborehole construction) have since helped to increase the
IRC’s responsiveness.

GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS ONDATA SHARING

Any change in context inevitably requires changes
in the implementation of activities and our approachwith the beneficiaries. This is the surest way toachieve the objectives we assigned ourselves.”
Member of field staff from Diffa office

CONSTRAINTS AND INHIBITORS ON
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENTSTANDARD PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES
The IRC’s standard procurement procedures have been aburden on the Diffa team’s ability to respond rapidly. NFI
distributions, construction of WASH facilities, and otheractivities have required significant and speedy procurement.
The IRC has an emergency procurement policy that can

Data sharing has proved to be a sensitive issue with the
Nigerien government, despite a generally positive relationshipthroughout the response effort. Government data is typicallyreleased more than two months after it is collected; given
the fluidity of population movements, efforts to map service
coverage cannot be effectively aligned with population data.
At the start of the Diffa crisis, the IRC began monitoring andreporting on population movements, sharing estimates on
the numbers of new arrivals with the wider humanitariancommunity in order to fill the information gap.
However, the government has since prohibited the IRC(and any other non-state actor) from reporting unofficial
population data. This has reduced contextual awarenessamong humanitarian actors in Diffa, hindering the overall
humanitarian response.

PROGRAMMATIC AND OPERATIONAL SHIFTS FOLLOWING BOKO HARAM
ATTACKS IN FEBRUARY 2015
Boko Haram attacks in February 2015 turned Diffa into awarzone. Through security and media monitoring, the IRC
observed increased military (Nigerien and foreign forces) andBoko Haram movements in early February. On February 3rd,
the team closed the Bosso sub-base and relocated staff; twodays later, Boko Haram attacked Bosso. As violence began tothreaten Diffa town, the IRC evacuated all but three essential
staff from Diffa to Zinder. Core staff began working from a
newly opened office in Zinder, remotely supporting activities
in Diffa thanks to the partnership with ANDDH and the
network of focal points and village protection committees.
In the aftermath of the attacks, the IRC made bothprogrammatic and operational shifts. Donors such as ECHO,SDC, and UNHCR allowed the projects they funded to shiftfocus away from longer-term livelihoods activities to essential

lifesaving aid. In the case of SDC, it took approximately
a week to secure approval for the programmatic change,
including a major budget realignment, reduction of theimplementation timeframe by four months, and launchof entirely new activities. Meanwhile, funding from Sida,
unrestricted funds from the IRC, and the flexibility of other
donors allowed the launch of the rapid response mechanism.
Operationally, significant investments were made in thepurchase of new vehicles and communications equipment.
Arrangements were made to allow for faster procurement.
The IRC’s adaptation following the volatile situation andquick restart of work convinced donors of its capacity andled to subsequent funding streams to further develop the
emergency response activities.

ADAPT Case Study – Leveraging an informant network for rapid relief response in Diffa, Niger

5

SUMMARY
Despite these adaptive capabilities and enablers, the IRC
efforts in Diffa have struggled with many of the sameprocurement procedures and government restrictions that
plague other response efforts. Few program contexts are
perfectly suited for adaptive management. What stands out
in this case is the interconnections between various adaptive
capacities to create a more enabling environment, and tocompensate for the inhibitors that exist.

Photo: IRC

In an uncertain and volatile context, the IRC has built
systems to collect information and put it to actionable
use. The informant networks of focal points andprotection committees have contributed to the IRC’s own
responsiveness, especially through the dedicated funding
and staff of its rapid response mechanism. It has also beenable to influence other humanitarian actors: as of December
2015, the IRC was one of only four international NGOs on
the Humanitarian Country Team, with its weekly reports
and multi-sector assessments promoted by OCHA. This
information sharing has helped create an enabling donor
environment, further facilitating adaptation.

Villagers in Diffa line up to collect water from one of three wells constructedby the IRC in the remote villages of Gagamari and Chetimari.

Written in April 2016 based on interviews
conducted in October 2015.

ANNEX FIVE
ADAPT Case Study

PROMOTING PARTNER
AUTONOMY AND LEARNING
TO FIGHT EBOLA IN LIBERIACASE IN BRIEF

As the Ebola crisis reached its peak in Liberia, the Mercy Corps team launched an ambitious experiment in
adaptive management: to implement an emergency, social mobilization program with a technology-intensive
learning platform. The Ebola Community Action Platform (ECAP) gave significant autonomy to 77 partnerorganizations to design their own outreach efforts. ECAP encouraged localized decision-making and supported
a number of learning channels which enabled partners to make regular improvements during implementation.
The ECAP team learned from many challenges, including the burden of their technology-intensive monitoring
system, rapid team growth, internal communication challenges, and strained operational capacity. Despite
these issues, the program reached 2.4 million people in nine months and helped drive improved learning
systems in later programs.

