KNO Partners Steven Kelly and Mari Novak are active in the Development Studies Association Ireland (DSAI).
The mission of DSA Ireland is to provide a national platform, which provides an open and participatory space for dialogue between researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, who have an interest in, or are working in the area of international development. We will achieve this by:
- supporting cohesion and capacity-building in the development studies sector;
- promoting strategic alliances and partnerships to grow the development studies sector;
- harnessing research which supports and promotes coherent evidence- based development policy and practice aimed at the reduction of global poverty, the enhancement of all forms of equality and respect for human rights.
Currently, Steven is participating in the Adaptive Programming Study Group.
Adaptive programming is a different way of doing development. It responds to the recognition that in complex contexts, often affected by violence and/ or volatile and unstable conditions, change is not necessarily linear and cannot be predicted. The traditional approach to donor-funded development, promoted by results-
based management (RBM) and the log frame approach, is often fairly fixed by deliverables and timetables. Thus, it is not able to respond quickly and effectively to challenges and opportunities that emerge out of a constantly changing context.
Adaptive programming also responds to the fact that in many projects, the theory of change is not well established, and learning and evidence is not done in a timely manner to inform programme implementation. It shifts the emphasis away from “doing what we said we would do” to “doing what seems to be working”.
A more complete exploration of Adaptive Programming is linked here.
