ICCO Programmatic Approach

Over the past three months I have been busy with an evaluative study for ICCO about their so-called Programmatic Approach. This approach has been introduced in ICCO since 2007 and radically changed their way of development programming. As one of the key Dutch development agencies, ICCO has worked through local partners in developing countries for decades. However, this was mainly through projects or institutional funding. In the Programmatic Approach ICCO has started to look at development challenges in a more holistic way, and tries to deal with complex issues in development through local coalitions of partners. These programme coalitions go through a process of programme development in which they define common goals, both at the level of interventions, but also at the level of joint learning, capacity building or lobby and advocacy.

Below is an interview with me from the http://blip.tv/search?q=icco website.


Together with consultant Erica Wortel I did an evaluative study of the Programmatic Approach of ICCO, in which we consolidated the experiences with the approach. In October and November we studies a lot of literature on the approach, interviewed staff, management and partners and conducted a survey.

The study showed that a lot of progress has been made by ICCO in developing the Programmatic Approach. The approach is well appreciated by both staff and partners. Obviously, introducing a new approach has not been easy, in particular because ICCO has also gone through other important changes over the same period. On 15 December we presented our findings and conclusions to ICCO in Utrecht, which was well received.

More information about the ICCO Programmatic Approach can be found on https://proglearning.pbworks.com/ and http://www.icco.nl/delivery/westafrica/doc.phtml?p=programmatic-approach .

Change Alliance Launch

From 2-3 December 2009, over 60 development professionals, academics and development activist from all over the world gathered in Wageningen, the Netherlands, to launch The Change Alliance.



The Change Alliance is an emerging global network of organisations joining forces to increase the effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder processes with which they engage. Its aim is to help improve the quality of the design, dialogue, learning, and facilitation, on which these processes depend. The logic of the Alliance is that complex problems demand a new dynamic of how governments, citizens, business and civil society organisations work together. The Alliance functions by linking specific multi-stakeholder 'learning sites' with a global learning and knowledge sharing platform.

At Wageningen UR - CDI we have been at the foundation of the Change Alliance, together with the Generative Change Community, ICCO, SNV and IDS. Over the past two years we have invested a lot of time and energy to get the initiative off the ground. The Launch Event was the first reality check to see if there is enough interest to get the initiative going. Below an interview of Hettie Walters, chair of the Change Alliance foundation group about the importance of the Alliance.



The Launch event was very inspirational and has given the Alliance a real boost. We are looking forward to seeing concrete actions from people and organisations to share and learn about multi-actor engagement. More information about the change alliance, where you can also find out how to join the initiative: www.changealliance.org . More information about the Launch Event with more videos, pictures, background documents and reports can be found here.