Liberia confirmed its first case of Ebola on March 30, 2014.
The number of new cases in the country would erupt in July,reaching a peak in September. In the two years following thefirst case, approximately 10,700 Liberians would contract thedisease, resulting in over 4,800 deaths nationwide.
Mercy Corps’ Ebola Community Action Platform (ECAP)
launched just after the peak, in October 2014. This social
mobilization program sought to address a nation-wide gap
in localized awareness raising and information sharing on
Ebola. It had the ambitious goal of reaching two million
people in six months, later extended to nine months, with thesupport of $12 million from the US Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance (OFDA) and the technical guidance of partner
Population Services International (PSI).
ECAP was designed around a two-pronged approach. First,
ECAP sub-granted 77 geographically spread, locally trusted
grassroots organizations. Of these, 71 were communitybased organizations such as women’s groups, youth
groups, and religious organizations. Some had previous
experience with health issues, and some had none. Most
had never accessed international funds before. Eachpartner could define (and, importantly, change) their own
mobilization strategy, so long as they articulated a plan for
influencing community knowledge and behaviors related toEbola. Partners were then trained in the “Listen, Learn, Act”
methodology, a flexible framework provided by PSI to guidetheir message focus in communities.
Second, ECAP establised a nation-wide, technology-centeredmonitoring and learning platform to help partners improvetheir mobilization activities. Mercy Corps sent 1,000 mobile
phones to the partners’ community mobilizers, who would
use them to report on their mobilization activities and oncommunity knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Data fromthe technology platform fed into an online dashboard, selfreflection workshops held by the partners, and broader lessons
learned workshops hosted by Mercy Corps. In response, many
partners shifted their mobilization approaches and messaging
emphasis over the course of the program.

Photo: Mercy Corps

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Community educators for Centre for Liberian Assistance, an ECAP
partner, mobilize for community outreach on the dangers of Ebola.

We used the bottom to top approach. We listened
to the communities, and then were able to listen
to communicators, and the mobilizers were able
to work as a team, and then there was support
from management.”
Local ECAP Partner

ADAPT Case Study – Promoting partner autonomy and learning to fight Ebola in Liberia

ECAP Program Director

ADAPTIVE CAPABILITIESAND ENABLERS
PARTNER AUTONOMY AND
INDEPENDENT DECISION MAKING
Community organizations were best placed to quickly andeffectively spread messages about Ebola prevention andcare as Mercy Corps and other international partners like
Population Services International (PSI) lacked the localized
knowledge or networks to reach communities nationwide or
respond to changes in context at a community level.
The ECAP team created very few rules for its partners in their
grant applications. This allowed them to define mobilization
activities that drew on their local strengths. Partners’ ability
to shift strategies over the course of the program was eased
by a funding mechanism (Fixed Obligation Grants – FOGs
– recently renamed Fixed Amount Awards) which did not
require the burdensome screening or financial reporting ofstandard sub-grants.

as they helped ECAP to include grassroots organizations,the reliance on fixed budget values and pre-determineddeliverables meant that partners could not easily amend theirbudgets to add, for example, communication materials fortheir field work.
To spread the management burden, Mercy Corps used
standard sub-granting with some higher-capacity partners,
who then sub-granted to grassroots organizations throughFOGs. In all, Mercy Corps managed 26 partners directly, andanother 51 through consortium lead partners. The program’s
results would not have been possible without the cascading
partnership structure. Still, the complicated nature of thepartner application, approval, and contracting process callinto question whether another system could have been fasterand more responsive.

Photo: Mercy Corps

What was good was that the NGOs got to maketheir own decisions – we didn’t have the capacity
to manage these NGOs, we didn’t know thecommunities or how to go to them.”

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Reporting through the mobile data-collection platform also
helped to protect the autonomy of partners. The presenceof a publicly available dashboard reassured the OFDA andthe Ministry of Health that the program would stay on track.
This confidence gave ECAP and its partners the space
to test and improve their work. In fact, OFDA and Mercy
Corps intentionally limited the number of required reporting
indicators to give partners the contractual flexibility to change
their detailed approaches over time.

