How International Non-Government Organisations Are Doing Development Differently

Created in October 2014, the Doing Development Differently (DDD) manifesto is a synthesis of principles that can help those involved in aid and development to have greater impact. It emphasises the need for problems to be locally defined and solutions to be locally owned, and the need for development actors to be more agile and responsive. This discussion paper summarises what 5 international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) - CARE International, International Rescue Committee (IRC), Mercy Corps, Oxfam, and World Vision International - have learned over recent years through trying to put the DDD principles into practice. It draws on case studies and reviews to show the contributions INGOs can bring to the global DDD movement.

INGOs' contributions to the conversation can be said to fall into 3 major themes; examples of each, drawn from the experiences of the five INGOs, are provided:

1. Localising power and ownership in DDD practice - As noted in the DDD manifesto, differential power makes development more complex, and a lack of ownership threatens success. Compared to donor or research organisations, INGOs are more closely connected to the most disempowered and marginalised communities. Their staff often come from those communities themselves, are embedded within those communities for their programmes, or work in daily partnership with community-based organisations (CBOs). Deep and ongoing engagement is required; this usually starts with convening and facilitating conversations, exchanging knowledge, and building relationships and trust. These conversations benefit from research and analysis that are themselves owned by the community. INGOs have found that power shifts are needed across multiple dimensions and at all levels - much the way that the DDD manifesto points to a need to legitimise development initiatives at all levels.
   • Example: Oxfam's Raising Her Voice programme in Nepal convened "community discussion classes" with facilitators recruited from the communities. The classes provided spaces for women to improve literacy, share experiences, and build communication and leadership skills. Breaking down women's isolation enabled them to better address domestic violence and gender roles in their homes. At the community level, these spaces led to action plans for tackling various problems, and the programme led to a measurable increase in women taking on leadership roles in other local groups.
2. Funding and accountability for adaptation - INGOs sit at the centre of the rapid cycles of blended design and implementation that characterise DDD practice. They are learning to navigate the constraints set by funding and compliance, while also defining forms of partnerships that actively encourage adaptation. Flexible funding, in one form or another, is needed for DDD, and the way partners collaborate matters greatly in DDD approaches. Partnerships characterised by open communication and sharing can actively encourage reflection, learning, and risk-taking.
   • Example: As part of Mercy Corps' South and Central Syria programme, in-country programme partners, ranging from established local NGOs to more informal networks, propose projects based on the needs they saw on the ground. The Mercy Corps team works with them to craft context-appropriate compliance measures, so that they could access aid funding from major donors, and would also provide ongoing coaching to improve documentation over time. In addition, Mercy Corps built a context analysis team - leveraging informant networks within Syria, social media reports, and observations from partners - to identify both risks and opportunities for partners' activities.
3. Institutionalising DDD across large agencies - Each organisation interprets the DDD principles in terms of their specific mission, contexts, and approaches, increasing the likelihood of the practices taking root across their broad portfolios. INGOs have used adaptive management to enable blended design and implementation through cycles of planning, acting, learning, and revising - enacting one of the core DDD principles. Some INGOs have found that the analysis and learning practices of adaptive management are amenable to the DDD priorities of local ownership. For internal knowledge management and learning, INGOs utilise everything from communities of practice to staff secondments to internal blogs. These mechanisms have helped them to gather and then share learning around DDD principles and practices. In order to institutionalise the practices of adaptive management and spread the learning drawn from pursuing DDD in multiple contexts and sectors, INGOs have pursued various initiatives that amount to organisational change processes, even when they are not formalised as such. These occur at 3 levels: individual, organisational, and governance.
   • Example: Over two dozen major INGOs have signed on to the Accountable Now commitments, agreeing to follow and report annually on 12 areas related to transparency and accountability, including justice and equality, women's rights and gender equality, people-drive work, strong partnerships, open organisations, and more.

The report concludes by indicating that the 5 INGOs that contributed to this document plan to continue the conversation around the overarching question: How can voices from INGOs contribute more to DDD conversations? Specific questions are raised under each of the 3 themes; for instance, one question that can be asked under the theme of institutionalising DDD across large agencies is: How can voices and perspectives from the global south be valued in these shifts?