Presentation by Mike Powell, Director, IKM Emergent Programme - Washington, DC, 6th May 2011

1. Management Knowledges Development

7. The most significant benefits from innovative interdisciplinary initiatives are likely: • To be different from those that were expected. • Not to be expressible in terms of the discipline that originated the initiative. • To involve new questions, or reformulation of objectives. • To be in the form of capacity to respond to future events, not past ones. • To arise after a long time – perhaps long after the initiative has formally ended. These kinds of benefit are not easy to manage. (Blackwell et al 2010)

8. 'Developing countries are therefore modernising, but in their own ways. Development proceeds through unexpected combinations of order and chaos, based on sediments of precolonial and colonial relations mixed with modern technologies, institutions and ambitions, with all this taking shape in an increasingly interdependent world' van Lieshout p 86

9. Assessment Why? - For accountability - To support management responsiveness - For broader learning Meeting the plan is a very tepid indicator of success Inherent problems - Causality - Overlapping interests - Time

10. Assessment 2 Whatever methodology is fit for purpose - Measurement - Audit - Evaluative practice - Collective enquiry All as a contribution to further reflection rather than as definitive fact

11. Conclusions Definitely a challenge Requires a transformation of the organisations on which we rely for funding and/or employment A question of science A question of professionalism

12. 'professionalization means having enough room to manoeuvre to be able to respond to the changing situation in the countries themselves, to experiment, to be part of a learning system, and to render account for the main framework of their interventions, rather than the details' van Lieshout P 202

13. Development Assessment Management Knowledges

14. Bibliography Alan Blackwell, Lee Wilson, Charles Boulton and John Knell 'Creating value across boundaries: Maximising the return from interdisciplinary innovation' NESTA, 2010 Hearn S., le Borgne E. & Brown V, ' Monitoring and evaluating development as a knowledge industry' IKM Working Paper no 12, 2011 Le Borgne E., Brown V. and Hearn S., 'Monitoring and evaluating development as a knowledge ecology' IKM Working Paper no 13, 2011 van Lieshout P., Went r. and Kremer M. ' Less Pretension, More Ambition' WRR/ Amsterdam University Press 2010