ECAP had many learning channels to support partner learningand adaptation. Direct observations, monitoring data, andspaces for reflection were all necessary, in different doses andcombinations, for partners that made shifts in their approaches.

Nonetheless, the sub-granting plan had its challenges.
Setting up sub-grants and FOGs required significant time;
partners were not approved until two months after the initialprogram approval. FOGs could also be constraining. Even

Savvy partners made quick, local changes based on fieldobservations, daily meetings, texts, social media, and phone
calls to understand what was not working. These werelight-touch, informal monitoring mechanisms that relied on

ECAP mobilizer collecting community data using a mobile phone.

MULTIPLE CHANNELS FOR
PARTNER LEARNING

PIVOTS IN PARTNERS’ APPROACHESOne ECAP partner recognized the Ebola-related risks posedby female genital mutilation, a widespread practice in somelocations. Though addressing or challenging these cultural
practices was not the goal of ECAP, the partner was able tohold conversations with female leaders to discuss locally
relevant messages about hygiene and safety around bodily
fluids. These conversations were also structured to improve
the partner’s understand of the local context, a key piece of
PSI’s “Listen, Learn, Act” methodology.

In another case, this same organization struggled to get entry
in another area due to informal, political dynamics. Throughan ECAP Lessons Learned workshop, the partner’s leaders
had met another ECAP partner with strong ties to the area;
they called on this other partner to facilitate an introduction to
the restricted areas.

ADAPT Case Study – Promoting partner autonomy and learning to fight Ebola in Liberia

localized information flows (including using the “Listen, Learn,
Act” methodology), independent from Mercy Corps’ datacollection efforts.
Meanwhile, the technology platform gathered data nationwide and made the full monitoring data available to allpartners through an online dashboard. Those who accessed
it or interacted with the analysis at workshops found it useful.
For example, some partners redirected their mobilizers’
activities in response to activity-level data on geographic
coverage and mobilization methods.
For other partners, learning was crystallized in “lessons
learned” workshops. The Mercy Corps monitoring andevaluation (M&E) team presented aggregate data showing
activity outreach, types of mobilization activities implemented,
and the kinds of messages emphasized. Data helped to show
how communities’ attitudes were changing, including how
message types were correlated with improvements in attitudes
toward survivors over time, which helped partners understandthe importance of certain messages.
The workshops also provided space for partners to share
their own experiences. Many kept in touch after theworkshops (via Whatsapp and by phone) to source ideas
and advice from one another. Unfortunately, the demands ofan emergency program led one planned workshop to be cut,
while another focused primarily on data quality and capacity
building to get the monitoring system running. In the end, only
two lessons learned workshops were held during the courseof the program.
These various channels for learning helped some partnerorganizations make multiple changes to their mobilization
approaches over time. They moved mobilizers around to covergeographic gaps in coverage or border hot spots; changed
mobilization schedules to reach farming households whenfamilies would be home; switched from repetitive door-to-door
visits to more creative community engagement, like drama
and puppetry; and shifted focus of messages to address
relevant issues (such as stigma) when Ebola cases waned andcommunities demonstrated knowledge about transmission.

OUTCOME ORIENTATIONThe clear goal of “getting (Ebola cases) to zero” throughsocial mobilization was shared by the ECAP program’s wide
partner base. While many programs rely on leadership toclarify objectives and motivate the team, the unique nature of
the Ebola crisis provided a goal that was felt personally, evenviscerally, by every person involved.
This motivation translated into a desire to improve. Partners
were intrinsically motivated to adapt their mobilization
activities to be more effective, and Mercy Corps teammembers worked quickly to solve partners’ issues. As one
manager put it: “The enthusiasm and desire of the Liberianpeople is what made this work.”

CONSTRAINTS AND INHIBITORS ON
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENTBURDENSOME DATA SYSTEMS
While it was a bold undertaking, setting up a real-time datasystem with functional feedback loops at a national scalerequired more time and effort than was perhaps expedient ina short-term emergency program.
The technology platform required mobilizers to submit
monthly data on: mobilization activities, including location,
methods, and topics covered; challenges faced in thefield; and the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) in
communities. Partners would then have access to an online
dashboard that showed the monthly report results.
The two team members responsible for the system faceda daunting task: training 1,000 mobilizers on mobile datacollection, designing a dashboard with a programmer who
was based remotely, addressing connectivity issues, andensuring that partners sent in reports. The database wasonline after only six weeks, but fixing data quality issues on
activity reports took another two to three months. Testingand iteration were also needed to craft the right questionsin KAP surveys to improve data quality. In the end, the time

SEEING THINGS FIRST-HAND
Three months into implementation, the Program Director
realized that a lack of field-level observation was limiting
the Monrovia-based Mercy Corps team’s ability to support
partners. Partner support officers had been doing most of
their work via phone and email, which limited their tangible
understanding of activities in the field. They were struggling tocollaborate effectively with partners.
To address these issues, the partner support team joined
the PSI staff for mobilizer trainings and field visits. These
trips included time to observe mobilization activities incommunities, and to reflect with partners and PSI on what
was working and what could be improved.

