Featured image for “‘Think Chess not Checkers’: Wilf Mwamba on the role of Analysis in effective Influencing”

‘Think Chess not Checkers’: Wilf Mwamba on the role of Analysis in effective Influencing

October 18, 2022
For our Global Executive Leadership Initiative training on influencing, I interviewed Wilf Mwamba, a long term FCDO/DFID practitioner-thinker on TWP, now working in the private sector. With GELI’s permission, I’m reposting here, along with an abbreviated transcript. The podcast is 25 minutes – well worth it, IMO. WM: I work for DAI Global, a US international consultancy firm. I’m leading a
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Localisation: an opportunity for thinking and working politically to deliver?

April 13, 2022
Lisa Denney tries to restore a little cautious optimism to last week’s Eeyore-ish takes (by me and The Asia Foundation) on the nature and impact of TWP Is thinking and working politically (TWP) on life support? Duncan suggested as much in a recent post.  But a webinar on localisation convened by the TWP Community of Practice offers an alternative, in
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Second (and Third) Thoughts on Adaptive Management and Thinking and Working Politically

April 6, 2022
Going into self-doubt mode for the rest of this week, on the feasibility and impact of the ‘second orthodoxy’. Students can be great at pointing out the contradictions in your thinking and this year’s LSE cohort seem particularly good at it. A recent set of student-led seminars focussed on Adaptive Management and Thinking and Working Politically (AM/TWP) and connected a
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Rules of Thumb – good idea or double-edged sword?

October 1, 2020
Spent a fun couple of hours last week helping the Centre for Good Governance (CGG) in Myanmar identify its ‘rules of thumb’ (RoTs) – the default questions and instincts that govern an organization’s daily decision-making, rather than the long-winded strategy documents that no-one reads. One of the national staff nailed the difference ‘The theory of change comes later than the
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What do we learn from using Political Economy Analysis in 13 national health and education programmes?

September 29, 2020
If you’re interested in Thinking and Working Politically, or the use of Political Economy Analysis (PEA) in aid and development, then do please follow the Governance and Development Soapbox, run by the team at Abt. I’ve re-posted quite a few of its blogposts, by Graham Teskey, Lavinia Tyrrel and others, but it also has some excellent working papers and briefing
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Book Review: ‘Thinking and Working Politically in Development’

September 4, 2020
‘Thinking and Working Politically in Development’, by John Sidel and Jaime Faustino, is a new book on one of my favourite ‘Thinking and Working Politically’ programmes – Coalitions for Change (CfC) in the Philippines. It’s not the most user-friendly (no exec sum, no index), but at least it’s open access – download here. I’ve written about CfC on the blog
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How does Coalitions for Change in the Philippines Compare with other Adaptive Management Programmes?

September 11, 2019
Following on yesterday’s podcast + transcript about the work of the Coalitions for Change (CfC) programme in the Philippines, I thought I’d compare it to the 3 Adaptive Management programmes I’ve also been studying in Tanzania, Nigeria and Myanmar. Let’s take context first, and then think about the nuts and bolts of the different programmes. 2 issues on Context: MICs
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Podcast: Thinking and Working Politically in a Pioneering Programme in the Philippines

September 10, 2019
Earlier this year I spent a fascinating week in the Philippines with the Coalitions for Change programme, one of the pioneers of ‘Thinking and Working Politically’ in the aid sector. CfC is run by The Asia Foundation and funded by the Australian Government. It ‘focuses on key policy reforms to improve lives of Filipinos and promote their economic well-being.’ I
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What have we learned from a close look at 3 DFID Adaptive Management programmes?

July 4, 2019
Adaptive Management week part 3 (with some trepidation given the recent comments from Heather Marquette et al about the proliferation of flakey case studies in lieu of evidence)…. My paper with Angela Christie summarizing our 3 case studies of big DFID-funded Adaptive Management projects in Myanmar, Tanzania and Nigeria is now online. Every word in its 26 pages is golden,
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What we’re missing by not getting our TWP alphabet straight

July 3, 2019
TWP guru Heather Marquette does everyone a great service by explaining the important differences between all the acronyms. I am struck by how often people say ‘TWP/PDIA/adaptive management/PEA…whatever’. Kind of like when my great-aunt calls me by various relatives’ names first before getting mine right – ‘Sheila… Mary…Lily…Heather!’ – these things may share a common genesis, and there are threads that
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What does the evidence tell us about ‘thinking and working politically’ in development assistance?

July 2, 2019
We’re having an ‘Adaptive Management week’ on FP2P, because so much good material has been coming through recently. First up is a new paper by Niheer Dasandi, Edward Laws, Heather Marquette, and Mark Robinson that I read on the way to the TWP conference in Washington that I wrote about recently. It really got me thinking. The paper is pretty damning:
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Take-up and Doubt: where have we got to on Thinking and Working Politically?

June 21, 2019
Spent a day this week at a Washington workshop on ‘From Thinking Politically to Working Politically’, organized by Abt Associates, whose Graham Teskey is one of the TWP gurus. What struck me most was the combination of the spreading acceptance of TWP approaches within the aid sector, and serious questions being asked about important aspects of the whole enterprise by
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