The programme adopted many of the approaches to development currently advocated under the banner of ‘doing development differently’ and adopted a highly adaptive implementation style. The programme took an issue-based approach, meaning that it worked across many diverse sectors, with workstreams ranging from menstrual health management to water to solid waste management, placing specific emphasis on issues of gender equality and social inclusion (GESI). The objectives of our work were to:

1. build and share a better understanding of how change happens
2. understand if and how flexible and adaptive programming approaches work, and
3. advise on the strategic programme direction.

As I4ID came to an end, our final phase of work focused on capturing and sharing lessons from this highly adaptive programme. These lessons were primarily targeted at donors, as well as practitioners implementing similar approaches in other programmes. Our team facilitated a series of discovery and action dialogues with representatives from FCDO, Irish Aid and I4ID and produced a series of learning briefs and tools to be shared within the donor organisations and with wider audiences interested in I4ID’s approach to programming. These covered four areas of interest:

• Rapid experimentation and purposive muddling
• The meaningful application of political economy analysis
• Promoting and protecting GESI objectives in adaptive programmes
• What works in terms of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) for adaptive programming.