3This new approach led to Mercy Corps and PSI supporting
several adaptations by partners, including shifting schedules
to accommodate the farming season, clarifying mobilization
methodology with partners to improve message quality, andpushing partners to focus on the right types of messages
for their areas. The exercise also strengthened relationships
and communication among Mercy Corps, PSI, and partners,
improving their ability to jointly solve problems for theremainder of the program.

ADAPT Case Study – Promoting partner autonomy and learning to fight Ebola in Liberia

4

LEARNING FOR FUTURE PROGRAMS
The team members who were responsible for ECAP’s
technology-intensive M&E system moved on to design
systems for ECAP 2 and a youth economic empowerment
program. They took lessons from the ECAP experience
to design improved, leaner monitoring systems withsharper focuses on the types of information and bestchannels for reflection.
On the technical side, the ECAP system has moved from an
ona.io platform to CommCare. In addition to computer-based
access, teams are able to view activity reports from thefield on their tablets. Individual community data, which wasdifficult to track under ECAP’s first phase, can now be viewed
longitudinally for each community and by the staff member
responsible for a given area.

needed for capacity building and development of the systemitself cut into other learning activities.
Even as data submission challenges were resolved, data use
remained a problem. Partners lacked enough understandingof the M&E system to make robust use of it for ongoinglearning. In an end-of-program survey, only 18 partners (of 24
respondents) reported having accessed the database at least
once per month which fell short of the standards the ECAP
team had set for themselves.
Similar challenges stood in the way of using the data for
centralized, strategic decision making. Senior leadership
was too busy to regularly guide the team on how and why
the system’s data could be used to improve the program.
Meanwhile, the program’s steering committee (a group
created to make high-level shifts) was cut because of thevolume of other work. By the time the Mercy Corps team
was able to learn and improve, the program was coming toa close.

TEAMBUILDING AND COMMUNICATION
Forming a coherent team with clear roles and good internal
communication was a major challenge with such a fast
growing team. The demands of the crisis and the program’s
tight implementation timeline meant the team grew quickly.
Mercy Corps’ team in Liberia grew more than four-fold.
Staff moved positions (Mercy Corps team members whose
program activities had been suspended due to Ebola weremoved to ECAP) and new staff joined, despite recruitment
challenges – everyone in Liberia seemed to be recruiting, yet
the pool for externally recruited staff was small for Ebolaaffected countries.
Some team members, new and old, excelled in their new
ECAP roles. Others lacked the hard or soft skills to do theirjobs, often because their previous projects had been focused

On the human side, Mercy Corps has focused on improving
data quality by making a single M&E staff person in each
ECAP partner organization responsible for data collection,and ensuring that person visits every community to collectbaseline KAP information. With greater granularity and theability to track individual organizations and communities overtime, Mercy Corps and its partners are better able to monitor
staff performance, motivate team members, and highlightgood work. Individual organizations can see and commenton data submitted on the dashboard, helping them to better
understand the activities they are implementing.

on very different sectors, such as economic development.
Brief on-boarding and limited on-the-job mentorship led
to confusion over roles. M&E responsibilities were notclearly defined across the ECAP team which hindered theeffectiveness of the monitoring systems. Moreover, midprogram transitions in management at senior and mid-levels
made it difficult to establish a cohesive, collaborative teamwhich could effectively support partner activities, learning,
and improvement.
Some tension arose within the team, and sub-teams within
ECAP began to function as silos. In the middle of theemergency, senior management did not have the space
to build collaboration and transparent communication in
the team. At times the communication breakdown would
create frustration and confusion for partners, who received
inconsistent and late communication about program
activities. One team member roughly estimated that whencommunication was poor, up to 20% of some partners’ time
was wasted due to confusing messages received from
Mercy Corps.
The challenges the team faced are common in emergency
contexts. It is clear that improved on-boarding andmentorship in capacity-strained emergencies could enhancea team’s ability to implement and adapt, even in the face of
rapid shifts in funding streams and staffing needs.

