Adaptive programming in practice

The international development community has acknowledged the usefulness of adaptive management in navigating the uncertainty inherent in complex problems such as poverty and inequality. This is particularly true in market systems development programmes employing facilitative and light-touch approaches to change systems.

Given that market forces, behaviours, and social and political norms are dynamic and often invisible, it is challenging to design interventions that influence them successfully and predictably. Doing so requires continual intelligence gathering, assessment of whether interventions are having the desired effect, and changing work plans and strategies accordingly.

This document provides guidance and case examples on taking a purposeful, hypothesis-based approach to managing intervention strategies within a development programme. It is based on the experience of market systems development practitioners that are adapting the scientific method and the 'lean start-up' methodology of business model testing to improve the effectiveness of development programming.