OPERATIONS OVERSIGHT
The growth of the team in Liberia put significant pressure
on the operations and finance functions. After support from
Mercy Corps’ emergency response unit and a short-term
operations manager ended, the operations and financefunctions were often too overwhelmed to quickly support
program needs and adaptation.

ADAPT Case Study – Promoting partner autonomy and learning to fight Ebola in Liberia

5

Harvard’s Ronald Heifetz refers to strategic reflection as “getting off the dance floor, and on the balcony.” As one ECAP teammember put it, the Program Director, “couldn’t get on the balcony because he was shouting at ops.”

This had three results. First, steps that would have reduced
the amount of work needed in the future (such as getting
preferred supplier agreements for basic supplies like paper)
were delayed by many months. This increased the work loadon both operations and programs teams, which created
delays in procurements and reduced the amount of time
available to spend on partner support.

Decentralized decision making, the ability to network andlearn from other partners, and opportunities to reflect ondata gathered were important to partners’ ability to change
their mobilization methods and focal messages. The ECAP
team struggled to operationalize their technology-intensive
learning platform in time to improve results, but theirambitious investments remain a promising source of learning
for future efforts.

Photo: Sean Sheridan/Mercy Corps

Second, delays from operations limited the team’s time forreflection and energy to address strategic issues. Finally,
delays in reconciling procurements made it challenging for
management to monitor spending and have the informationneeded to adjust planned activities.

KEY REFLECTIONSECAP mobilizers lead community outreach in
December 2014 in Robertsport.

Written in April 2016 based on interviews
conducted in September 2015

ANNEX SIX
ADAPT Case Study

PIVOTING APPROACHES IN THE
FACE OF A CRISIS IN SIERRA LEONE:COMPARATIVE CASE
CASE IN BRIEF

Two education projects operating in Sierra Leone prior to Ebola responded to the crisis in dramatically different
ways. Both implemented by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), they demonstrate how adaptive
management allows projects to achieve outcomes in the face of a changing context. One project had an
iterative design from the beginning, with a flexible donor that trusted the implementing agency and empowered
field staff. The project quickly shifted its approach and continued to support education in Kenema districtin southeastern Sierra Leone throughout the crisis. The other project had a convoluted consortium and rigid
donor requirements. It suspended activities for nearly nine months at the peak of the Ebola crisis, before finallyre-launching with a new approach that quickly became irrelevant. Staff from both projects, and across the IRC,
worked flexibly to support the overall Ebola response.

CONTEXT AND OVERVIEWThe International Rescue Committee (IRC) was managing
several education projects in Sierra Leone when the Ebola
outbreak began in May 2014. Despite progress made since
the end of the country’s civil war in 2002, education wascharacterized by poor retention, gender disparity, poor
learning outcomes, and an education workforce where fewer
than half of teachers were trained, qualified, and on salary.
One of the IRC projects that addresses these challenges iscalled “Lɛ Wi ɔl Lan”—also known as the “LWOL” project. It
began as a relatively small-scale project in 2011, supportedwith an annual budget of $600,000 from a private US-based
foundation that focuses on education. LWOL’s goal is toimprove in-school learning opportunities and outcomes forgirls and boys in Kenema district, in southeastern Sierra Leone.
The project was designed to be iterative, with built-in annual
reviews, budget revisions, and opportunities for adaptation.
Another project is the the “Supporting marginalized girls in
Sierra Leone to complete basic education with improved
learning outcomes” or “Girls’ Education Challenge” (GEC)
project funded by the UK Department for International
Development (DFID), administered by a Fund Manager, andimplemented by a Consortium of international agencies.
The GEC project launched in January 2013 with a three-yeartimeline (now extended) and a total budget of approximately$9 million (of which the IRC’s component was approximately$2.9 million). The IRC was responsible for a range of activities(including distributing textbooks and uniforms, organizing
study groups, and training teachers) in the three districts of
Kenema, Kailahun, and Kono.

The Ebola outbreak rendered both the LWOL and GEC
projects impossible to implement in their original forms, as
schools were closed nationwide from July 2014 to April 2015
(though when initially closed, there was no re-opening datein sight). With schools closed, hundreds of thousands ofchildren were left without access to education.
While the two projects faced the same unforeseeable change
in their context, their responses to the shift took them oncompletely different trajectories. The GEC project suspended
all field-level programming in July. The following March it
eventually adapted its model to focus on improving access toradio lessons.

Photo: Erika Perez-Leon/IRC

Students take part in small learning groups in January 2015.

ADAPT Case Study – Pivoting approaches in the face of a crisis in Sierra Leone: Comparative case

Meanwhile, soon after schools closed, LWOL conducted
an informal risk assessment of the outbreak’s impact onlearning. This lead the program to develop an alternativemodel focused on small group learning, facilitated byunsalaried community teachers and supported by community
members. Putting this model into practice required
sensitization and preparation from July through September.
Education activities began in October, only one month after
the start of the normal school year.
Adding to the delays from school closures and new planning,
IRC staff from both projects were seconded to health-related
activities during the outbreak. Another stark difference between
the projects became apparent here. When approximately half
the LWOL team were seconded to work on health surveillance
activities in Bo district, staff were still covered by the project’s
budget, and the donor allowed general support costs to be
redirected to the health response. On the other hand, while theFund Manager committed to cover the salaries of GEC staff
during the project’s suspension, it was on the condition that staff
were not involved in any non-GEC activities. Seconded GEC staff
had to be funded from other sources.
The crux of this comparative case lies in the way one project
leveraged existing adaptive capabilities and enablers in theface of crisis, while the other was unable to overcome its
constraints and inhibitors in a meaningful way.

LWOL: ADAPTIVE CAPABILITIESAND ENABLERS
DONOR FLEXIBILITY AND TRUST IN THE
PROJECT IMPLEMENTER
The IRC and the donor that funded LWOL had a collaborativeand supportive relationship, sustained by regular informal
communication between the project manager, education
coordinator, and donor. The donor was supportive in connecting
the project team with leading thinkers in education anddevelopment, and also recognized that project staff were theexperts in what works on the ground. The donor encouraged
an iterative project design that piloted innovative approaches,
scaling up the successful ones and dropping the others.
For example, the initial design of LWOL included adult literacy
classes, based on the assumption that improving adultliteracy would enable parents to better support children’s
reading and writing. However, it was found that adult literacy
classes were not having the expected impact on children’s
reading outcomes. The LWOL team decided to scale down
adult literacy classes and instead invested in piloting otherapproaches, such as Teacher Learning Circles. The donor
supported such shifts, though they demanded rigor injustifying decisions to change directions.
The relationship established prior to Ebola supported
increased adaptability once the outbreak began. The donor
quickly contacted the IRC to check on the safety of staff andoffer support in approving any project alterations needed. The
donor also provided bridge funding during the suspensionof normal activities from July to September 2014, allowing

2

the IRC to scope out new activities, engage in community
sensitization around education needs, and second LWOL
staff to the Ebola response. This enabled the team to start
appropriate education activities in October.
As schools prepared to re-open, communities expressed
concern over the furniture broken and buildings damaged by
the military use of schools during the outbreak. The LWOL
donor allowed funds to be redirected for school maintenanceand refurbishment, despite not normally supporting
infrastructure. Throughout the project’s adaptations, the lackof intermediaries between the IRC country program and thedonor allowed budget re-alignment and grant re-approvals tomove quickly.

DEVOLVED DECISION MAKING ANDEMPOWERED FIELD STAFF
Change within LWOL often came from field staff suggesting
different ways of working. The iterative project approachand management’s efforts to empower and mentor staff
have created an environment where field staff have greatownership of the project. Field teams critically appraise theproject’s progress toward goals, identify problems, and craft
solutions in consultation with community stakeholders.
This often occurs through a series of weekly and monthly
reflection meetings, established by the field-based project
manager as a way to encourage staff to discuss successes,
challenges, and ways to mitigate problems.
This reflection and empowerment is complemented by a shortand direct decision-making chain: the project manager, in
consultation with the senior education manager and education
coordinator, has the authority to make decisions about projectchanges and can discuss issues directly with the donor.
Field staff’s observations laid the groundwork for the LWOL
project’s new approach in response to Ebola. The team
noticed that unsalaried community teachers (who constitutethe majority of teachers in rural areas) were moving away, as
the school closures meant they no longer received financial
support from the community. At the suggestion of LWOL
field staff, the IRC continued to work with the teachers andpaid them stipends to support small group learning activities.
This approach provided education activities during the school
closures, while the stipend ensured that teachers would still bepresent in rural communities when schools re-opened.
Similarly, based on observations from field staff that families
could no longer afford learning materials as the economy
shut down, the project started providing pencils, paper, andbooks to small learning groups.

Everything starts from us, from the field. If we see
something challenging, we know we have to find adifferent way of working. So we as field staff givesuggestions to the manager.”
Teacher Training Officer

ADAPT Case Study – Pivoting approaches in the face of a crisis in Sierra Leone: Comparative case

TEAM CULTURE AND FLEXIBILITY
Across the IRC in Sierra Leone, the team’s willingness
to change roles and responsibilities was a key adaptive
capability in the agency’s Ebola response. Though all staff
were given the option to take extended leave in the face of theoutbreak, none took this up. Instead, the vast majority offered
to change roles to support the response, including 13 national
education staff (about half from the LWOL project) who
moved to Bo district to support surveillance activities. At theleadership level, the expatriate education coordinator became
the Ebola response coordinator.
Staff motivation was supported by the senior management
team who consistently highlighted the importance of the
IRC staying for the emergency, and put in place trainings andtransmission prevention measures that helped staff feel safe.

Photo: Rachel Unkovic/IRC

LWOL staff seemed to emerge as natural leaders within thiscontext. As they were seconded to surveillance activities,
they drew on their previous experiences with exchange
visits (where they had spent time shadowing counterparts
in different chiefdoms to encourage learning among staff)
and cross-project collaboration (where they had supported
the design and inception of other projects). LWOL staff wereretained in surveillance roles the longest, at the request of
the District Ebola Response Centre and the District HealthManagement Team.

An IRC contact tracing supervisor, Hawa (seconded
from her role as an Education Officer), gets ready tovisit communities in Bo district.

GEC: INHIBITORS ON ADAPTIVEMANAGEMENTCONSORTIUM CHALLENGES
Frustrations with the GEC consortium pre-dated the Ebola
crisis, largely due to the number of links in the complicateddecision-making chain, the lack of timely and transparent
communication, and barriers to collective decision making.
The consortium had a Lead agency, with four main
implementing partners responsible for interdependent
activities across the districts. The implementing partners(including the IRC) had a limited relationship with the fundmanagers and no relationship at all with DFID. Information

3

had to travel from the IRC to the Consortium lead in Sierra
Leone to the Consortium lead in the UK to fund manager andthen to DFID, and then back down the chain. The processcaused significant confusion and delays.
When the Ebola outbreak began, those barriers to timely
adaptation were compounded by risk aversion on the part ofother consortium partners. Rather than developing Ebolarelated initiatives to propose to the Fund Manager for funding,the consortium coordination unit instead put the GEC projecton standby. The eventual decision to modify the project for
Ebola response took many months, delayed by the extended
decision-making chain and poor communication in theapproval of adaptations.

DONOR RIGIDITY, DISCONNECT, AND DELAYS
Even without the consortium challenges, the GEC project
design and donor arrangements were inherently nonadaptive. The IRC was required to create a rigid annual
work plan, with little flexibility on a monthly or quarterly
basis. The project was initially structured as Payment
by Results, and then changed to Payment by Activity
Milestones, whereby the IRC received funds based on hitting
the predetermined targets. The team was left with limited
space to explore whether the design assumptions werecorrect. Even if evidence emerged that activities were nothaving their intended impact, the length of time needed tosecure approval for changes to milestones created a strong
disincentive to attempting to adapt.

Payment by activity milestones created an
incentive to keep doing activities even if they were
not working well. We’ve had to rush activities due
to fear that IRC would not be paid. Our focus ends
up being on reaching milestones, not on quality
education.”
Education Manager

As the consortium attempted to modify the GEC projectin response to Ebola, engaging with GEC’s fund manager
became a problem. The Fund Manager showed nounderstanding of the rapid changes or limited predictability
inherent to emergency work. Instead, they approached theprocess of adapting the GEC project from the perspectiveof auditors, requiring a full proposal, logical framework(log-frame), milestones, and budget to be developed in aprocess taking two months to complete. This was followedby extended back-and-forth, rather than the support for rapid
decisions needed in an emergency context. During thoseexchanges, implementing partners were expected to respondto requests for information immediately, yet had to wait
months for communication in return.
Following the suspension of the GEC project in July 2014,
the consortium managed to submit a full proposal forADAPT Case Study – Pivoting approaches in the face of a crisis in Sierra Leone: Comparative casethe “Education in Ebola” project in November 2014. It wasapproved four months later, in March 2015. The radios
needed for the new project design arrived the following July,by which time their relevance was greatly reduced as schools
were open again. On the contracting side, the IRC operated
on email approval of the project changes until the signing of arevised agreement in December 2015.

The Fund Manager take so long to approve things
that proposed activities become obsolete before
they are approved.”
Senior Education Manager

Everything came to a standstill. The project
became its name itself – a challenge.”
Education Officer

4

KEY REFLECTIONS
Staff flexibility and leadership decisions enabled adaptations
across the IRC’s programs in the face of Ebola. However, thestructure of relationships surrounding each project shaped
the extent to which it adapted during the crisis. The GEC
project struggled against a complicated consortium and rigid
donor requirements. The inability to adapt the project caused
damage beyond the missed opportunities: GEC-targetedcommunities felt they had been abandoned, and the resulting
anger has created problems as the team tries to implement
the extension to the GEC project.
Meanwhile, the LWOL project’s adaptations were enabled bya flexible donor and trusting relationships, which supported
internal capabilities like devolved decision making andempowered field staff. The donor made it safe to fail so thatthe team could try different approaches, reflect, and quickly getto the core of what works in that particular context. Though
LWOL itself was a relatively small project, it directly inspired theapproximately $23 million DFID-funded “Improving School in
Sierra Leone” program that supports 450 schools across eight
districts. This demonstrates the value of small but adaptive
projects that can inform future delivery at scale.
The contrast between these two cases reveals the extent
to which adaptive capabilities and enablers developed during
periods of stability can have major impacts during periodsof crisis.

Photo: Erika Perez-Leon/IRC

Students take part in small learning groups in January 2015.

To improve the adaptability of development andhumanitarian work, the nature of communication
with donors needs to change. We need to be able
to communicate the situation in communities
and for donors to accept this. Even with a good
assessment you cannot know everything, so you
find things out during implementation and need toadapt to issues that arise.”
LWOL Project Manager

Written in April 2016 based on interviews
conducted in December 2015.

ANNEX: RELATED WORK
A number of related research efforts have informed the ADAPT partnership’s approach.
For a non-exhaustive sample of recent relevant work, please see the following:Allana, Amir. “Navigating Complexity: Adaptive Management at the Northern Karamoja Growth, Health, and Governance Program.” October 2014.
https://www.mercycorps.org.uk/research-resources/navigating-complexity-adaptive-management-northern-karamoja-growth-healthAndrews, Matt; Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock. “Escaping Capability Traps through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA).” June 2012.
http://www.cgdev.org/publication/escaping-capability-traps-through-problem-driven-iterative-adaptation-pdia-working-paper

BEAM Exchange. “Snapshots: market systems approaches in action.” https://beamexchange.org/practice/snapshots/
Gonzalez Asis, Maria; Michael Woolcock “Operationalizing the Science of Delivery Agenda to Enhance Development Results.” 2015.
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/23226

Kleiman, Shanit. “Lessons for Effective Resilience Programs.” August 2013.

https://www.mercycorps.org.uk/research-resources/lessons-effective-resilience-programs

Kleinfeld, Rachel. “Improving Development Aid Design and Evaluation.” 2015. http://carnegieendowment.org/files/devt_design_implementation.pdf
Mercy Corps. “Managing Complexity: Adaptive Management at Mercy Corps.” 2015.

https://www.mercycorps.org/research-resources/managing-complexity-adaptive-management-mercy-corpsØrnemark, Charlotte. “‘Learning Journeys’ for adaptive management—Where does it take us?” February 2016.
http://gpsaknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/NOTE_march.pdf

Ramalingam, Ben. “Learning to Adapt: Building adaptive management as a core competency in development practice.” 2016.
https://www.globalinnovationexchange.org/learning-adapt

Root, Hilton; Harry Jones and Leni Wild. “Managing complexity and uncertainty in development policy and practice.” March 2015.
https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/events-documents/5191.pdf

Valters, Craig; Clare Cummings and Hamish Nixon. “Putting Learning at the Centre: Adaptive development programming in practice.” March 2016
https://www.odi.org/publications/10367-putting-learning-centre-adaptive-development-programming-practiceWild, Leni; David Booth, Clare Cummings, Marta Foresti, and Joseph Wales. “Adapting development: improving services to the poor.” February 2015.

CONTACTS
Jonathan Beloe

jonathan.beloe@rescue.org

Alison Hemberger

ahemberger@mercycorps.org

Emma Proudeproud@hq.mercycorps.org

Photo: Sean Sheridan/Mercy Corps

https://www.odi.org/publications/8125-adapting-development-service-delivery-sdgs